PRECAST CONCRETE · CONCRETE AND MASONRY · FIXED BY STEP 06

Three more trips to that job after the crane goes home

You go back for welding and drypack, then caulk a season later, then patch at punch, and the GC picks the week for every one of them.

WHY IT'S A PRECAST CONCRETE PROBLEM

Most subcontractors demobilize once and their cost curve ends there. A precaster's scope splits across four visits separated by months, and the last three absorb full mobilization cost against line items that were bid as small change. That inversion is why the caulk trip loses money on nearly every job, and why it goes uncaught: the cost is incurred long after anyone was still watching that job.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

You pay for three return mobilizations at $2k to $6k each in crew, access equipment, and travel, all of them after 96% of the contract has been billed. The scope line they're charged to was bid at a few thousand dollars.

OVERHEAD AT $1M to $5M

15%

CFOS target 14% for precast concrete.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M to $5M

22%

CFOS target 24.5% for precast concrete.

NET PROFIT AT $1M to $5M

CFOS target 10.5% for precast concrete.

Erection is one trip of four, and the last two are the ones that reduce the margin on the job. When the final piece is set the crane leaves, and the scope continues. The welded connections and drypack grout go in once alignment is confirmed. Joint sealant can't go in until the structure is loaded and movement has stopped, which is often a season later, and patching of chips, bug holes, and lift insert recesses waits for punch. Each return needs access, a boom lift, a swing stage, or a mast climber, and each one is a separate crew mobilization with travel on top. Caulk and patch together are 2% to 4% of contract value, and they're the items the GC ties substantial completion and retention release to. Those trips get called at the GC's convenience, which means they fall in whatever week is worst for you.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Price each return as its own SOV line for welding and drypack, for caulking, and for patching, with a mobilization amount inside each one.

STEP 02

Put a notice requirement in the subcontract: ten working days written notice for a return trip, and a re-mobilization charge if the site isn't ready when your crew gets there.

STEP 03

Keep the job open in job cost until the patch trip closes, and hold a piece of the field budget against it so the final cost report holds no surprises.

THE FIX

Step 06: Project management

Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone following up on them.

CFOS-06 · CHAPTER 6

Billing and change orders that hold without follow up

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Precast concrete by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

The change orders you did and never billed

The field did the work. The paperwork never caught up. Ninety days later there is no record that proves it happened.

SAME TRADE

What else costs precast concrete contractors money

PRECAST CONCRETE · CFOS-02

Your mold is a one-job asset you pay for up front

Sixty grand of steel forms is parked in the yard for a job that hasn't billed a dollar, and the piece count just got value engineered down after award.

PRECAST CONCRETE · CFOS-06

The casting bed is empty while the architect reviews

Drawings have been on somebody else's desk for five weeks. Your bed is reserved for that job, and it's casting nothing all week.

PRECAST CONCRETE · CFOS-01

A yard full of panels the contract won't let you bill

Four hundred thousand dollars of panels are laying on dunnage, cast, cured, and piece marked, and none of it is billable this month.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Four mobilizations, one mob line item

You clear and grub in month one, come back for wet utilities, come back again for paving subgrade at closeout, and the contract still has one mobilization line.

CONCRETE

Six Trips Back for Pads and Sidewalks, One Unit Price

You were first on the site and you're still coming back for stairs, pads, curbs, and exterior flatwork, all priced inside a per-yard number that assumed you never left.

DRYWALL

You Go Back Six Times And No Ticket Gets Signed

You finished the corridor in March and you're still sending a guy back in June, one hole at a time, on somebody else's dime.

QUESTIONS

What precast concrete owners ask

Precast caulking and patching return trips cost more than they pay?

You go back for welding and drypack, then caulk a season later, then patch at punch, and the GC picks the week for every one of them.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Price each return as its own SOV line for welding and drypack, for caulking, and for patching, with a mobilization amount inside each one.

What are precast concrete contractors supposed to be making?

Precast concrete has 22% gross margin, 15% overhead and 7% net profit after taxes at $1M to $5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is right on it. The CFOS target is 10.5%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 06, project management. Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone following up on them. It comes from chapter 6 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, and CONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for precast concrete contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, led by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for precast concrete contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.