At the end of each project, an activity known as a Punch-List must be deployed to ensure that all the clients requirements have been met. It's important to know that this activity occurs near the end of the project, sometimes referred to as substantial completion, or practical completion. At the end of each project, an activity known as a punch list must be deployed to ensure that all the client's requirements have been met. It is important to note that this activity occurs near the end of the project, sometimes referred to as substantial completion or practical completion. Open items will include quality of workmanship, contractual obligations, as well as general project errors and omissions. It is paramount to have all key players involved with this activity, and start early. So who is involved? Key players include your architects, your engineers, your general contractors, their subcontractors or sub-consultants. And most importantly the client. Furthermore it is important to note that a provision for both punch list and closing activities should be a requirement in all your contracts with the consultants. Why is this important? A variety of benefits can come from setting expectations early. It ensures that all parties involved in your project have the obligation to perform final punch list and close activities. It sets the expectation that all parties, those being designers and constructors, will not receive final payment until these obligations have been met. Finally, it minimizes the risks in terms that the project will be delivered having met the client's expectations. Everyone on the project team has an important role, and therefore, has an obligation to the client to ensure that all the requirements are met. This encompasses verification of all workmanship is of the highest quality and that the work is free of errors and omissions and the project is brought in both on schedule, and most importantly, under budget. We would like to welcome you to the Punch-List and closer activities through an example. So you have recently completed a 14 month project at One World Trade Center. The client is a global investment firm operating in 68 countries with over 300 offices and 45,000 personal world wide. The purpose of the project is to expand their current real estate in New York City, the current location of their corporate headquarters. The client has noted that the rationale behind expanding their real estate was due to the fact that their growth projections have currently exceeded their current portfolio, and they must complete the project on an accelerated schedule. The project scope includes 10 floors, 650,000 square feet, and a budget of $750 million. This encompasses seating for 3,200 employees, will include a full kitchen and satellite pantry area, conference rooms, break out areas, training facilities and a redundant infrastructure package. Independent of the base of building with regards to electricity, plumbing and HVAC. To being with closeout activities, we avast each of the consultants to prepare a list of open items they have made during the routine field observations for weekly walk troughs as well as required of them in their base contracts with their client. For the purposes of our example, these are the following players found in this project. The client, their names redacted for their protection. The project manager and cost manager team, would be compromised of Turner and Townsend. The architect is Gensler, the engineer of record is Syska Hennessy Group, the general contractor is Turner construction, and the commissioning authority is WB Engineering. So shown here is a real-life example of a deficiency or punch list provided by the commissioning authority WB Engineering. As you can see, this is a small snapshot of a menagerie of items that the contractor will need to address prior to final turnover and close out of the project. As an example, item number 17, cracked cabinet is not flush with raised floor. For those of you that are unfamiliar with a crac, it stands for a computer room air conditioner, to give you some context. This is important for a number of different reasons, the primary being that debris and other materials that may fall underneath the unit will be exposed and this will need to be rectified in order to maintain cleanliness of the space as well to ensure proper functionality of the unit. Our role as the project manager will be to compile all of the individual consultants punch list items and organize them in a manner that can be ticked or punched off the list as they are completed. This is best managed through weekly coordination meetings. Followed by project walk-throughs to ensure that all of the items are closed and resolved prior to final client turnover. It is highly advisable that all parties involved are in attendance at these meetings. This would included the architect, the engineer, the general contractor, including both their project manager and the field superintendent, the commissioning authority, and a member of the client team. Once all punch list activities are complete and have been approved by the client, the final Punch-List review will be handed over to the cost manager for final commercial closeout.
