b'R AB E HT G N I S I A RChapter 12Onwards and upwardsCOVID times of the next two years, says Wayne Carson. the use of detailed price schedules with split But he recognises the privileged position material and labour rates for each item.The COVID curveball landed on D&H is in with its early involvement in severalThis provides full transparency on real cost our shores in 2020. For D&H Steel, significant projectsDunedin Hospital is and the schedule becomes a powerful tool to the pandemics disruptive effects haveone of those.manage changes in cost as design develops.been felt on two fronts: one is theThis new pricing approach was conceived PRICING EVOLUTION in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes. influence on material procurement, andThe boom in construction is being fettered byThe rebuild drove D&H into a new commercial two is the reminder that D&Hs businessCOVID-induced supply limitations. Together,era where it had to provide quick and robust is all about people. The companysthey are playing havoc with the wider industrysbudgets that allowed cost certainty to evolve challenge has been to manage itsability to meet delivery requirements and holdalongside the design process. significant commitments against aprices. These supply issues dont discriminatePeople didnt have time to wait for a disrupted workforce. irrespective of the product or scale of thebuilding to be designed before getting a price, business, most construction industry suppliersgoing to tender and starting. It had to happen D&Hs current workload is the biggestare being impacted. The structural steelin parallel with the design, explains Wayne. the company has ever experiencedforwardindustry is no exception. Beginning in 2021,Under Waynes guidance, D&H developed commitment on projects is further ahead andseveral external factors have conspired tofully transparent tools that enabled it to of much greater value than any time before.drive up the cost of steel, including the effectscreate robust budgets in real time as design The Governments aim to fire up the industryof world commodity supply and demand, theinformation became available. in response to COVID by spending on publicinfluence of domestic markets in China and theThey are the same tools that D&H uses projects is driving the historic demand.USA, and escalating shipping rates. now as part of its ESI approach. It offers It would be nice to be able to smoothD&H chose to tackle the issue head on. clients certainty on price while providing a construction activity over five years instead For some time, the company has promotedmechanism to engage D&H early. It used141'