Peak Construction
 
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Houston, We Have a Problem!

The construction business, in many cases, can seem like an unpredictable process.  Facility and site construction are quite different from commodities such as cars or computers.  Projects are completed in uncontrolled environments and require continual field modifications to adapt to unique conflicts, changes in required performance criteria and unforeseen concealed conditions.  We are not interacting with a predicable set of variables in a controlled manufacturing space.

An often overlooked enemy is time.  Problems and challenges that go unaddressed frequently require time to resolve and to modify direction.  The key fundamental catalyst that can minimize the impact of a project challenge or, even better, take advantage of a challenge to add value and to improve the project, is TRUST.

Trust within the Peak Team…

Trust between Developer and Peak…

Trust between Owner/Tenant and Peak…

Trust between Peak and Design Professionals…

Trust between Project Team and Municipality…

A recent design-build three-story office competition in Lenexa, Kansas for PRA provided a trust success story where Peak investigated and proposed a unique exterior structural precast and steel solution, as well as exterior building orientation, for increased efficiency.  Peak was challenged with a short time period before winter, existing rock subgrade geology, and the requirement to provide a more desirable lease proposal than competitors.  To overcome these challenges, Peak engaged a professional team to apply unique building precast materials and corresponding characteristics to a design oriented on the sloped site, minimizing structural implications resulting from the subgrade rock conditions.  This also allowed the building to be fully enclosed prior to winter, permitting interior work to be completed.  The Peak solution saved close to one million dollars of initial construction costs.  This  resulted in a lower initial lease rate for the tenant, a delivery schedule that finished two months earlier than other conventional options, saving an additional five hundred thousand dollars, and a unique structural solution model now being regularly proposed by competitors on new opportunities.

At Peak, we have fostered a culture of Matrix Management that encourages cross-functional review of project processes that help identify potential project challenges and provide a forum of trust.  It is within this forum that project management can bring up project issues in a productive, helpful environment.  We believe the speed in which challenges, errors and issues are exposed and addressed is essential to reducing additional project costs and capitalizing on value added opportunities.  This requires courage, understanding and an environment of trust that will allow our collective experience to be applied in matrix form to best serve our Design Team, our Municipality partners and, most importantly, our Clients.

Apollo 13 would have never made it back without the same approach.

 
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