Most delay and dispute on a building project does not come from one bad contractor. It comes from the seams between contractors, where responsibility is ambiguous and nobody owns the gap. The direct cost of rework is usually smaller than the cost of the weeks spent establishing whose fault it was.
Where do construction projects actually lose money?
Projects lose money at handoffs rather than during execution. Every transition between parties — designer to contractor, contractor to supplier, contractor to owner, owner to operator — is a point where information is lost, assumptions diverge and accountability becomes contestable. Three of these handoffs cause most of the damage.
The three expensive handoffs
6. Design to procurement. A specification written without reference to what is actually available locally produces either a long import lead time or an undocumented substitution. Both surface late, usually when the schedule has no slack left.
7. Construction to commissioning. Systems installed by different subcontractors have to work together. When nobody owns integrated commissioning, faults appear after occupancy, when fixing them is most disruptive and most expensive.
8. Handover to operations. A building is delivered either with as-built drawings, warranties, operating manuals and a maintenance regime, or with a set of keys. In the second case the operating team spends its first year discovering how the building works.
What “under one roof” actually removes
Integrated delivery means planning, design, construction, finishing and project management sit within one accountable structure, so the seams are internal rather than contractual. Revenco Holdings, established in 2016, works this way across apartments, commercial towers and larger developments. Alongside it, Revenco supplies the material side — cement and roofing, FRP products, STP raw materials and modules, and industrial machinery and equipment.
The gain is not primarily commercial. It is that problems surface while they are still cheap to fix, because the people who will build and operate the asset have visibility during the period when design decisions can still be reversed.
The phase nobody budgets for
Construction is a single event. Operations run for decades: maintenance, cleaning, security, utilities, repairs and eventual replacement. Decisions made to save money during construction routinely increase that operating cost for the life of the building.
The pattern is consistent. Equipment selected on capital cost alone with no local service network. Plant rooms laid out with no maintenance access. Systems specified without asking who will hold the competence to run them. When the facility management function reviews the design before freeze, these get caught. When it is appointed after handover, they get inherited. Within Unissol Group, GLX IT Solutions covers security solutions and facility management [[confirm the service scope and whether pre-handover design review is offered]].
A short handover checklist
Most of this is decided at contract stage rather than at handover, which is why it is worth asking early. Five questions cover the ground:
• Who is contractually accountable for integrated commissioning, named in the contract?
• What documentation is required at handover, and what happens if it is incomplete?
• Is there a defects liability period, and who inspects before it expires?
• Has the party who will operate the building reviewed the design?
• Are warranties assignable to the owner, and who holds the local service relationship?
Projects that answer these clearly before award have fewer disputes afterwards. The risks do not disappear, and no delivery model makes them disappear. They get assigned to a named party before anyone has an incentive to argue, which is the part that matters.
FAQ
What is integrated project delivery?
Integrated project delivery coordinates design, supply, construction and operations under one accountability structure instead of contracting them separately, so the handoffs between phases sit inside one organisation rather than between parties.
Why do construction projects run late?
Most delay accumulates at the seams between contracted parties — design to procurement, construction to commissioning, and handover to operations — rather than during the execution of any single work package.
When should facility management be involved in a project?
Before design freeze. Facility management input at design stage catches maintenance access problems, equipment serviceability issues and operating cost decisions while they can still be changed, instead of inheriting them at handover.
What should a building owner receive at handover?
As-built drawings, operating and maintenance manuals, assignable warranties, commissioning records, a spares list and a maintenance schedule. Receiving only keys and a completion certificate means the first year of operation is spent reconstructing this information.
