Agency TRANSPORTATION DEPT

Contractor Alfred Benesch & Company

SWIFT Contract Number 3000016221

Project Name Value Engineering TH 100 at Minnetonka Blvd.

Project Number (if applicable) 99447

Summarize purpose of the contract, including why it was necessary: MnDOT requires a VE study to be conducted on projects that are above a TPCE threshold of $20M. This project’s meets that cost threshold.

Project Duration

Start Date Thu, 09/22/2011 - 00:00

Original end date Mon, 04/30/2012 - 00:00

Actual end date Mon, 04/30/2012 - 00:00

Did project finish on time? Yes

Total billable hours utilized (if applicable) 280

Contract Amounts

Original contract: $47857.89

Amendments {Empty}

Contract total $46254.19

Did project finish within budget? Yes

What was the funding source? Trunk Highway

Is this a sole source contract? No

If this was a single source contract, explain why the agency determined there was only a single source for the services (if applicable) {Empty}

Evaluator Name Anjani Milkert

Evaluator Email Address minnie.milkert@state.mn.us

Evaluate the contractor's timeliness See comments below

Evaluate the contractor's quality See comments below

Evaluate the contractor's cost on par with other similar vendors

Evaluate the contractor's overall performance See the comments section at the end of this evaluation

Would you engage the contractor's services again? No

Describe any negative action taken during the duration of this contract (i.e., termination, pursuit of suspension, etc.): PM discussed concerns about time management with the VE facilitator several times during the study.
On the plus side:
• Ryan Thady did a great job. He is smart, professional and experienced. His CAD skills were superb. He was one of the best team members we’ve ever had on a VE study.
• Kasi is diligent and very willing to please.
• To learn the process, Benesh brought along Mike Gorman, who is new to the firm. Mike is very knowledgeable in transportation projects, specifically traffic and is working towards his CVS in Value Engineering.


On the minus side:
• Benesch staff is capable of managing engineering work; however, there were serious concerns about facilitation and management of the team during the study. Some of the following ideas may help tighten up the process:
o The team needs to know why they’re there. Explain the purpose of the VE study at the start. What VE is – what VE isn’t.
o Set daily goals. Each day should start with a list of milestones that need to be met at day’s end. Milestones should be detailed and specific – hourly if needed.
o Set rules and constraints – define what is and what is NOT on the table. If conversation slips off topic, put those issues on the parking lot to be dealt with later. Reassess as needed during the study.
o Stay on task and focused.
Bottom line: Each team member has regular work they are NOT doing in order to participate in the VE study. Their time must be productively and efficiently used. This can only be done with good time management and facilitation skills.
• Kasi stepped out of the room to work directly with the MnDOT Bridge Engineer. This was important work, but left the group leaderless. The rest of the team needed clear direction about what to do next. Kasi’s main task was to facilitate – the detail bridge engineering work should have been secondary. This might have been managed with good delegation to one of the other Benesch team members.
• Ideas don’t have to be specific. Focus less on the number of ideas and more on the content of the ideas.
eg, two ideas were:
Re-align T.H. 7 to the south (to build new bridge off-line of existing)
Re-align T.H. 7 to the north (to build new bridge off-line of existing)
Effectively, these are the same idea. Having a large number of ideas is great, but the sheer number adds more work and time later when they must be pared down into recommendations.
• Doug West seldom contributed and appeared to have only one task – prepare the PowerPoint presentation. Unfortunately, his skills as a construction expert were never used and even worse, he seemed to have little knowledge about PowerPoint.

QA/QC Final report
Details matter. The QMP looked great on paper, but was not implemented well. It took several iterations to get the final report error free. Simple things like TH100 appeared as TH10 or TH1000.

Please rate the overall experience with the contractor 2 - dissatisfied