Technology cost overruns on commercial building projects follow a predictable pattern. The overrun shows up during construction – as a change order, a field modification, or a contractor claim for out-of-scope work. But the root cause was established weeks or months earlier, during design, when a decision was made without technology input.
Coordination gaps between design disciplines are consistently among the primary drivers of that pattern, with 41% of global architecture and construction teams citing this as the leading cause of rework.1
Common examples of poor coordination leading to technology cost overruns are:
At Digital Direction, we’ve found that the single most damaging gap is a mismatch between what the electrical drawings show and what the technology drawings show. On one project, the MEP set didn't show the conduit runs for a lab space, while the T-layer drawings correctly showed the fiber and copper that space required. Because the gap wasn't caught until construction, it turned into a substantial change order from the electrician – exposing the architect for a coordination miss that wasn't really theirs.
The bottom line: when technology requirements aren't established during DD, the architectural and MEP decisions get made without them, and correcting those decisions later is expensive.
MEP coordination during design development is the process of resolving conflicts between building systems before the construction documents are issued. On the technology side, that means confirming that every technology requirement, including conduit routes, equipment room sizing, pathway infrastructure, and power and cooling loads, is reflected in the construction documents and coordinated with the MEP and architectural drawings.
A coordination review of this kind is where costly problems get caught cheaply. We’ve seen this in action during a large municipal office building project, when the pre-design work done by others called for a dual backbone fiber ring using both multimode and single mode fiber.
While reviewing the design during DD, we identified that a multimode fiber connection to the specified switching had a distance limitation of roughly 720 feet, which wouldn’t work in a twelve-story tower. Increasing the amount of single mode fiber slightly and eliminating the multimode from the backbone avoided a change order that would have run into six figures.
That’s the kind of conflict that costs a drawing revision and an hour of meeting time when it's caught in DD, and hundreds of thousands of dollars when it's caught in the field.
IT infrastructure design adds a layer of coordination requirements on top of the structured cabling design. The physical infrastructure designed under Division 27 has to support the active equipment the network architecture requires. When IT infrastructure design happens independently of the structured cabling design, or when it happens after CDs are issued, the result is often a physical infrastructure that doesn't match the network equipment.
For example, choices about fiber type, backbone topology, and equipment placement have to be verified against the building's actual distances and performance requirements, not assumed. Incorrect decisions get locked in when the network design isn't reconciled with the physical infrastructure until after CDs are issued, and correcting them means replacing installed cable rather than revising a drawing.
On one project for a national financial services firm, we weren't engaged until after the infrastructure design was already set. The original designer had specified multimode fiber where the building's distances and performance requirements called for single mode. Replacing it carried a cost of roughly $500,000, an expense that a coordinated design review during DD would have removed altogether.
Technology cost overruns are prevented primarily through complete and coordinated construction documents. Engaging a technology design consultant during schematic design to establish technology program requirements, coordinating those requirements with the MEP and architectural design during design development, and producing complete Division 27 and Division 28 specifications removes the primary mechanism that generates technology change orders.
Technology-related change orders almost always trace back to coordination gaps in the design documents – undefined scope, conflicting conduit routes, undersized equipment rooms, or specifications that left room for contractor interpretation.
MEP coordination during design development resolves those conflicts on paper, before they become field problems. When the construction documents are complete and coordinated, contractors can price and build the technology scope accurately without the scope gaps that generate change orders.
Technology coordination across the design team happens primarily during design development, when the technology consultant works alongside the MEP engineer and the architect to resolve conflicts between technology requirements and the architectural and MEP design.
The technology consultant's coordination drawings become part of the construction document set, ensuring that every member of the construction team – including the technology contractors – is working from the same coordinated basis.
IT infrastructure design is the planning of the active network equipment, switching architecture, wireless coverage, and network segmentation that sits on top of a building's structured cabling backbone. It includes designing the network topology, specifying the active equipment, determining telecommunications room rack layouts, and establishing the power and cooling loads that the MEP engineer needs to account for.
IT infrastructure design needs to be completed and coordinated with the structured cabling design during design development so that the physical infrastructure supports the network equipment the project requires.
Almost every technology cost overrun on a construction project was avoidable, set in motion during design when a requirement went undefined or a drawing conflict went unnoticed, then paid for months later at full field cost. The difference between a drawing revision and a six-figure change order usually comes down to whether technology was coordinated with the MEP and architectural drawings before the documents were issued.
TMC’s expert technology consultants work alongside the architect and MEP engineer to produce vendor-neutral specifications and cost estimates that hold up at bid. The result is fewer surprises in the field and a technology scope that was priced right the first time. If you have a technology-intensive project moving through design, get started with our team today and we'll help you close the coordination gaps before they turn into change orders.