How This Project Manager Saved $150K by Anticipating Customer Needs

Oh, I would give, um, you know, um, this is again in a, in a context of a project, you know, that is something that the client didn't expect, you know, that could happen, um. So this happened on one of the projects, um, it was almost like, uh, 2 years ago when, um, what we found, what, what I found out was, um, that because of the location, you know, with this, uh, because of the location of this particular building, like to do any infrastructure upgrade, we had to use a helicopter to put the equipment and Just the sheer cost of that process itself was like close to like uh $150,000. So I just couldn't wrap my head around this, like, you know, that just, just for this particular thing, we, we have to spend this much money and the client was like, well, this is just, you know, just the cost of doing work for the client, you know, when I talked about this, they said this. And out of my own curiosity, I started looking at this, um, this Google Map image, just to see like how this building was located and what things we could do. And what I found out was that there was a building adjacent uh to this building, which was also owned by the client. And what I, what I came up with the solution that, what if, if we could do uh overall infrastructure upgrade for the two buildings, you know, while, like, as a single project. That was just an idea I came up with, and it also turned out that the other building was also planned for replacement, you know, so. So, basically, you know, I came up with this proposition that, you know, if we could do a combined project in two buildings together at the same time, you know, and somehow connect the two buildings together, you know, this could be a massive savings in terms of labor, in terms of equipment, of overall insulation. And I, I just went with this idea and, and this is something the client had never done before. So, but, you know, they said that, well, you know, if everyone is OK, then, you know, maybe we can give it a shot. Um, so I, you know, prepared, uh, uh, financial, like, uh, you know, build a financial model, like taking into account the equipment cost, the maintenance cost, the labor cost, you know, and You know, basically, kind of like summarize my, my findings that in the parole process, they could, we could be savings of more than a million dollars, like with the com doing a combined project. Now, there was some resistance from the client team because, you know, now, the, the operations team felt that I could be putting Two buildings at risk, you know, because I was doing a common project, like, you know, um. And then I had, fortunately, I had already thought about this, this question, and I did a risk assessment and, you know, the findings were like, you know, overall, you know, it was just a 0.1% reduction in the, in the risk. Uh, overall, like, you know, this was, we went with this, we, we went ahead with this project. It was done exactly in the way that I was mentioning, you know, we did a combined replacement project in the two buildings. And, uh, you know, this project was actually showcased in the client newsletter and was subsequently sent across their team within the country. And, uh, you know, was, uh, with a note that, you know, anytime such opportunities exist, like, you know, these options should be looked at. So, so, this is something like even Uh, this started as a saving of, you know, saved just 100 100 $150,000 but overall led to a savings of more than $2 million.

Well, so there are some other matrix were um in terms of the overall, uh, uh, you know, while this work is being done, overall, you know, what do you call, um, Like, you know, uh, The impact of this building, the impact of this work from an overall reliability standpoint, you know, as, like I was mentioning that now we're putting, think of this like one set of equipments, infrastructure supporting one building and other set of infrastructure supporting another building. Now you have shared assets between the two buildings. So, If things were to go bad, then you're disrupting not only one building, you'll be disrupting two buildings. So that was something that came up and I had already done a risk assessment, you know, that, that the solution that I was proposing, you know, included that, uh, that assessment. And one of the other things that I was able to, that the, the logic I used to convince, uh, you know, one of the teams was that like. This overall process would reduce the amount of overall infrastructure, you know, by if you look at just shared the number of, you know, equipments. And because they had already been short staffed, you know, so for them they had to maintain less number of equipments which, you know, which improved, you know, their ability to do preventive maintenance and, like, you know, uh, just, you know, manage or handle those equipment in a better way. So that was another, another thing. 11 element also which came through was the legal aspect. Uh, that if the client were to sell one of the buildings, then how does, how would that impact and I had already also thought about those solutions, so that in those situations, like we would have some sort of like a metering capability so that we could, you know, measure the amount of usage and then build the, you know, the prospective owner accordingly for those, uh, for the energy that they're using.

Um, I, I, I, I, I felt that, you know, just, uh, uh, you know, I actually felt good about it because this is something which was not done, and, uh, You know, I think like this was like one of those situations which, which, which may seem very obvious, but something. Uh, you know, was not done before. So I think as a result of this, like, I led to some sort of like a change management phenomena, like, you know, like helping the client look through such opportunities in the future. I think that was one of the major satisfaction, you know, um, and like really helping through the client, you know, doing something that the client was not really expecting and like, you know, saving them those, those dollars. I think those could put to a better purpose. I think that was, you know, uh. I think that that was one of the parts that I, you know, that gave me.