Maston is a mechanical / commissioning engineer for Richard D. Kimball Co., Inc. (RDK), a consulting engineering firm with offices in Andover, MA, Boston, and New Brunswick, NJ. She has nearly 10 years of experience in providing design and commissioning services for a variety of project types, including museums, cleanrooms, and chiller plant renovations. She is a registered P.E. in MA and a LEED® Accredited Professional. She is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a member of ASHRAE, as well as a reviser for the 2008 ASHRAE HVAC Handbook - Systems and Equipment.
Redistributing some of the fee, updating your toolbox, and waiting to jump into the design minutiae can pay off in many ways. Fewer drawings, increased time on-site, and more accurate
Do the job well - within budget, on time, and for a profit. Sounds simple enough, but where do things get out of sync? Is the staged distribution of the fee in proportion to the amount of work in those stages? What can be done to minimize redundancy, maximize owner satisfaction, and keep you in business? Read on in part one of this article, expanding on a Howard McKew column that generated a record amount of reader mail.