Ellana Construction Consultants: Our Services

ELLANA’s cost management services begins early on with budget/cost estimate development during the design phase, accompanied by value engineering and constructability review sessions, through the construction and close-out phases of a project, offered to owners, design or construction teams. Cost certainty and control are essential for any construction project. Our approach to cost management involves safeguarding your interests at every stage of the design, procurement and construction process by focusing our efforts on achieving the best results for the project. We ensure that the design fully matches your needs and budget, and we manage the cost and risk performance against targets and identify every opportunity for improvement. We also participate by helping to identify the best method of directing and controlling your project by working with the entire team to establish the best delivery policy and to define clear accountabilities and responsibilities from concept through close-out. Finally, as part of of our cost management process, we work with the team to first identify, then address any risks or issues that arise, ultimately providing solutions to any discrepancies or conflicts that arise. Our cost management services include:

Construction cost estimating
Value engineering exercises
Constructability reviews
Project schedule development
Feasibility studies

Work breakdown structure development
Budget allocation and asset management
Cost forecasting / trending
Early warnings / mitigation
Cash flow / accruals / value of work completed

Contingency management
Monitoring of commitments and expenditures
Project forecasting and reporting
Independent reporting to project or finance partners
Reconciliation / integration with financial reporting

We offer unique project controls services to owners and construction managers, whereby ELLANA personnel serves as extension of your team on a term-basis for a particular project, providing specific services such as change order monitoring, cost control and/or CPM scheduling, to name a few. ELLANA project control specialists provide support on a project-by-project basis—assigned either full-time or “on-call” as the specific project warrants. The coordination and control of the cost and schedule functions of the project are to provide accurate data and forecasting in order to facilitate superior project management services, including:

Construction cost estimating
Contract administration
Document controls implementation
Document control system development

Submittal tracking
Schedule control and monitoring
Cost control and monitoring
Change order evaluation and tracking

Issue logging and tracking
Pay item quantity tracking
Claims management

Representing the owner calls for performing a variety of tasks while serving as your advocate, ultimately acting as an extension of you and your staff when interfacing directly with the design professionals, construction manager and other consultants on your behalf throughout the duration of your project. Hiring an owner’s representative allows you to focus on running your business or building your brand, as the project dictates. As your owner’s representative, ELLANA will assist in the procurement (where applicable), management, monitoring and coordination the current and future members of this project team, representing your interests only. Our primary goal is to assist you in performing your role as the owner by advising y on all preconstruction and construction related aspects of the project, including the day-to-day activities and responsibilities involved during the various phases of the acquisition, assessment, planning, site preparation, design and construction of the project. During the construction phase, we are your eyes and ears on the jobsite, ensuring the achievement of several key industry hallmarks, including project team collaboration, labor harmony, fit and finish quality, a timely completion and, perhaps mostly importantly, within the cost set forth in your pro forma. We will also take great care to make certain the functionality, flexibility and long-term efficient operation of the completed project. We provide these services while offering access to and the support of our in-house specialists, including professional engineers, architects, scheduling personnel, construction managers, accountants, legal staff, certified value specialists and cost estimators. The following represents the complement of services we provide to our clients:

Site selection & assessment
Lease review
Design team selection
Construction management team selection

Administration & communication
Project meetings coordination
Budget/schedule analysis & control
Project management

Construction schedule monitoring
Close out
Claims analysis

One of our key differentiators as a construction consulting firm is our professional training services. We offer in-house and “on-site” professional training services for design and construction professionals, taught by qualified faculty with at least 15 years of experience in the A/E/C industry. We are registered with the AIA and our classes fulfill continuing education (CES) credits for design professionals.

Our “on-site” professional training services credit course, known as Conceptual Phase Budget Estimating Concepts, is tailored for design (architects and engineers), construction and facilities professionals. The course is registered with the AIA and fulfills one (1) AIA/HSW continuing education (CES) credit for design professionals. The key points of this course are:

Estimate formats used during conceptual design: systems vs. CSI format

Understanding the role of the estimator and the collaboration with the project team during the preconstruction phase process; site evaluation and protection requirements

Discussion of methodologies in developing a conceptual phase cost estimate, including life safety elements

Factors that may influence cost (i.e., existing below grade structure, soil characteristics relating to foundation design, restrictive sites, etc.)

Overview of project mark-ups and contingencies

Through our in-house school we are “investing” in the construction process by conveying our lessons-learned to the engineering and construction disciplines. We are a private school licensed by the New York State Education Department and registered as a New York City Training Provider and by the New York State Workforce Investment Board. We offer hands-on, short-term classes taught to small groups of students. All of our faculty members have at least 10 years of experience in related disciplines and are employed by major construction firms. Our courses are available to both individuals and companies. We offer day, evening and weekend classes.