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Choosing independent technical supervision

By Ludmila Izyurova, Moscow

With transition from licensing to self-regulating organizations (SROs) role of independent construction supervision is growing. Sergey TORBEEV, director of the Construction Consulting Department, Russintek, gave us tips on choosing professional experts.

Q: What is the role of independent tech supervision within the period of transition from licensing to self-regulation?
- Process of obtaining licenses is too long and beaurocratic: too many requirements create problems for new-comers. With SROs this process will be regulated by the market itself and barriers will be soon brought down. With more new players coming demand for professional expertise will go significantly up.

Q: Who needs independent tech supervision?
- Investors, customers and contractors. Investors need us as they are not construction specialists, but have money and want to increase their capitalization. In order not to be cheated, they need independent experts who can define how effective their investments are going to be.

Customer must perform its own tech supervision, but it often happens that it has too many projects but lack of human resources. In addition, the customer may fail to have experts specialized in all construction areas - e.g. electricity or critical structures.

Contractor needs independent tech supervision when has problems or disputes with the customer on the scope or quality of the work done. There are also insurers and banks, which both use our services to mitigate their risks in construction investments, loaning and insurance.
Q: Do they all trust independent tech supervisors?
- Yes, they trust, because this institute - independent technical supervision - was not built in a day. It was first used in the Soviet Union, when every construction site was under technical supervision performed by building authorities. There were strict rules for it and tech supervisors had to undergo annual trainings.

With competition we see in the market we are also trying to meet the highest qualifying requirements, so send our experts for regular trainings and cooperate with various NGOs.

Q: There are lots of independent experts offering their services online…
- You are right, there are lots of them. But if you call to all these companies you will find out that tech supervision accounts for 20% of their business only. The case is that many construction companies add “technical supervision” to their service list, but do not actually provide it as you know construction itself is much more profitable. They do this to monitor the market trends only.

Q: Why then are there so few real technical supervising companies?

- To do technical supervision you need to have expensive equipment. Let's say, thermal imaging camera costs from 500 000 rubles. Labor costs are also pretty high as these are professionals with additional trainings and certificated who do all the job. Besides, there are lots of different licenses you should obtain to do instrumental investigations, project designing, surveys and construction itself.

Q: So what are the selection criteria for technical supervisors?
- Same criteria we use for everything we choose based on our own preferences and competent advices. It would be useful to look for references from clients the company has already served. Membership in professional unions and associations is a plus as it proves quality and professional level. And be sure to check if the company has enough resources (material and labor) to offer high level services and have a look at its cases (portfolio).
Direct speech

Renat Shaghipov, Vice-President, Center-Region-Estate:
- Together with Russintek we are working on Karakorum Plaza building of Mongolia consulate. We engaged this independent expert company on the initial stage of our project, as this project's co-investor is a Western company that has been successfully working with independent consultanies for years. We did this to keep to their level and “speak the same language” with investors, customers and contractors. Now Russintek handles the whole project and we do confirm that construction consulting is a “must have” thing for early stages.

 “IT v Stroitelstve” paper, #17(72), 2008