The week that was 4 – 8th April 2016

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The week that was 4 – 8th April 2016

Singapore – Shanghai – Hangzhou – Anji – Singapore, Weekend 9-10 April 2016

What was initially planned to be a “quiet” week in the office turned out to be only 2 days with the rest travelling and anything but quiet and peaceful. A rescue 101 mission had to be urgently undertaken to the inlands of China where one of our projects, a resort deep into the Anji hinterland in the middle of bamboo forests, is now planning to open in the first week of May. The unfortunate thing is, as with so many projects in China and Asia around, that panic only strikes when opening date nears. The dates where seemingly decided just last month (about time though…) and now all issues highlighted and already previously apparent but not actioned on become an “emergency”. People previously not really involved, but concerned with future operation of the property are seeing these issues, but not knowing the history and inaction and incapability of the site contractor only see that as “poor design”. We had indicated the desired plan of action to remedy unapproved light fittings, wrong installation and poor workmanship about a year ago, but the client had shown little to no commitment to action. Now that time presses and operators are moving in it suddenly becomes urgent. I think we have all been there and rather than blame them (which is generally a useless exercise anyhow) I felt it better to use the momentum and their willingness to action and go to site. Rather then write my blog yesterday spent most of the day writing my site visit report so that there is no excuse and action can start right away on Monday. We will be on site weekly till opening to help and assist them as good as possible.

The client’s prerogative
The interesting thing is that their “reluctance” to action was probably driven by trying to minimise any additional costs for the suggested rectifications (assumingly to minimise any additional costs). They also ignored our light fitting specifications and purchased what was in their eyes good “local” alternatives. Their argument being that these fittings were used a lot in many of the local hotels so they must be ok…we were give some samples for review but were unable to approve any except one or two and had sent our feedback accordingly. They went ahead regardless. Not surprisingly therefore we have poor beam control, inconsistent colour quality (some so-called 2700K being 3800K measured on site with Ra’s of only 70’s!). The dimming system was also purchased and installed without our knowledge probably based on the same reasoning. When confronted with the system we discovered a brand we had never heard off (though that does not necessarily mean it is not good, there are many new players in the market). Further internet research learned that though the website is Chinese (.cn), the introduction claims they are from NSW, Australia, specialists in building management systems. Anyone heard of the brand Hysine? Our on-site testing revealed all the typical hallmarks of a dimming system with little affinity to LED dimming if I may say diplomatically; unable to do time fade dimming, dimming only possible in steps of 10% (!), lowest dimming level about 20% (looks like 50%), sometimes going into auto cut-off and totally unreliable switch responses. We observed several times that activating a scene did not consistently result in the same scene! Note they do not have a scene set control panel, only switches that are “programmed” to be a scene. Anyhow you can see the helpless situation we found ourselves in. Admittedly the quality of the light fittings does not help. Some of the decorative fixtures where discovered to have non-dimmable light bulbs, no wonder, but that can be resolved. But most of all the compatibility testing that we have requested for nearly a year between light fittings and dimming manufacturers was never done. I suspect that the dimming modules and the drivers (leading, trailing edge, etc) are also not really aligned. How long is a piece of string…

Good, cheap or fast
There is this long held adagio that you can only have two out of these three, but most of the clients want all three. If you want it good and cheap it won’t be fast, if you want it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you want it fast and cheap (what most want) it won’t be good. The irony is that we found ourselves with an installation that is neither good, nor cheap nor fast. I suspect though that the client believes they got a good deal. Our “intelligence sources” however informed us that the prices paid where at least the same as the original if not more expensive! How is that possible you may ask? Simple. The whole purchasing process is played through the appointed installation contractor who not surprisingly will have his own contacts. In order to assure his “preferred” supplier gets awarded, he will price our specifications many times higher, sometimes 300-400% higher! That leaves him to quote the client his alternative at the same or slightly higher price as the originals. A price 150% higher then the original still looks so much cheaper then the one 300% higher, isn’t it! So why did we not do anything about it? Again simply because we were left out of the process, despite insisting that we should be part of it. It is a consistent mystery why many clients think they should keep us out of the evaluation and award process, specifically when it comes to evaluating specific price bids. With the experience we have, we are better placed than anyone to assess whether the price is good value for good and fast! Now we are left with the hot potato with no-one to pass it on too!

Below some mood images from the site and the project (good and bad). It is going to be a nice project and I may be very critical (as I should be), but in the end most of the guests staying at the resort will not notice a thing of all the sweat and tears that went into the project…

Have a great (rest of the) weekend.