Ideal Contracting’s Special Projects Group boasts over 25 years of experience fulfilling blanket construction maintenance service contracts for small to medium-sized projects. Our construction maintenance programs have included partnerships with clients such as Aramark, CBRE, the Federal Reserve, the University of Michigan, and General Motors, where we have maintained a service agreement for over 20 years across 13 GM locations in Southeast Michigan.
Our proven method integrates our program management and delivery team with clients’ facilities management teams and processes to streamline project estimating and delivery while providing superior value and enhanced safety. Furthermore, Ideal’s general contracting and self-perform trade expertise amplify our project delivery, regardless of size or complexity.
Tom Braden, Vice President of Ideal’s Special Projects Group, shares insight into the group’s approach, its unique role within the company, and what sets the team apart.
What is Ideal Contracting’s Special Projects Group?
Most of the work performed by our Special Projects Group is reestablished blanket contract work in which markups and field labor rates are predetermined before work is ever performed. In many cases, projects are predetermined to go to Ideal Contracting based on our ability to streamline project delivery and excellent, long-standing partnerships with clients such as General Motors.
Over our more than 25 years in business, we’ve learned how to take care of our customers. Whether it’s Christmas day and a building needs urgent repair, or a customer comes to us with a unique request for something inside one of their facilities, we’ve seen and done it all.
Our close relationship with General Motors is an excellent representation of our Special Projects Group’s capabilities and expertise. Ideal Contracting manages over 45 million square feet of GM property and facilities through the GM PDPM program. This includes 15 project managers, 16 project engineers, and 12 full-time safety representatives who all support various General Motors projects, and often several at a time. Across the 13 different GM sites our company oversees, there are approximately 150 Ideal personnel and 250 subcontractor personnel on site at any given time, so it is a vast operation and one that is incredibly important to us and our customers.
What makes the Special Projects Group’s operations unique compared to normal construction operations?
The main difference between our projects and typical general contracting operations is the sheer speed at which they are delivered. Unlike larger GC projects, Special Projects Group does not always have full plans and specs. While regular projects often have 4-6 weeks to provide a proposal and additional time to mobilize, it’s not uncommon for our team to get an RFP on a Wednesday and then respond to our customer with an accurate and detailed response by the following Monday. This speed streamlines our estimating process and mobilizes our operations team much more quickly.
Another unique aspect of our team is the emergency facility responses we manage alongside our normal projects. This year alone, we’ve already had over 40 emergency response projects (unplanned events) that involve our team immediately mobilizing to address a problem for our customer. Having this kind of 24/7 365 availability to our customers is vital to our group’s success. We ensure that our customers know that we are always willing and able to help, and we get the same in return.
Last year alone, our Special Projects Group completed 770 projects. The sheer number of purchase orders we handle is both impressive and staggering. However, when you take a moment to consider all the people who support these projects, it becomes clear that it’s our team that truly makes the difference.
Sometimes, what we do resembles a fast-food drive thru more than a five-course fine dining experience, yet we maintain the same quality of service and value.
How does Ideal Contracting specialize in this type of project delivery?
It really comes down to our communication and the trust we have with our customers. Without that level of communication and transparency, we couldn’t do what we do. As it pertains to General Motors, we have been in and out of some of their facilities for the better part of 20 years. In fact, the average length of service by our project managers and superintendents is over 13 years in some of these facilities. This has allowed many of our team members to learn every square inch of these buildings and, in turn, has supported our ability to deliver these niche projects much quicker and more accurately than someone else.
We want our customers to use us as a resource, and it’s really rewarding when that happens. We have people on site ready to deliver on a daily basis, and our team loves engaging with our customers and being that on-call resource to support them with anything they need.
Why are the services provided by our Special Projects Group important to our customers?
The projects we are awarded today are much more advanced than they used to be. The volume, technicality, and scopes are all more intricate, creating more opportunities for design-build and other innovative approaches to project delivery. Our team does anything from as little as $5,000 to projects upwards of $10,000,000, and this broad range of jobs can span from small office renovations to intense excavations within active facilities.
This change in the dynamic of projects that we’re completing is a testament to our customers’ faith and trust in us to complete the project safely and efficiently. Ideal Contracting has developed a strong culture where safety comes first and where we do things right the first time. As I said earlier, we completed nearly 800 jobs last year alone. That’s 800 separate RFPs, safety plans, project schedules, etc., and that doesn’t include any modifications that are made throughout the project. It’s humbling to think about and really makes you stand back and appreciate what we’ve been able to build here at Ideal.
The collaboration we have with our customers is unlike anything else you’ll find in this industry. Our people are ingrained into our customers’ systems and sequence of operations. This is a primary reason why Ideal Contracting has been awarded General Motors’ Supplier of the Year award 19 times. We fully embrace the ways that our customers see and understand things, and our dedication and expertise make for a powerful partnership that paves the way for success.
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