Construction Cost Control by the Owner

A procedure to reducce facility cost in an on-going major construction program has been development and used by the United States Postal Service, an independent agency in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Starting with the removal of unnecessary frills and using lesser cost items of the adequate quality, together with a requirement that the architect engineer stay within a construction cost limitation, has been combined with improved contract administration to obtain measurable cost reductions at a time of increasing inflation. The paper illustrates the use of known procedures and techniques to produce cost reduction without compromising quality or agency mission.