At the project outset, all parties should recognize that owner objectives differ greatly from builder objectives. The owner wants a data center that best meets cost, schedule, and overall business needs, including data center availability. The builder wants to meet project budget and schedule requirements while preserving project margin. 

Data center uptime (availability) and operations considerations are usually outside the builder’s scope and expertise. Thus, it is imperative that the project owner—or owner’s representatives—devise contract language, processes, and controls that limit the contractors’ ability to change or undermine design decisions while making use of the contractors’ experience in materials and labor costs, equipment availability, and local codes and practices, which can save money and help construction follow the planned timeline without compromising availability and reliability. Data center owners should appoint an experienced owner’s representative to properly vet contractors. 

This representative should review contractor qualifications, experience, staffing, leadership, and communications. Less experienced and cheaper contractors can often lead to quality control problems and design compromises. The owner or owner’s representative must work through all the project requirements and establish an agreed upon sequence of operations and an appropriate and incentivized construction schedule that includes sufficient time for rigorous and complete commissioning. In addition, the owner’s representative should regularly review the project schedule and apprise team members of the project status to ensure that the time allotted for testing and commissioning is not reduced. Project managers, or contractors, looking to keep on schedule may perform tasks out of sequence. Tasks performed out of sequence often have to be reworked to allow access to space allocated to another system or to correct misplaced electrical service, conduits, ducts, etc., which only exacerbates scheduling problems. Construction delays should not be allowed to compromise commissioning. Incorporating penalties for delays into the construction contract is one solution that should be considered.