Insistence on integrity, value engineering cost me clients

By Enyeribe Ejiogu

At various times, there have incidents of building collapse, often traceable to use of substandard materials, poor structural engineering, greed and sharp practices, whereby the developers/clients and the contractors hired by them collude and cut corners while executing the projects.

In this interview, Engr Olalekan Adedo, chief executive of Black Diamond Engineering Limited, whose firm is constructing the headquarters of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacy in Lagos shares insight on how the lack of integrity in project conceptualization and execution can lead to incidents of building collapse.

Adedo whose sterling deployment of the concept of value engineering earned him the Fellowship of the Nigerian Society of Engineering quite early studied Civil Engineering at the renowned University of Lagos. After the national youth service, commenced his career journey about 17 years ago and cut his teeth in real life engineering practice with Dart Engineering Limited, before setting up his own firm in 2011. The firm, which has core competence in structural engineering and cost-effective project management practices has executed several multi-storey projects and other residential developments in Lagos and in its early years handled a handled a building project for the Rivers State government.

How long did you work in Dart Engineering?

I was there for seven years, and after I got chartered, I started my own engineering firm, Black Diamond Engineering Limited in 2011. The first project executed by Black Diamond was a block of flats, very close to Osborne Road in Ikoyi, Lagos. The second project was awarded to a friend, in Port Harcourt, who could not execute it. The project was to build the River State Government guest house. I was shuttling between Lagos and Port Harcourt. The guest house was very close to the residence of the Governor’s Chief of Staff. From that point on, a lot of opportunities began coming in, and we started working with developers. Based on my background, I operated as a consultant. In the former company where I had worked, my primary, core competence was structural design. The knowledge of structural engineering has assisted us in Black Diamond and given us spontaneous growth. However, I started my career as a construction and civil engineer.

Looking back, what major projects have you handled?

First I would like to put the expression “major project” in perspective. For me the major project is still in the pipeline because I want do projects that are far bigger than the ones I have done so far. Coming back to your question, we have gone through three phases of projects. The first phase was a major project that actually launched us. We are currently working on a project which is a 16-floor structure in Ikoyi, Lagos, from piling works to finishing, which gives us more opportunity to showcase our concept of value engineering. We have also done a 13-floor residential building which has been fully occupied. This is in addition to some other projects we have handled. We have started work on the headquarters of the West Africa Postgraduate College of Pharmacy in Lagos.

On your website, it is stated that your company aims to make a statement with every project you handle. What exactly do you mean by that?

We actually coined it for a purpose, and most importantly it refers to the two values that we have to create. The first one is cost effectiveness, which has always been something that is very key to us. We don’t just go into the project thinking about what we want to make from it. Instead, we always want to make a statement. And the second one is the technical input, in the sense that we ensure that we create a kind of feature on every structure that we handle so that any passerby would say, ‘Wow, this is a standard structure” which stands out, unique and attractive. So, that is more or less like the key value that any property owner or any clientele will want to have and because of that want to do business with us. So, that is what we mean by making a statement.

How did you learn about the West Africa Postgraduate College of Pharmacy project and get involved?

It is a small world.  Actually, we were recommended by one of the consultants engaged by the client. And the person happens to be someone that I had worked with on a project, almost seven years ago, and he saw the value in me and recommended my firm.

Construction projects tend to have time and cost overrun. How do you ensure that you don’t experience time and cost overrun?

Really time over run will definitely lead to cost overrun. You have to manage both well because they are interwoven in the sense that they are symbiotic – they depend on each other. To avoid both time and cost that is where value engineering comes in and it enables us manage both time and cost in every project.

Value engineering is actually very important because as a civil engineer with some wealth of experience it is important for you to add value in terms of your technical and engineering knowledge on previous projects that you have done. So, we look at design without any form of jeopardizing the quality and design philosophy. We bring in a lot of things on board that can be used to simplify the buildability because the buildability of any structure determines the cost.

There are some projects where the soft cost to execute those projects might even be more or very close to 50 percent of the actual cost to have it executed. So, if you can be a bit conservative, largely on some of those soft costs, definitely the cost of the project will crash to an extent. And at the end of the day, it still comes out very nice in terms of managing effective procurement pattern, maximization of some of the available resources and the effective use of some of the workforce that we also use on the project. It will make the construction as lean as possible because it’s not a matter of having 100 people working on the project. You can have 10 people working on the project and the remaining 90 subsidised with the use of plants and equipment. So it makes the project faster and at the same time it makes the level of accuracy to be very high. On that note, it makes a lot of things very, very easy and with that you can have a lot of cost savings.

What exactly do you mean by soft cost because that is a technical expression?

Soft costs are more or less costs that go into the project and at the same time as the design of the project. We have structural design knowledge, because structural design was my main thing before I got into actual construction. So, having that kind of knowledge, definitely if I am going on a project I would have saved the client the cost of engaging a structural design engineer. So, we come up with the design. For us that is like a unique selling point. Another soft cost that also goes into projects is that as a construction company that is well established to an extent, we have invested in certain things that can be reused on the new project, indirectly. I would just say they are more or less like indirect cost that goes into the project.

We have had multiple incidents of collapsed buildings. Are their integrity issues involved in the frequent collapse of buildings?

Yes, lack of integrity plays a role building collapse. For me, I build as if my family and cherished friends will live in the houses. That is part of what I refer to as value engineering. Some people might even push you to compromise on quality. The devil will say to you, ‘is it not just this once?’ Honestly, it takes the fear of God not to compromise. I build with integrity at the core of the project. Let me tell you that my insistence on integrity has cost me some clients, who wanted me to cut corners. A client once wanted me to use substandard material. He said, after all, he was not going to live in the house. I refused and withdrew from the project. I did not want to rubbish my brand. My integrity is very important to me. You will find this fact stated clearly on the website of Black Diamond Engineering. Integrity is important to any serious person who wants to run any business venture in Nigeria.

We need to start changing the narratives. Based on what we have done and the projects we have handled, you can hardly find any indigenous contractor that has executed such projects to the level of excellence we exhibited, to deliver on time. We are grateful to clients who believed in us, despite our being an indigenous company.

I saw from your business card that you are already a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers. Tell me how you attained that level so fast.

To get the fellowship requires two things. One is how effective you are in terms of contributions to the Society and the number of years of cognate experience. When I was honoured by the Society, I did not put in for it. I believe I met the criteria. Black Diamond Engineering is almost 13 years now. I cannot remember the number of engineers that have passed through the company over the years. Add to that the number of engineering students from universities that have been trained here and they go back to their schools to show what they learned. That contributes to the recognition. I got the Fellowship of the Institution of Civil Engineering and then later the Fellowship of the Nigeria Society of Engineers in 2023.

It is not so much about the number of years that somebody has chalked up since graduating, it is more about what you have done and the value you have created.

You mentioned earlier that the only place where you worked before establishing Black Diamond was Dart Engineering. How did working there prepare you to later strike out on your own entrepreneurial journey in engineering?

Part of what drives me as a civil engineer is the attitude I adopted right after youth service. To get a start I approached my boss at the time and told him that I wanted to join him, to acquire experience. I had a slight issue when I was looking for a place for industrial training. During the SIWES period (Student’s Industrial Work Experience Scheme), I could not get a place for industrial training. Back then Association Avenue, Ilupeju, Lagos had many companies and about 15 to 20 engineering consultancy firms. I checked the whole length of Association Avenue (one the longest streets in that axis), all the way to Obanikoro. Every company or firm I went to said they had no vacancy and could not pay. I was not even looking for payment of a stipend. They all turned me down. So I became determined. Eventually, I did my IT with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). The father of one of my friends was the accountant who got me the placement, but I was not really learning anything. I had to just pull out on a Thursday and the next morning, Friday, I went to meet boss of Dart Engineering and told him that I would like to work with him. Prior to that time, I had been doing structural design and he had been keenly observing me. He didn’t mind me working for him, but said he did not have the financial capacity to employ a graduate, and wondered how I would survive. I assured him that I was willing to work without money.