Amdocs is a 17,000 square-foot office building located in Champaign, Illinois at 2109 Fox Drive. East Central Illinois Construction Services (ECI) began the interior remodel in April 2023 and construction was completed in the third week of July. ECI served as the general contractor providing supervision, demolition, framing, finish carpentry, doors & hardware, that equated to 26% of self-performed work on the project. This was a lump sum contract remodel totaling $470,401.84. Four merit-based subcontractors participated in the project’s construction including ABC IL member, Waters Electric. 65% of the work was provided by merit shop subcontractors.
The Amdocs project created several challenges related to accessibility, communication, and scheduling. Amdocs employs 30,000 people globally and is a publicly-traded company with a 38-year history and 4.5 billion annually in fiscal revenue. Their mission is to accelerate cloud migration, digitalize, and automate their customer’s operations while providing them with next-generation communication and media experiences.
The Amdocs building presented security challenges for accessibility as it was under 24-hour surveillance and armed guard. Once contracts were agreed upon ECI had to coordinate the specific craft professionals, management, and site supervision for project access. Only these individuals were issued digitized IDs for scanned entry in and out of the building during controlled times. Due to limited access and stringent security measures, keeping production levels high to stay on schedule presented supervision with several project engineering challenges.
The first of these challenges was to coordinate with Amdocs in Israel, India, Mexico, and their St. Louis IL locations to facilitate information technology deliveries, furniture deliveries, server shutdowns, and software updates. All these tasks were dependent on the precise management of each trade completing their tasks to ensure that the electrician was able to complete his work on time in coordination with the pre-arranged data and power outages. Furthermore, dust control was paramount in the construction process. This specific location housed several servers and cooling systems that had to remain dust-free. All HVAC systems were shut down and sealed off during the construction process along with isolating the server rooms and cooling systems. ECI and its subcontractors completed these processes with zero dust infiltration and no interruption to the Amdocs network.
Due to Amdocs being an international company scheduling was not the only challenge ECI faced. Amdocs recently implemented a new software system for progress billing submissions. The software was developed in San Fransisco, CA and all of its customer support is outsourced to India. As progress billing was submitted and change orders needed approval to alter the original Purchase Order amount it took several days to weeks to get approval. However, our production schedule had to remain the same to avoid service interruptions to the Amdocs network. ECI was forced to use its operating line of credit to ensure that there was no disruption to the schedule due to an extended process for payment approval with ECI’s vendors and subcontractors.
Despite obstacles, ECI and Arrow Glass were able to value engineer an alternative idea to replace all 38 doors within the office space. The original plan was to replace these slab doors with new doors and frames that included 24-inch by 60-inch tempered glass inserts. Instead of replacing all of the doors, ECI
determined that cutting the existing doors, installing inserts, and using the existing frames would significantly lower costs. Once ECI received approval from Amdocs ECI Construction Services craft professionals removed the doors and fabricated the insert openings prepping them for Arrow Glass to install onsite. Ultimately this alternative saved Amdocs over $32,000 and delivered the same quality end product.
Amdocs being a unique company requested unique design elements added to the project. The main space required the demolition of seven offices creating a 14,000 square-foot collaborative working area. Level 5 finish walls were required throughout the space to accommodate the installation of company graphics. All level 5 work was performed by Picasso Painting, a local merit shop contractor. ECI was given the “artistic license” to custom design and handcraft the glass feature and security desk at the entrance to the building. Knowing it would be the first thing that you would see when entering the facility, ECI coordinated with the electrical contractor for lighting and power to the desk as well as the Amdocs data team. The attention to detail and precision craftsmanship by the ECI finish carpenters is showcased in the Amdocs entryway.
ECI continues to utilize the web-based Raken Daily Reporting application to monitor and assign tasks to individuals or subcontractors with completion deadlines and reminders. This application also produces daily reports to be sent on demand to owners, architects, and engineers to communicate any onsite changes, field adjustments, and visual productivity.
The project was completed on time and under budget due to the effective management team led by ECI Project Manager Trent Bennett. During this project, Trent managed ECI employees, six subcontractors, their employees, and had a TRIR (total recordable incident rate) of zero.
In conclusion, ECI Construction Services requests your consideration for the award of excellence for the Amdocs remodel. ECI was able to successfully complete this buildout despite stringent security, complex communication challenges, and an uncompromising schedule. ECI and Arrow Glass successfully engineered a strategy to reduce the total cost of the project by 6% of the original contract. For a fourth straight year, ECI has zero recordable incidents demonstrating continued leadership in safety.
