Putting it Together: The Self-Perform Team

By Brenden Nickels, Senior Office Assistant

 Throughout its 125-year history, Kraus-Anderson has been known for building large commercial projects— hospitals, hotels, schools, and more. However, the community or partners may not know that Kraus-Anderson tackles smaller, equally important work through our Self-Perform and Special Projects groups.

Self-Perform members Joe Baumann and Rahul Shah tell us more about the team.

How did the Self-Perform team come to be? When did you start at Kraus-Anderson?

JB: Kraus-Anderson established the Self-Perform Group to manage the work we do with our own employees that we sometimes subcontract out to trusted partners. Our goal is to complete efficient and profitable work for the company and create future field leaders.

As part of KA’s strategic planning process, the Twin Cities office had been looking to start a Self-Perform Group for quite a while. The timing worked out well with the sale of my demolition and carpentry labor business. I started on December 4, 2017, and spent most of the first year setting up phase codes in ways to track, in detail, the future self-perform work. While Kraus-Anderson already performed carpentry and demolition work, our purpose was to increase the volume of work we do with our own crews, track that work thoroughly, increase efficiency, and provide growth and leadership opportunities for our teams.

Receiving accurate information from the field is critical in providing the information we need to keep our unit cost pricing up-to-date, remain competitive, and manage costs. If we catch an error early on, we can make adjustments.

What does the Self-Perform team do?

JB & RS: The Self-Perform team manages projects that Kraus-Anderson performs with its own personnel, such as saw-cutting, rough and finish carpentry (except framing), GPR concrete scanning, and selective demolition. The Self-Perform team operates under a separate budget, so they can track their progress, offering control over their schedule and quality of work. They can also use the opportunities of self-perform to expand KA’s pool of workers and connect them with field superintendents and projects that need labor.

The team has also been getting involved with the latest technology in construction, such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), a type of technology used to scan concrete, similar to a walking metal detector. Other examples include a demolition robot known as the DXR 140, an electric slab saw, electric wheelbarrows, electric mini skid steers, and high-cycle concrete saw-cutting equipment.

Who makes up the Self-Perform team?

JB: Each member of the Self-Perform team has a different role. Project Manager Angela Ahlbrecht and Project Engineer Rahul Shah complete estimating and project management work. I [Self-Perform Director Joe Baumann] complete administrative work, as well as some estimating and Project Management. The newest member of the team, Project Engineer Mathias Tobin, works with document management and quantity tracking and is gradually being introduced to estimating and project management.

What projects is the Self-Perform team currently working on?

JB & RS: One local project that the team has been working on is Moment Apartments in downtown Minneapolis, just a block away from Kraus-Anderson’s headquarters. The team completed the punch list for the carpentry work. The field team did a great job finishing the project on schedule and producing a high-quality product for our customers.

At North Dakota State University, the Self-Perform team recently completed a concrete saw-cutting and removal project in an elevator shaft at Sugihara Hall. We’re roughly halfway through the carpentry work for the new practice facility, Nodak Insurance Performance Center.

Other Self-Perform projects include renovating the lobbies at Ecolab St. Paul, Unifeye Clinic in Bloomington, and Captain Jack’s Liquor Store in Bismarck, demolishing the Hudson Hospital vestibule, and demolition/carpentry projects at Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater. We’ll soon start projects at Warhorse Casino in Omaha, Bismarck Public Works Building X, Zeigler Bloomington, and 4 Bears Casino in Newtown, ND.

How does the Self-Perform team better serve KA and our clients?

JB: The Self-Perform team gives Kraus-Anderson options. Our group gives the opportunity to perform some services with our own in-house labor, as well as allows better control over the cost, schedule, and quality of work. In addition, we have a traveling crew that services our out-of-town and remote jobs in areas where labor and bids can be hard to come by. Our intent is not to self-perform every carpentry or demolition job. However, if a subcontractor isn’t available for a specific project or their price is excessively high due to workload (or other factors), we have the capabilities to assist and keep the project moving.

Tell us what you like about your job.

RS: One thing that makes this job attractive to someone with a field background like myself is that the role is more hands-on than a typical project manager is. Generally, project managers deal more so with budgets and contracts. In the Self-Perform group, we’re bidding on the work in detail and then going out to the field, seeing the work firsthand, and being involved in the discussions that help improve that process.

Where do you see the Self-Perform team going? What excites you about the future?

JB: We’ll continue to grow the Self-Perform team, completing more projects and expanding the business. We particularly want to expand our concrete saw-cutting efforts in 2023. With Senior Management, we discussed selecting certain KA projects to work on. Currently, we bid on projects like other subcontractors. To help us grow, I want to put more time into the jobs that we have and make our processes and work more efficient rather than focus our attention on bidding. It’d be great to be assigned a project from the beginning and focus our efforts on delivering quality results for the project team and client.