Yes, Developers can have it all. But how?
Many forces are creating persistent pressure to build data centers (and build them quickly) right now. Key drivers of the current data center boom include explosive growth in computational demand, digital transformation of business and consumer services and strategic geopolitical security motivations. Data centers are truly the backbone of our current and future world infrastructure and that is what makes them so important.
This accelerated rate of delivery has historically caused developers to make trade-offs between three goals of data center projects. Cost, schedule and quality are all equally important for data center execution, however in the past one of these priorities would often be sacrificed for the others.
Nowadays the data center industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and these trade-offs aren’t occurring as often. Stakeholders in new data center builds now demand to achieve all three goals without compromise – and they have figured out how to do so.
Precon Activities are Key
Developers are focusing on preconstruction (precon) activities as one of the most critical phases in data center delivery because it helps avoid the triple constraint trade-offs between cost, schedule, and quality. Here’s how it guarantees builders don’t have to compromise:
Cost Control
By establishing accurate budgets and estimates based on design documents, vendor input, and market pricing (all done before construction) developers prevent financial surprises during execution.
Through value engineering, stakeholders can review designs early and identify cost-saving alternatives—such as material substitutions or modular construction methods—without compromising performance.
In addition, a proactive procurement strategy ensures that major equipment and materials are secured in advance, protecting the project from price volatility and long lead times that could otherwise escalate costs.
Schedule Assurance
Preconstruction activities provide a strong foundation for schedule reliability by identifying risks and potential bottlenecks early, such as permitting challenges, utility connections, or long-lead equipment.
By mapping out phasing and sequencing strategies, the team creates a realistic construction timeline that accounts for dependencies and allows for parallel workflows where possible. Decisions made during precon, like the use of prefabrication or modularization, further streamline execution by shifting work off-site and compressing the overall project schedule.
Quality Assurance
QA/QC is critical in ensuring the success of capital projects in high-stakes environments like data centers. Compromising quality, even unintentionally, often leads to safety risks, schedule delays, and increased costs. Quality must be considered in the precon stage and should be proactive, not reactive to avoid these unfavorable project outcomes.
Fortunately, there are tools and platforms, like the Cumulus Quality Execution System that provide real-time quality tracking and documentation and are essential for lifecycle traceability and operational readiness.
The Cumulus software uses Bluetooth-enabled tools (e.g., torque wrenches) to capture real-time data, replacing paper-based reports with automated, cloud-based records. By guiding workers through digitized Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and verifying compliance in real time, Cumulus prevents errors that lead to costly rework, which can account for up to 12% of project costs.
Contractors also report never losing QA/QC documentation, eliminating rework due to lost paperwork. Cumulus provides QA/QC visibility, as users gain a single dashboard view of work progress and quality, enabling proactive issue resolution and serving as a proxy for project completion milestones, accelerating project delivery and guaranteeing safety.
Conclusion
Precon planning gives builders clarity on scope, integrates design and procurement, and plans for risks up front. It also unites all teams involved in construction and commissioning to align together for seamless execution. This allows projects to hit cost, schedule, and quality targets simultaneously—rather than having to trade one for the other mid-construction.
Quality assurance (QA/QC) must also be discussed early in the data center lifecycle and must be treated as a core value if builders want to avoid the “iron triangle” trade-offs between cost, schedule and quality.
