Managing Long-Lead Procurement: Millwork, Stone & Glass
Custom millwork now runs sixteen to twenty-four weeks. Architectural glazing can run longer. If procurement starts when the schedule says it should, the schedule is already broken.
The post-2020 luxury market permanently repriced patience. Custom millwork, quarried stone, and architectural glazing carry lead times that routinely exceed the phases they install in. Yet most residential schedules still treat procurement as a construction activity rather than a preconstruction one.
Our practice is to identify every package with a lead time exceeding twelve weeks during design development — before the GMP is signed. Millwork shop drawings begin during construction documents. Stone is selected, slabbed, and reserved while framing is still a drawing.
"The schedule you inherit is written by the packages you failed to pre-purchase."
The secondary benefit is cost. Pre-purchased packages are negotiated from a position of time, not desperation. The delta between an eleven-month glazing procurement and a four-month panic buy is rarely less than eight percent of package value.
Procurement is the quiet half of owner representation. It produces no photographs and no ceremony — only a house that finishes when it was supposed to.
Ced Williams
Principal · LUCID Construction Management, Atlanta
Next Briefing
The True Cost of Skipping Owner RepresentationBegin with a private consultation.
Available for select preconstruction, consulting, and owner representation engagements across Metro Atlanta.