A player has gradually established itself in the world of logistics real estate: the AMO or Project Management Assistant. What accounts for this success?
The AMO is advice to the project leader, it is legally unaware, because placed alongside the Project Owner, does not intervene in the act of construction (even if it takes out ten-year liability insurance, his liability may be sought if he steps outside his role), but is gradually becoming essential in logistics real estate operations.
Indeed, the ever-increasing complexity of logistics projects is due to several facts:
- Setting up a real estate operation is the meeting of a need (the user), a project leader who controls land (the developer) and a financier (investor, lessor). But there are many other players: brokers, lawyers and notaries, insurers, local authorities, environmental associations, administrations, archaeologists, process integrators, various experts, etc.
The multiplicity of stakeholders makes communication and coordination between these stakeholders essential for the completion of the project and compliance with the set deadlines.
The AMO is the actor who, through his experience and his mastery of the different aspects of the operation, can interact with all the stakeholders. He must master technique and project management, have legal and financial knowledge, but also have communication skills, listening skills, persuasiveness, and, above all, a global vision.
- The second factor is the very significant tightening of environmental and safety procedures necessary for the development of large logistics platforms: 4-season fauna-flora study, wetland compensation, ISI (fire safety engineering) studies, hydrogeologist advice for major projects . In addition to being very expensive, these studies are long and create uncertainty for project leaders.
The experience of the AMO is necessary to enable the proper sequence of these procedures: he guides his client in his relationship with the numerous experts necessary at this stage of the project.
- Finally, the third fact impacting logistics projects is the increasing automation of user activity. Automated processes create additional constraints on the design of warehouses: reinforced paving, passage of fire walls by conveyors, additional electrical power, etc.
Warehouses developed in white or gray, when the user is not yet known, must be designed to adapt to these constraints.
When the user is known, the real estate developer must integrate into the construction the needs of a process still at the feasibility stage, leading to numerous communication difficulties between the construction teams and the process teams, from radically different cultures.
Once again, the talent of the AMO and its knowledge of logistics processes will enable difficulties to be anticipated and avoid the pitfalls linked to this additional constraint.
In conclusion, the intervention of an AMO, whether it intervenes for an investor, a promoter or a user, provides multi-expertise and the coordination essential to secure the development of ever more complex real estate projects.
His fees generally represent less than 0.5% of the cost of the operation. Small expense for big service!
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