Analysis of Federal Design-Build Request for Proposal Evaluation Criteria

This study’s objective is to identify the benefits federal owners are seeking through the design-build process by analysis of research data gathered from 110 requests for proposal (RFP) evaluation plans issued for $1.5 billion of federal work by 11 different agencies. The output from this study was then compared to a 1996 study whose authors sought to analyze the reasons cited by owners to use design-build project delivery. That study included a survey of 108 owners of public and private projects, which represented over $12.5 billion of construction. The goal of comparing the 1996 survey with the results of the new research project is to discover correlations between owner attitudes and the selection criteria identified in government RFPs. The comparison produced some interesting results. First, although owners in 1996 cited schedule as the most significant reason for selecting design-build delivery, the federal RFP content analysis found it to carry a very low average weight. Another finding shows that federal RFPs give price a very heavy weight in the government selection processes, again differing significantly from the previous survey of owner attitudes. Finally, the current study found that the qualifications of the firms and individuals that formed the design-build team were significantly more important than the proposed technical design approach. Thus, this paper concludes that the typical federal agency was looking for a low price from a well-qualified design-build team.     

Communicating Design Quality Requirements for Public Sector Design/Build Projects

This paper reports the results of a research study focused on how public sector owners articulated the requirements for design quality management in design/build (DB) projects. The research used the content analysis of 75 DB requests for proposals located in 35 states with an aggregate contract value of over $700 million with the mean price per project at roughly $15 million. The projects came from seven federal agencies as well as several state agencies. It found public owners are not availing themselves of the opportunity to evaluate design-builder design quality management plans and are primarily relying on the qualifications evaluation process to ensure design quality requirements will be met. Additionally, virtually all of the public owners in the sample neglected to require constructability reviews as a design quality management requirement in spite of the published benefits of this type of review. Finally, the paper concludes this area is one where a great deal of improvement for practitioners remains and the reason for a lack of focus on design quality in DB projects is due to a failure to shift the owner’s procurement culture from traditional project delivery to DB.     

Alternative Delivery Approaches for Military Medical Construction Projects

Military medical construction projects take more than 10 years to complete, from the time the need for a new facility is identified until the building actually opens for occupancy. This time is often extended even further due to complications during the design and construction process. Furthermore, these projects often are completed well over their original budget. Although there are many reasons for this exorbitant amount of time and many causes for the budgetary problems, one of the major factors is the reliance on the traditional methods of a lump-sum contract and the design∕bid∕build project delivery approach. The writers illustrate how the use of alternative project delivery methods (specifically construction management and design∕build) can reduce the amount of time it takes to design and build a new military medical facility, as well as reduce the overall cost of the project. The advantages offered by these alternative delivery methods are set forth, and their applicability within the federal procurement process is discussed. Several recommendations are then given for using these methods for the design and construction of military medical facilities.     

Master Builder Project Delivery System and Designer Construction Knowledge

The master builder system for designing and building construction projects was the dominant project delivery system in the construction industry during the early part of the 20th century. Master builders were generally charged with both design and construction services for a project. During the last half of the 20th century, many different systems for project delivery with fragmented responsibilities have replaced the master builder system. Reducing the use of the master builder system has led to the creation of elaborate systems for managing projects in the construction industry. In order to investigate the use of the master builder delivery system and other systems, a research project was conducted that included reviewing (1) the history of the construction industry, (2) project delivery systems, (3) constructability issues, (4) construction industry fragmentation, (5) the results of a survey of architecture, engineering, and construction professionals from the San Francisco Bay Area in California on the current processes they use for training engineers and architects, (6) an analysis of the survey results, (7) construction industry recommendations, and (8) conclusions based on the survey results and analysis. The information obtained from the research project, including the survey and an analysis of the results, is included in this document. The results of the research indicate that reduction in the use of the master builder project delivery system and the rise of numerous fragmented delivery systems have limited the designer’s knowledge of construction processes.     

Design/Build for Water/Wastewater Facilities: State of the Industry Survey and Three Case Studies

Documented successes of innovative delivery methods and recent changes in procurement laws are enabling water and wastewater utility owners to use alternative delivery methods for the construction of new facilities and the expansion of existing facilities. This shift toward alternative project delivery systems, such as design/build, has resulted in demand for additional guidance for owners and practitioners. This paper provides the results of an industrywide survey and three in-depth case studies. The survey results indicate large-scale growth in the use of design/build project delivery for water and wastewater facilities throughout the United States. The findings from the case studies indicate that common practices exist with regard to selecting a delivery system, contracting, allocating risk, evaluating proposals, determining the level of design in the request for proposals, using consultants, establishing trust, identifying key players, and permitting. These results serve as best practices for owners and practitioners using design/build delivery for the first time.     

Project Manager’s Decision Aid for a Radical Project Cycle Reduction

Currently there are no formal decision tools or guidelines to assist owners and project managers in choosing delivery systems and project strategies that would allow significant reductions in the project cycle time. The development of a decision aid that would allow a project manager to prioritize and apply project cycle reduction techniques would be a valuable tool for achieving project cycle time reduction in projects. This paper presents a new high performance project delivery system called “project manager’s game planner” (PMGP) designed to assist a decision maker in identifying and utilizing an optimal set of radical reduction techniques (RRTs) with the greatest potential for success in achieving cycle time reduction. Additionally, the PMGP can assist the user in identifying the top RRTs during any of the five project phases: preproject planning, design, material management, construction, and start-up. Most projects can utilize this PMGP to improve the project performance whether to achieve significant cycle time reduction or to simply achieve effective project execution.     

Effect of Delivery Methods on Design Performance in Multifamily Housing Projects

Existing studies on the performance evaluation by the delivery method generally indicate that the design build (DB) method is superior to the design-bid-build (DBB) method in terms of construction duration, cost, and quality. As opposed to the performance of construction duration and cost, where quantitative evaluation is relatively possible, most performance evaluations of quality are based on interviews with the owners. Therefore, this paper aimed at evaluating the level of design performance to conduct a quantitative evaluation on the performance of quality. To achieve this goal, this paper analyzed the impact of delivery methods on design performance in terms of the quantitative evaluation based on the case studies analyzing construction drawings and specifications of public multifamily housing projects delivered through the DB and DBB methods since 2000. The Delphi and analytic hierarchy process methods were used to develop objective standards and contents for evaluating the design performance. An analysis of variance test was conducted to analyze which delivery methods would have an effect on the design performance. Construction industry practitioners can use the results of this study in selecting a delivery method appropriate to the project characteristics.     

Toward a New Paradigm: Simultaneous Use of Multiple Project Delivery Methods

Since World War II, the American Strategy for infrastructure procurement has evolved to rely primarily upon a single delivery method, design∕bid∕build. While this strategy was used to implement massive federal investment in highways, transit systems, and wastewater treatment, it has restricted state and local flexibility in aligning the procurement process to achieve best value for locally funded projects. The engineering, procurement, and construction community in the United States has now recognized the limitations of a procurement process designed to support a single delivery method. Change is coming, and the transition to a new process will challenge public owners in novel, but meaningful ways. This paper focuses upon shifting from the current paradigm toward a new model that supports simultaneous use of multiple project delivery methods. The discussion and frameworks provided are the result of a variety of research efforts by the Infrastructure Systems Development Research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Studies of the history of American Infrastructure, analyses of case studies across the country, development of decision support models for capital programming, and real applications to municipal infrastructure planning provide the underpinnings for the results and conclusions presented.     

Analysis of Owner’s Design and Construction Quality Management Approaches in Design/Build Projects

This paper explores and classifies current approaches to evaluating quality in design/build (DB) proposals. It does so by a thorough content analysis of 78 requests for proposal (RFPs) for public DB projects with an aggregate contract value of over $3.0 billion advertised between 1997 and 2002. In most DB projects, the owner requires the DB contractor to establish a firm-fixed price on a project that has not yet been designed. Usually, the owner also fixes the project delivery period. In the traditional design/bid/build (DBB) system, quality is fixed through the plans and specifications. Thus, in DBB, with schedule and quality fixed, the cost of construction is the factor in which the owner seeks competition. Conversely, in DB, with cost and schedule fixed, the scope and hence the level of quality is the main element of competition. This paper identifies the six owner approaches to articulating DB quality requirements in their RFPs. The six approaches are quality by qualifications, evaluated program, specified program, performance criteria, specification, and warranty. These are important for DB contractors to understand so that they can craft their proposal in a manner that is both responsive to the owners’ requirements and consistent with the owner’s system to make the best value contract award decision.     

Comparison of U.S. Project Delivery Systems

Construction management at risk, design∕build and design∕bid∕build are three principal project delivery systems used in the United States today. This paper empirically compares cost, schedule, and quality performance of these three project delivery systems, using project-specific data collected from 351 U.S. building projects. The study included collecting, checking, and validating industry data, significance testing of univariate comparisons and the statistical development of multivariate linear regression models for predicting average project performance. A nonresponse study verified statistically that collected data were appropriate for analysis and representative of the industry from which they were drawn. Significance testing and multivariate comparisons used nearly 100 explanatory and interacting variables to explain project cost, schedule, and quality performance. Specific comparisons between project delivery systems, performance metrics, and six facility classes are discussed. Results and the level of confidence that surrounds each finding are presented.     

Predicting Performance of Design-Build and Design-Bid-Build Projects

Design-build (DB) and design-bid-build (DBB) are two principal project delivery systems used in many countries. This paper reports on models constructed to predict performance of DB and DBB projects on 11 areas, using project-specific data collected from 87 building projects. The study included collecting, checking, and validating industry data, and the statistical development of multivariate linear regression models for predicting project performance. Robust models are developed to predict construction and delivery speeds of DB and DBB projects. Gross floor area of the project is the most significant factor affecting speed. Besides this, for DBB projects, contractors’ design ability, and adequacy of plant and equipment would ensure speedy completion of the projects. For DB projects, if the contract period is allowed to vary during tender evaluation, this would slow down the project. Robust models to predict turnover and system quality of DB projects are also constructed. A DB contractor’s track record is an important variable. They must have completed past projects to acceptable quality and have ability in financial, health and safety management.     

Comparative Analysis of Project Delivery Systems Cost Performance in Pacific Northwest Public Schools

Alternative project delivery systems such as construction management at risk (CMR) are increasingly used in public school construction in the United States. CMR is expected to benefit owners with a guaranteed maximum price (GMP), decreased change order cost, and increased cost “certainty.” This paper empirically compares cost growth performance of the CMR and design-bid-build (DBB) methods in Pacific Northwest public school projects. Data were collected from state records and previous studies on 297 completed schools in Oregon and Washington. The analysis of the data shows no statistically significant difference between CMR and DBB in construction change order costs, school project costs exceeding the GMP in 75% of the cases, and a statistically significant difference in cost growth between CMR and DBB projects during buy out, making CMR projects less efficient at controlling cost growth at buy out. These results counter some of the traditional expectations of the CMR delivery method.     

Evaluation of Risk Factors Leading to Cost Overrun in Delivery of Highway Construction Projects

Accurate owner budget estimates are critical to the initial decision-to-build process for highway construction projects. However, transportation projects have historically experienced significant construction cost overruns from the time the decision to build has been taken by the owner. This paper addresses the problem of why highway projects overrun their predicted costs. It identifies the owner risk variables that contribute to significant cost overrun and then uses factor analysis, expert elicitation, and the nominal group technique to establish groups of importance ranked owner risks. Stepwise multivariate regression analysis is also used to investigate any correlation of the percentage of cost overrun with risks, together with attributes such as highway project type, indexed cost, geographic location, and project delivery method. The research results indicate a correlation between the reciprocal of project budget size and percentage cost overrun. This can be useful for owners in determining more realistic decision-to-build highway budget estimates by taking into account the economies of scale associated with larger projects.     

Analysis of Techniques Leading to Radical Reduction in Project Cycle Time

Today’s construction business relies on first-to-market product strategies to gain competitive advantages and increase profit margins. This has created an increased demand for a high performance capital project delivery system that can achieve a dramatic reduction in project cycle time. Very few decision tools and guidelines exist to assist owners in choosing appropriate delivery systems and project strategies to radically reduce the project cycle time from the preplanning stage through start up. The research presented in this paper surveyed the construction owners and architectural/engineering/construction firms to identify projects that have achieved greater than 25% reduction in overall project cycle time when compared to current industry standards. The data collected were analyzed to determine the techniques that facilitate radical reduction in project cycle time. These techniques include, best practices and schedule reduction techniques as well as the various management techniques employed on the projects identified by the Construction Industry Institute (CII). This research also identified the barriers to radical schedule reduction. The research concludes that radical schedule reduction well in excess of 25% can be achieved through the selective employment of management techniques, schedule reduction techniques and CII best practices. Almost every construction manager can utilize this research to improve project performance whether for radical reduction or simply more effective execution.     

Sources of Changes in Design–Build Contracts for a Governmental Owner

In recent years, many U.S. federal, state, and local governments have been authorized to use the design–build method of project delivery instead of the traditional design–bid–build method. Recent studies have not been definitive on the cost advantage of design–build for governmental owners. There are fewer change orders in design–build due to design errors because the designer (architect/engineer) and contractor are one entity, but there are other causes of change orders. Some literature suggests that changes requested by the owner of the facility are greater with the design–build method. This research examines the causes for construction-phase changes in 14 design–build and 20 design–bid–build projects. Total changes, expressed as number per contract, cost per contract, or percentage of original contract, were significantly lower in design–build. Fewer design errors in design–build accounted for this advantage. The number of owner-requested changes was significantly greater in design–build. The cost of owner-requested changes, averaged over all the projects, was significantly less for design–bid–build. The differences in changes due to differing site conditions were not significant. The concept that there are more owner-requested changes in design–build projects is supported by this research.     

Design Engineers' Responsibilities During Construction

A dilemma can face design engineers if they have to choose between their perceived and actual responsibilities during construction of the project they designed. This dilemma can be particularly significant for specialized underground construction involving soild‐structure interaction. Such construction represents unique and unusual situations in which design, inspection, and construction functions cannot be separated. Two cases in which specialized construction quality control was not provided by the designer of subsurface structures are reviewed. In both cases defective construction was later discovered and the projects were abandoned. The design engineer is placed at risk when the owner does not agree to engage a knowledgeable specialist for quality control of the construction work. The engineer should identify in writing the risks the owner is electing to accept by contracting for a lower level of quality control than, in the engineer's judgment, is less than prudent for the project.     

Design Error Classification, Causation, and Prevention in Construction Engineering

Construction and engineering practitioners have found it increasingly difficult to learn from their mistakes, particularly with regard to the prevention, identification and/or containment of design errors. Yet, design errors have been the root cause of numerous catastrophic accidents that have resulted in the death and injury of workers and members of the public. This paper examines and classifies the nature of error and design error causation in construction and engineering projects. A review of the normative literature revealed that design errors are caused by an array of factors that can work interdependently. A generic framework is developed that classifies design error according to people, the organization, and project is presented. The paper suggests that people, over and above organizational and project management strategies, have the greatest propensity to reduce errors through the process of situated learning and knowing. This is because the working environment provided by an organization and the processes used to deliver construction and engineering projects influence the nature and ability of people to undertake tasks. Consequently, there is no single but rather a multitude of strategies that need to be adopted in congruence to reduce design errors so that safety and project performance are ameliorated.     

Impact of Green Building Design and Construction on Worker Safety and Health

Sustainable, or “green,” rating systems, such as the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), are leading to changes in the way owners, designers, and contractors approach the design, construction, and operation of buildings. The processes and features included in green design and construction may have positive and/or negative impacts on construction worker safety and health. This paper presents the findings of a research study of the impact of green building design and construction practices on construction worker safety and health. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable and lost time injury and illness data from green projects (as identified by LEED) and from nongreen projects was collected through a structured questionnaire survey. The data collected was analyzed to test for the presence of a difference in OSHA recordable incident rates (RIRs) and lost time case rates (LTCRs) between green and nongreen projects. It was found that there was suggestive, but inconclusive evidence of a statistically significant difference in the RIRs of the green and nongreen building projects included in the study. No statistically significant difference was found between the LTCRs for the green and nongreen projects included in the study. The study findings provide valuable information to the construction industry for the purposes of project safety planning and the assessment of safety and health on projects.