IPD: Bringing it together

New delivery systems are prolonging the
design process and adding more partners

BY CINDY GRAHL

A new step in the evolution of project delivery is integrated project delivery, the continuing quest to bring more partners together earlier to the planning table to produce buildings faster, more affordably and to higher standards, while sharing the risks and rewards this entails. The idea of such teamwork is not new, says Chuck Thomsen, FAIA, FCMAA, a consultant with owners including the Architect of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Defense, Disney, the Harvard teaching hospitals and others. He spoke at a recent meeting in Cleveland of the Construction Owners Association of America.
Most buildings today, says Thomsen, are built by serial builders who are owner/developers, those used to the building process, be they healthcare facilities, retail stores, office buildings, or school systems, with a few one-offs such as museums or churches.
A structures and societal inputs get more complex, more and more people get involved in this collaborative team, with the owner, architect and contractors now being joined by consultants in everything from sustainability to traffic patterns to graphics. And as building materials and furnishings become more involved, in-depth information is needed from the manufacturers. Communities are demanding more and more attention be given to local issues, agencies and design committees abound, and end-users gain input as well, as nurses test surgical suite mockups and teachers classrooms.
“The very model of construction is changing,” says Thomsen. “It is now a highly complex network, including subs and suppliers, who can contribute to construction.” He mentions the technologies of products, like glass, that used to be commodities, and the global marketplace that has made purchasing more complex. “The idea is how to get the brain power dropped into the project delivery system at the right time,” he says. Thus began the idea of partnership on the project.

Partnering
The first construction partnership oath, says Thomsen, was that of Brunelleschi during the building of the Duomo in Florence in 1427. It read, in part, to “forgive injuries, lay down all hatred, entirely free themselves of any faction and bias, and to attend only to the good and the honor and the greatness of the Republic, forgetting all offences…”
Work processes differ between the design and the construction factions, with design being “decision intensive and iterative with no limit to the effort that can be spent on refinement,” while construction is “production-intensive with defined needs for the resources of labor and materials. It is linear and sequential and can be managed logically.”
A step toward tying together those two opposites and achieving understanding is integrated project delivery, which includes as components integrated contract terms, integrated leadership, integrated information and integrated processes. In all cases, client leadership is key.
Integrated contract terms move beyond design/bid/build, which built the industry, says Thomsen, and construction manager at risk, which was developed to allow for emerging technical knowledge to be put to use in construction, to include options such as multi-party contracts, joint ventures or LLCs, with jointly developed goals and a shared pool for profits, incentives and contingencies, with constraints on litigation including mediation and arbitration. AEs and GCs under this structure have contractual obligations to each other.
Integrated leadership takes owner engagement and complete transparency, with the core team members having a significant stake in the outcome. There is a collaborative selection process, consensus decisions and separate committees for executive decisions and for operations. Collaboration is the key here, says Thomsen, and top management has to be working together on both ends, from the “pull scheduling” of the design assist team to the “push scheduling” of the field coordination team, with an emphasis on together.
Integrated incentives include cost, schedule and quality goals, which are absolute and relative, and subjective and objective, but most of all clearly defined. Profits, contingencies and awards fees give incentives, but the biggest of all is getting repeat work, the carrot, from these serial builders.
Integrated information includes building information modeling on the building and materials side, and program management information systems, PMIS, on the process side. BIM is sexy and fun, says Thomsen, PMIS is not; it is for people who find accounting too thrilling. Here is where technology reigns, with central web-based databases to keep information real time and accessible and dashboards that measure performance and keep track of goals. A new role is emerging, he adds, that of the integration manager, to bring these two elements together.
Integrated processes help to maintain competitive pricing, help manage the shift from the
traditional, select subs who have the right capability to help with design and define the appropriate Design Assist strategy. Here, continuous improvement is the name of the game, overcoming a decline of productivity seen in the construction industry, according to the Department of Commerce.
While manufacturing has seen vast productivity improvements, enough to lower the workforce while raising production, construction fieldwork has not. It is recognized that general contractors need labor redundancy to assure quality and expertise on the site. However, integrating the supply chain by getting subs and suppliers more involved up front would serve to create efficiencies of supply and process that would be akin to the productivity leap between a roadside tire change vs. that of a pit crew. “Manufacturers’ knowledge is essential,” he says.
IPD, concludes Thomsen, can be more cost competitive and less expensive than more traditional modes by bringing in services earlier and adding transparency. BXM