IPD: One team’s
experience

Putting integrated delivery into practice
takes it beyond the realm of the theoretical

BY CINDY GRAHL

A recent presentation at the spring 2010 Construction Owners Association of America showed how IPD could contribute to teamwork. The architect, contractor and a key subcontractor explained how the delivery system was working for them on one specific project, the $30 million, 400,000-sf Community Health Partners (CHP) renovation in Lorain, the first IPD healthcare project in Northeast Ohio. According to Donley’s Don Dreier, executive vice president, concepts such as design/build, lean construction, IPD and other emerging systems all are based on stronger partnerships between all players, leading to maximized efficiencies. The motivation for IPD then becomes autonomy, mastery and purpose. According to COAA stats, says Dreier, some 30% of projects don’t make their schedule or budget, and in 92%, the architectural drawings are not sufficient for construction, showing the need for a better way to do project delivery.
Chris Trotta, AIA, principal at owner Array HFS, said that there is a learning curve with IPD, but that it pulls in the benefit of other models. Through the IPD steps of conceptualization, criteria design, detailed design, implementation documents, agency review buyout, construction and close out, architects, engineers and vendors can work together, as can contractors, subs and fabricators, to develop plans. On the owner side, he adds, executives need input from everyone from operations to IT to get the right information. This particular project used AIA C191 documentation. Array used RFQs to find regional professional services who wanted to work with an IPD model, then conducted team interviews and reference checks to select participants. In this case, retainage was allowed through a $900,000 pool, with portions allowed
at predetermined milestones.
The CHP’s project teams are made up of reps from all parties. The office-based executive team, for instance, includes the owner’s CEO, Donley’s Don Dreier, and the architect, while the project management team, in the field, includes the COO of the health system, the facility director and the project manager. Implementation is handled by the owner’s project manager, project architect, and construction superintendent, who gives input on the contractor viewpoint.
“There are a lot of meetings, a lot of communication flowing, and a lot of transparency across the board, with owners privy to all problems and discoveries up front. We expose every rate and profit target. We validate decisions, and we can address any changes as
a team,” says Trotta.
In some cases, with IPD, the client may hire an owner’s rep as it did not have enough staff to participate at this level. The owner’s rep was also tied into the risk and reward system, a problematic venture.
Compensation depends on performance, and that includes issues such as safety, sustainability, inclusion, phasing strategies that affect the bed status, and patient satisfaction, the latter “as measured by finding solutions to problems we can affect,” says Dreier. Added benefits from IPD: just-in-time estimating, early scope assurance,
fewer RFIs and shorted project close out.
Subcontractor Ken Beck, of Lake Erie Electric, also spoke on IPD benefits. “Too often, we are just asked to bid and execute,” he says. “This is a unique opportunity as it lets us bring our expertise in from the start. If we help in design, we know what we will buy, and the owners know what they will receive.” It’s not just BIM as a 3D design coordinator, it uses the full BIM model as a basis for the project. With BIM and IPD, it was said, the architectural firm does not create a drawing, it creates the building, with all in agreement when the work is competed.
Those also contributing invaluable insight up front include the makers of MRIs and other medical equipment, who knew the technologies that would be available when the building was finished and could speak to particular issues. “Design is not linear,” Beck added, but communication and collaboration like this can ramp down to the detail needed when there are scope changes, unforeseen conditions and issues to resolve. “There are fewer change orders to slow the project, add to costs and cause shortcuts that make you lose pride in the quality of the work you do, which is why you went into this work in the first place,” he said. “Joint investigation and walk-throughs are powerful when they are done as a team.”
IPD also involved commissioning, to make sure systems operate as planned, so owners’ operations staffs benefit from fully developed maintenance schedules allowed through BIM. BXM