by SEG

Created on: November 25, 2011   Last Updated: December 06, 2011

Integrated Project Delivery: How and why does Integrated Project Delivery work in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction industry?

As the history of science demonstrates, human activities efficiently evolve through collaborative efforts that often begin as exploratory problem solving methods.  Effective results that can be standardized and repeated then become popular, accepted models that are put into general practice.

Our 21st century construction industry’s concept of Integrated Project Delivery is such a model that has evolved through this process.

For hundreds of years the traditional project delivery method has been the Design-Bid-Build (DBB) method, where owners contract separately with the Architect and the Builder, such as a General Contractor.  DBB separates the design phase on one side between the owner and architect and the build phase on the other between the owner and builder.  With this method, the design drawings and fabrication drawings are two seperate phases preceding the build-phase. There is a gap between the abstract process of design (and design drawings) and the pragmatic process of building (and fabrication drawings), and this places the owner in the middle at significant legal risk.

With today’s increasingly complex construction projects and DBB, architects cannot deliver design documents with fabrication accuracy to the Builder to begin with: there is a widening gap between the legal standards for the Builder's construction documents and the Architects and Engineers (AE) professional standards for the documents they are responsible for delivering.  And growing case law burdens the owner with an accuracy warranty regarding builder documents. (Everett L. Herndon 2011)

While competitive bidding with DBB gives the owner the stability of fixed prices from the builder on one hand, the Builder and building service providers are stuck on the other side with the potential burden of design omissions and errors boosting expenses.   With fixed service bids, this can turn into a turbulent everyone-for themselves no-mans-land that squanders time, economic resources and leads to law suits. 

In response to this, the newer Design-Build (DB) method evolved with an experienced Builder managing the complete project.  With DB the architect works for the Builder, taking the owner out of his perilous middle-ground, while the design-phase and the building

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next Page >>