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Dave Crumrine, P.E., PMP; Dave Los; Lowell Dykstra; and Jeremy Oliver
October 2005, Design-Build DATELINE

How would you like to accelerate your project? How about reducing the risks of those troublesome field conflicts and the related costs? Maybe even getting everyone on the same page in those tight areas everyone knows about but nobody really wants to talk about?

Design-build provides fertile ground for this important effort. Doing it well can help our clients get better projects, more innovative projects, faster projects, and, by improving productivity, more cost effective projects.

You say “sure, but can I afford it?” “Can this really work?” The answer is, yes it can. And at a fraction of the overall costs required to correct such conflicts after the fact in the traditional way.

It just happens that with design-build project delivery, unlike traditional project delivery, the benefits of eliminating or reducing these costs go to the same party.

One problem with traditional project delivery is that it punishes quality preplanning. Engineering fees are low and usually fixed. The more detailed the drawings, the more coordination, the more questions, the more effort (and hours). It’s a geometric curve in the wrong direction. And why? There is no tangible benefit for the engineer/designer—just headaches and rising costs and, ultimately, less profits.

Design-Build
In comes design-build—a project delivery system that rewards extra planning and collaboration. The goals of the builder and the designer are aligned within a time frame that makes it all possible. Planning pays off later in fewer field hours through improved productivity (read carefully, the big $$$).

The designer can benefit from helping the constructor. The constructor has a partner who is willing and able to put extra effort into the design and coordination and guess what? Nobody cares about his Brooks Act fee limit (typically six percent for design work). Detailed coordination drawings have never been technically impossible to complete. However, they have been unlikely because of the conventional way projects have been designed and constructed.

The traditional system has not allowed for compensating the designer to do coordination early nor has it allowed the time for it to be done well by the constructor later in the project cycle. Additionally, contractors under traditional project delivery have found it difficult to get adequately compensation for conflicts.

A recent study on MEP coordination in the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management(August 2005) indicates that contractors don’t recover 80 percent of costs of field interferences and that those costs grow geometrically the later in the building process they are discovered.

DBIA’s own document #309 Selecting Specialty Contractors lists multiple quantitative benefits to doing early specialty contractor selection and collaboration. A clear differentiator between average projects and excellent projects is early involvement by key specialty contractors.

This article promotes the use of detailed coordination drawings in 3DCAD as a high-leverage tool to drive improved coordination among engineers, constructors, owners, and subcontractors. This coordination, done well and early, enables innovation by allowing more prefabrication, standardization, and process improvement in project construction. It’s an opportunity that the AEC industry desperately needs.

Background
With projects accelerating and clients needing projects faster and faster with no time cushion, more extensive planning and coordination makes more sense than ever. Some of the improvement yields lower costs, but the benefits don’t stop there. Better coordination can improve a project’s quality, the team’s delivery speed and their cooperation. When everyone is working off the same well thought out playbook, things go better.

Our firm has just begun to use 3DCAD. For many years, 2D CAD was enough and met the standards our clients expected. As an electrical design-builder, our needs were simple and intended to meet the industry status quo. We weren’t a large multi-national and, frankly, the investment in training and software for the anticipated payback just wasn’t there for 3D. Generally we required only basic layout drawings showing our work schematically.

Then came our need to prefabricate. The industrial market was pushing us competitively and with challenging jobs. Prefabrication allowed us more optimization and the ability to do more work with less field resources. This drove the need to bridge the ideas that our planning teams were developing into our prefabrication facility. By utilizing 3DCAD we were able to do more, and better, prefabrication. Additionally, our people were able to better visualize what was going to happen and they became more effective in the field putting it in.

As an industrial electrical contractor, the early challenges were some complex conduit racks that had to be “right” when they arrived on the site. Project schedules simply would not allow a great deal of rework. We looked to 3D CAD and experimented. It worked nicely. There was a learning curve, but the benefits were obvious. We soon noticed our field managers wanted to look at the models and improve them once they could see the arrangement and get different views of the model.

Suddenly it was OK to try some things before it was built. The first solution that worked didn’t have to be the solution we used. We were able to look at multiple solutions and pick the best one. We could now optimize a layout rather than just use the first one that worked.

As our prefab volume increased, we realized that the need to get the prefab designed and into the shop forced earlier planning and required earlier information. Teams weren’t waiting for the drawings to be delivered to them. They were part of creating the plan.

Serious constructability dialog was occurring, and occurring in an efficient manner during the design process, not after round one design was over. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Trade a significant number of skilled labor field hours for some designer hours collaborating with field leaders and wow … big improvements in project delivery.

In our case the next step came early. We were involved in a shutdown project to upgrade part of a steel rolling line. The client was under substantial time and economic pressure as the existing line was successful but the improvement would help them do much more. They could not afford for the line to be down as long as previous projects had demanded.

The client’s business need was now driving the project goals. This was a chance to really help a customer at their business by using our engineering and construction skills to solve a real-life business challenge.

The client requested that the shutdown be reduced from 42 days to 21days. Some additional time would be available for planning and pull ahead work, but the schedule was now half of what we had ever attempted on similar efforts. At this decision point, some of our 3D design was already done. We were actively coordinating with other trades to verify our elevations and positioning. There were a significant number of other trades that would be involved in the project.

The project required the shoring and excavation of a 40 by 40 by 15 foot deep hole as well as the forming, reinforcing, and pouring of the foundations. Installing piping, electrical, and other services would follow closely, and then backfill and slab concrete would be done. A huge amount of “stuff” had to fit into this small hole and there would not be time to do things twice.

As the larger coordination effort began, the client and Interstates recognized the potential for using the existing 3D electrical model for coordination of other trades. The client agreed to provide some additional resources to ensure the modeling could continue under a wider scope.

As expected, not every trade endorsed this method, as it was new and had not been previously done on this client’s projects. The expected pressure and additional risk of the shortened shutdown provided the catalyst for the team to use the tool and spend time together doing quality coordination. No one wanted to be the trade that “messed it up” with poor coordination when the client was supporting the team approach.

As coordination progressed, several of the trades participated with 2Ddrawings overlaid on the electrical3D model. If a potential conflict needed more examination, that element could be added in the 3Dmodel. This way, resistance by the other trades was reduced while still allowing visualization by the whole team and good end results.

After a series of coordination efforts, manufacturing of the prefabricated components began. Rack components were manufactured and sent to the site in several large pieces. During the shutdown, about 2,000 feet of highly fabricated rigid conduit was installed in a matter of hours with a small crew. Only a fraction of the field man-hours planned for conventional installation was used.

In this particular shutdown, the electrical prefabrication went so well it allowed the project to overcome some early slippage and get back on track. The other trades followed suit and the shutdown went “better than any other shutdown” the client had ever done. Many of the trades saw that coordination was the source of this success. Their deeper understanding of coordination issues helped resolve other small problems that emerged during the shutdown.

Enablers
This challenging project ended as an unqualified success for the whole project delivery team. Why did this project go well when others that look nearly the same don’t? Here are a few key “enablers:”

1. Planning time was available and well used (early effort is key).
2. The client realized the value of detailed coordination and encouraged it with additional resources.
3. When less time was available for the shutdown, the team revised the schedule to include more planning time, effort, and pull headwork.
4. The team was open to doing things differently because team members understood the additional pressure and risk.
5. The client was clear about his needs and objectives. He provided flexibility where he could (delaying the shutdown) and was clear where he needed additional performance (reduced shutdown time). He used the team that was going to do the construction work to help make the decisions.
6. The client (acting as his own CM) set the tone that planning and coordination was needed and sponsored the 3D coordination effort.

Beyon the Example
Now that we have looked at an example of a detailed coordination effort making an impact, let us look a little deeper. Many of the opportunities for detailed coordination have always been available to our industry. But under design-build, the barriers to using these methods and tools are reduced, providing fertile ground for the opportunity to really impact projects. Let’s take a look at what is at stake.

Why do it? The Results and the Reasons Behind Them

• Quality
  A project that has had been coordinated in detail will have more quality. Simply “winging it” when it comes to tight areas and physical conflicts on projects leads to poor tradeoffs like low headroom, compromises on clearances, poor maintainability, rework, and other quality issues. Intensive coordination also allows for prefabrication and modularization. These techniques mean even more quality is built into a project at a lower cost because the work can be performed in a controlled shop environment.
  
  
• Safety
  Coordination efforts allow labor-intensive specialty trades to work together well. During the coordination effort, the best sequence of installation is often determined. Often trades that are well coordinated physically can avoid working together in tight areas. Sharing supports and hangers is common. This avoids field labor and stacking of trades, one of the most hazardous and unproductive situations on a construction project.
  
  
• Productivity
  One of the biggest drivers of a coordination effort is productivity. With specialty trades expending 40 to 70percent of their costs in labor, they are driven to control what happens on the project. This labor is highly variable based on field conditions and management.
  
  It is not uncommon for productivity to swing 50 or even 100percent between two similar “physical projects” due to significantly different management on the projects. Site management drives sequencing, scheduling, information flow, problem solving, and a myriad of other issues unrelated to the plan on paper. A project is a living, breathing, dynamic system that is sensitive to what happens every day and how it is controlled.
  
  Coordination allows specialty trades to remove some of this variability and remove the obstacles in front of their field teams. Coordination can also improve productivity through the ability to prefabricate and modularize, as mentioned above.
  
  By more reliably knowing the details of how the project will be constructed, specialty contractors can innovate with less risk. This benefits them (through less risk and potentially more profits), the client (through time and cost savings), others on the site (through less safety risk and more reliable layouts), and the industry in general.
  
  
• Speed of Delivery
  It may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that spending more time on coordination can reduce overall project delivery time, but it can and does. As many of you in the industry have heard before, a day is a day. It’s the same 24 hours. It is the only resource on the planet that cannot be replaced. Whether one engineer is checking drawings or 400 craft professionals are working around the clock constructing the project, it is the same 24 hours.
  
  In comes design-build. It provides the unique opportunity to shorten projects by getting the whole team involved earlier and to use those early and important “days” more wisely and by more of the project team. A construction driven schedule is essential for the full project to succeed and more likely when the constructor is part of the team from the beginning.
  
  By being part of the collaboration, he can be part of the decision making on what is a good tradeoff between design time and construction time. In the traditional system there is little incentive for the designer to expedite his work. His risk goes up, his reward does not change. Other than a frustrated customer (who has grown accustomed to slightly late engineering), the penalty is small. All that is required to make it “right” is to compress the remaining proposal response, award, and construction time.
  
  Simply put, this method is unproductive for our industry. To overcome it, we must acknowledge it is still happening. The assumption is that this does not increase project costs. The reality is that it does but the architect, engineer, and owner in the traditional system are not aware of it because it affects all proposers equally and is written into the proposals they receive.
  
  Not until there is a severe budget shortfall does anyone realize that premiums for less time and more risk were priced into the proposals. As a specialty contractor, I will be quite open and frank. Schedule is considered as a specific issue on every project on which we propose and the price is adjusted accordingly.
  
  For a specialty contractor, time really is money and the time to adequately plan and coordinate makes a big difference in a contractor’s risk and therefore pricing. Achievement of the owner’s goals of reduced project duration as well as contractor needs for detailed coordination can be accomplished under design-build.

Why is this a Larger Opportunity with Design-Build Than Other Project Delivery Methods?

• Self Interest and Alignment of Goals within the Team
  Specialty design-builders have a vested interest in finding and solving coordination problems ahead of time, instead of waiting and sending in change orders during the project. It is financially wise for them to invest in the coordination when they have the opportunity.
  
  In traditional systems, how it is controlled. Coordination allows specialty trades to remove some of this variability and remove the obstacles in front of their field teams. Coordination can also improve productivity through the ability to prefabricate and modularize, as mentioned above. By more reliably knowing the details of how the project will be constructed, specialty contractors can innovate with less risk.
  
  This benefits them (through less risk and potentially more profits), the client (through time and cost savings), others on the site (through less safety risk and more reliable layouts), and the industry in general.
  
  
• Speed of Delivery
  It may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that spending more time on coordination can reduce overall project delivery time, but it can and does. As many of you in the industry have heard before, a day is a day. It’s the same 24 hours. It is the only resource on the planet that cannot be replaced. Whether one engineer is checking drawings or 400 craft professionals are working around the clock constructing the project, it is the same 24 hours.
  
  In comes design-build. It provides the unique opportunity to shorten projects by getting the whole team involved earlier and to use those early and important “days” more wisely and by more of the project team. A construction driven schedule is essential for the full project to succeed and more likely when the constructor is part of the team from the beginning.
  
  By being part of the collaboration, he can be part of the decision making on what is a good tradeoff between design time and construction time. In the traditional system there is little incentive for the designer to expedite his work. His risk goes up, his reward does not change. Other than a frustrated customer (who has grown accustomed to slightly late engineering), the penalty is small. All that is required to make it “right” is to compress the remaining proposal response, award, and construction time.
  
  Simply put, this method is unproductive for our industry. To overcome it, we must acknowledge it is still happening. The assumption is that this does not increase project costs. The reality is that it does but the architect, engineer, and owner in the traditional system are not aware of it because it affects all proposers equally and is written into the proposals they receive.
  
  Not until there is a severe budget shortfall does anyone realize that premiums for less time and more risk were priced into the proposals. As a specialty contractor, I will be quite open and frank. Schedule is considered as a specific issue on every project on which we propose and the price is adjusted accordingly.
  
  For a specialty contractor, time really is money and the time to adequately plan and coordinate makes a big difference in a contractor’s risk and therefore pricing. Achievement of the owner’s goals of reduced project duration as well as contractor needs for detailed coordination can be accomplished under design-build.
  
  
• Timing
  Constructors using the design-build method have the opportunity for early involvement to resolve the issues and aren’t held off until the bidding period to review the plan. At that point, there is usually not enough time to research or resolve coordination issues. After bidding and at the award, there is often no significant time to plan. The constructor mobilizes quickly as the project “has to get started.”
  
  
• Communication. The expectation in “handing off” information in traditional project delivery is unrealistic. It continues to amaze me that our industry expects someone (whether estimator or constructor) to open up a set of plans someone else has been working to develop for two to three months and instantly understand every nuance about them.
  
  Any student of communication will tell you that it simply is not possible. Yet our industry has continued to operate in this fashion and expects quality results. By integrating constructor input and involvement in the design process, project results can be enhanced.

What are the Barriers to Doing this Type of Detailed Coordination in Design-Build?

• The lead design-builder may have a different or uninformed perspective on the uncertainty in the field. He may not recognize what the specialty trades have at risk and how that could affect the overall project.
  
  Often the specialty trades have 40 to 75percent of their project costs infield labor. This significantly increases their risk on the site. Because this information may not be widely understood, detailed coordination could be viewed as not needed or a significant change by the lead design builder.
  
  
• Timely decision making. Planning requires information. Because design-build encourages fast tracking, information flow and decision making are often a challenging part of design-build projects. Sometimes the team may have to make tradeoffs and assumptions to keep the process moving. Early coordination efforts will add to information and decision making pressure. This pressure and dialog leads to a better project — just be ready!

Detailed Coordination
How to do detailed coordination when you have the design-build opportunity (the critical steps):

• Start Early
  Have a plan and set the stage for all participants early. Every day that goes by before collaborating is a lost day. Be a driver. If you aren’t the lead for the project, push the leader for an opportunity to work with the other trades. If the primary lead won’t sponsor the effort, organize your own effort with the other key trades. If you are the lead, set the stage early by getting people together and communicating. Set the tone.
  
  
  
• Get the members of the project team who will be doing the field execution committed and involved early. These are the folks who need to make it happen in the field. They aren’t stand-ins or the managers of the field leaders. Ask that the project field leaders and project managers be assigned early. This is not always welcome as these are very valuable people usually out on other projects.
  
  There will be resistance. Don’t underestimate this barrier in other organizations (or your own). The reason this principle works is that these people have a vested interest in getting it right. They are making commitments with which they will have to live. This is very different than the “office” coordinating work with which they won’t have to live.
  
  
• Establish a Leader for the Process
  Make sure the person leading the effort has the appropriate sponsorship of the lead design-builder. Every important effort in a project needs a leader. Coordination definitely requires this. Someone needs to lead the effort, set the tone, and keep the poker playing to a minimum. Real coordination takes real communication and good facilitation skills.
  
  
• Establish a Timeline and Process
  Every organization and individual participant must know what to expect and be able to commit appropriate resources. Just like construction, efforts like these require a plan and timeline that everyone can work around and drive toward.
  
  The team will have other projects and other demands to consider. Since the process is most successful with regular meetings, travel plans area reality that must be addressed. Regular non-travel communication (conference calls, videoconferences) can fill in communication gaps but are not a substitute for quality coordination workshops.
  
  
• Set Baselines Early
  To be successful, some technical details must be determined early. Make sure you talk about and agree to the teams’ CAD technology, reference points, and baseline geometry and measurements. In addition, have some basic communication protocols for how drawings and other information will be shared.
  
  
• Accountability
  Ask, and expect, the leader to hold all the team members accountable for their deliverables and the results. To make all this happen, the effort must operate in a true team environment with a leader. Team members must be accountable to the team for providing the information and deliverables for others to do their work. The leader must be empowered to hold individual team members accountable.

Intensive coordination is a step up from the status quo in the AEC industry. It is a step our industry really must make and practitioners of design-build must leverage. Design-build provides fertile ground for this important effort. Doing it well can help our clients get better projects, more innovative projects, faster projects, and, by improving productivity, more cost effective projects. As a collaborative effort, it will allow specialty contractors more influence on their destiny and ultimately make our entire industry healthier.

How will you drive great specialty trade coordination on your next project?

For images, please view the .pdf version of this article.

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