Tag: dbb

What is the Single Most Disruptive Force in Construction? and why BIM won’t solve it.

Published on by pcholakis1 Comment

Simple answer…  an industry-wide lack of collaboration, transparency, and shared risk/reward.

Change however is possible IF and ONLY IF Owners, Contractors, and AE’s take the time to understand and implement collaborative construction delivery methods correctly.   Job Order Contracting (for renovation, repair, sustainability, and minor new construction projects) and Integrated Project Delivery (for major new construction), are examples of readily available, proven solutions to the construction sectors lack of productivity and legacy of legal disputes.

Fundamental change in how construction industry players perform business must occur.  That said, not everyone will be able to, or wish to, participate.   Excellence in both education and execution are requirements for the transition.

JOC and IPD share the following characteristics:

– Parties that understand and “buy-in” to the processes (not everyone will be up for the task)
– Robust, well-organized cost data (enhanced RSMeans line item cost data with full material, labor, material, and equipment breakdown, supplemented as needed for localized requirements, see http://www.4Clicks.com)
– Shared risk-reward
– Supporting software to assure consistency and reduce deployment costs

Design-Bid-Build, DBB and even Design-Build, DB can’t resolve our industry’s problems. We MUST change.

“Many/most projects are currently done with low bidders, ill prepared, with parties being dragged through the project just to try to get the work done with some reasonable quality. People’s actions are driven in two ways, reward or punishment. There is too much punishment and not enough reward. How many jobs have liquidated damages for delays but how many have you seen that gives a reward for finishing on time or early? We all know that construction is a “risk” business the question is how much risk are we willing to accept for little reward? The issue is achieving and “all for one and one for all” mentality.””  – quoted from a Linked-In discussion

BIM is supposed to be the “life-cycle management of the built environment supported by digital technology”.  Unfortunately, far too much emphasis is being spend on 3D visualization and low level technical “mumbo jumbo”, vs. defining core processes, a robust onology/glossary, and associated sharing of rich information.

Learn or Retire?

Why DBB – Design Bid Build is Dead – Or Should Be!

Published on by pcholakis1 Comment
Facilities ” Sustainability ”  must be viewed from two perspectives simultaneously – environmental and economic.
In higher education, just as an example, colleges and universities need to change there ” facilities business model” just to survive.   Colleges and universities must  reduce their carbon footprint to deal with global climate change, however, they also need to address total cost of ownership to survive financially.
Second to personnel/labor costs, facilities represent the second largest operating expenditure for this sector… and many, if not most, others.

To deal with facility renovation, repair, and sustainability an alternative to design-bid-build (DBB)  is required.

DBB is inefficient,  too costly and too slow and is not performance-based, nor does it encourage collaboration or quality.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the building, not just construction costs including renovation, repair costs,  and associated modifications have to be factored over the next 10-20 years at a minimum, as well as life-time operations costs.

While IPD and BIM offer the promise of collaboration among owners, constractors and AE’s to a plan construct, or modify a building that meets long-term needs; otherwise not possible with design-bid-build; JOC / Job Order Contracting is a proven method deployable today for facility repair, renovation, and sustainability construction project that meets all criteria for collaborative, quality, time shortening, an a performance-based approach.

With a supporting software technology, the JOC process can be consistently deployed and critical domain information relative to project costing and management retained for future use.

Furthermore, from a “green” sustainability perspective, there isn’t a single larger (multi-building) portfolio owner that can meet future energy reduction requirement via new “LEED” or similar building alone.

Existing building retrofit will be the key, and JOC is well suited to the task of associated shell, HVAC, lighting, and other energy related projects.

BIM will certainly play a role, especially as 4D, 5D BIM becomes are reality.  That said, however, an efficient CONSTRUCTION DELIVERY METHOD MUST be integrated with any BIM strategy.  Again… JOC meets the performance requirements.

With 66% of facility owners primarly using  DBB / use design-bid-build yet only 23% believing it offers the best value, the accelerating adoption of JOC isn’t surprising.

It’s time for ALL facility owners to be rid of the status quo…. and bury DBB.
DBB,  RIP.
By Estimators For Estimators