2013 Global Construction Survey

In 2013, KPMG interviewed executives from 165 engineering and construction companies around the world, serving a range of markets including energy, power, industrial, healthcare/pharmaceutical, manufacturing, mining, education and government.

Key findings:

1. “66 percent feel that national governments’  infrastructure plans are the single biggest driver of market growth”

2. Slow recovery / growth continuing with “stable or higher margins”

3. “budget deficits and public funding is the biggest barrier to growth”

4. Growth areas: “power and energy top the list by a significant distance, other target sectors include water, rail, mining, and roads and bridges”

5. Standardization is critical to improving “project and risk management”.  “Whenever new people start on a project, they bring with them different processes. To spread good practices,  contractors can increase their use of… ” cost estimating and …. “project management software and step up training…. consolidate project delivery, and tighten
all leakages as much as possible.”

6. “Become a strategic partner to clients’ businesses By working more closely with clients from all sectors….”

via http://www.4Clicks.com – Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software solutions for JOC, SABER, IDIQ, MATOC, SATOC, MACC, POCA, BOA, BOS … featuring an exclusively enhanced 400,000 line item RSMeans Cost Database, visual estimating/automatic quantity take off ( QTO),  and collaborative contract/project/document management, all in one application.   Our technology is currently serving over 85% of United States Air Force bases and rapidly growing numbers of other DOD and non-DOD (United States Army Corps of Engineers,  Army, GSA, Homeland Security, VA..) federal departments/agencies, as well as state/county/local governments, colleges/universities, healthcare,  and airports/transportation.  RSMeans Strategic Partner.

 

 

NRC Thoughts on the DOD and Sustainability – Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructure

(Source:  UMass Amherst)

“New recommendations by a National Research Council (NRC) expert panel on green and sustainable building performance could lead to a revolution in building science by creating the first large building performance database”  – Paul Fisette, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

NRC panel members were asked to consider whether nearly 500,000 structures owned by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) worldwide are being operated as sustainably and as efficiently as possible according to a number of green building standards, including Green Globes, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).   After a  nine-month assessment of energy efficiency, water use and many other sustainability factors at about 300,000 of the DOD facilities, one of their top recommendations is that the department should start metering such variables as energy and water use, to collect information on how different facilities perform in many different environments.

What is lacking in building science has been this consistent set of data, really large samples over time.

One of the things learned from this study is that the Defense Department is the perfect organization to be able to provide  ongoing data.   The DOD is  a “single” owner of a lot of property and they have control over how it’s operated, along with costs, uses and standards.

The DOD has the opportunity to continue to take a leadership role in improving the knowledge base about high-performance buildings, improving decision-support tools and improving building models by collecting data on measured energy, water and other resource use for its portfolio of buildings and by collaborating with others.

Central to any sustainability effort, however, is the ability to execute the numerous associated renovation, repair, and minor new construction projects.   Proven collaborative, transparent, and productive construction delivery methods such as Job Order Contracting, JOC, are an important component of success.

Via:  http://www.4Clicks.com – Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software and service for JOC, SABER, IDIQ, SATOC, MATOC, MACC, POCA, BOA, BOS…, featuring an exclusively enhanced 400,000 RSMeans Cost Database with modifiers and full descriptions, and integrated visual estimating, QTO, contract management, project management, and document management… all in one application.

Energy-Efficiency Standards and Green Building Certification Systems Used by the Department of Defense for Military Construction and Major Renovations -2103

Efficient project delivery methods such as JOC, Job Order Contracting, and SABER are an important element in the renovation, repair and sustainability of facilities.

The incremental costs to design and construct high-performance or green buildings typically range from zero to eight percent higher (0 to 8%) than the costs to design and construct conventional buildings.

The additional incremental costs to design and construct high-performance or green buildings are relatively small when compared to total life-cycle costs.

Effective operation of high-performance buildings requires well-trained facilities managers.

 

Finding 1: The committee did not identify any research studies that conducted a traditional benefit-cost analysis to determine the long-term net present value savings, return on investment, or long-term payback related to the use of ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010, ASHRAE Standard 189.1-2011, and the LEED or Green Globes green building certification systems.

 

Finding 2: There is some limited evidence to indicate that provisions within ASHRAE Standard 189.1-2011 may need to be selectively adopted if use of this standard is to be cost effective in the DOD operating environment.

 

Finding 3. Research studies indicate that the incremental costs to design and construct high-performance or green buildings typically range from 0 to 8 percent higher than the costs to design and construct conventional buildings, depending on the methodology used in the study and the type of building analyzed. The additional incremental costs to design and construct high-performance or green buildings are relatively small when compared to total life-cycle costs.

 

Finding 5: The evidence from the literature search indicates that high-performance or green buildings can result in significant reductions in energy use and water use. The cost savings associated with the reductions in energy and water use will vary by geographic region, by climate zone, and by building type.

 

Finding 6: Not every individual high-performance or green building achieved energy or water savings when compared to similar conventional buildings.

 

Finding 9. Effective operation of high-performance buildings requires well-trained facilities managers.

 

Recommended Approach 1. Continue to require that new buildings or major renovations be designed to achieve a LEED-Silver or equivalent rating in order to meet the multiple objectives embedded in laws and mandates related to high-performance buildings.

 

Recommended Approach 3. Put policies and resources in place to measure the actual performance of the Department of Defense’s high-performance, green, and conventional buildings to meet multiple objectives.

Source: Energy-Efficiency Standards and Green Building Certification Systems Used by the Department of Defense for Military Construction and Major Renovations, NRC

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Sustainability of DOD Buildings – Reuse of Existing Buildings

Reusing existing buildings achieves a 15%+ higher return on investment and 20% reduction in greenhouse gases.   It is less  costly and more sustainable to reuse existing buildings.

With 345,000 buildings, with over 105,000 buildings more than 50 years old, the importance of efficient renovation, repair, and sustainability of existing buildings is paramount.

DoD Building Treatment Terms
•“Adaptive reuse & rehabilitation” are terms of art outside DoD
•The DoD term for “major rehabilitation” is “modernization”
•Modernization means: “the alteration or replacement of facilities solely to implement new or higher standards to accommodate new functions or to replace a building component that typically lasts more than 50 years.”
•This study compares the costs and GHG of modernization with new construction

Sustainment/Status Quo
•Formulated for measuring baseline energy consumption
Demolition and New Construction
•LEED Silver certifiable construction – 2009 LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations
Full Modernization with Strict Application of Historic Preservation Standards (HPS)
•Full modernization with a strict application of Historic Preservation Standards ( HPS) and other DoD facility design standards
•LEED Silver
Full Modernization with Strict Application of AT/FP
•Full rehabilitation/modernization but with strict application of Anti-terrorism/ Force Protection requirements through building hardening, seismic and other DoD facility design standards
•LEED Silver

Applicable design standards include:

• Whole Building Design
• UFC 1-200-01 General Building Requirements
• UFC 4-610-01 Administrative Facilities
• UFC 1-900-01 Selection of Methods for the Reduction, Reuse and Recycling of Demolition Waste
• UFC 3-310-04 Seismic Design for Buildings
• DoD Minimum Antiterrorism Force Protection Standards for Buildings
• Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings

Findings

• DoD’s Pre-War masonry buildings are an underutilized resource for meeting DoD GHG carbon reduction goals
• ATFP and Progressive Collapse requirements tend to be rigidly and prescriptively applied, raising construction costs and introducing additional Scope 3 GHG emissions
• Prior modernization treatments result in loss of original energy saving design features in Pre-War Buildings
• Differences in GHG in alternatives resulted from the amount of new building materials introduced and transportation of demolition debris
• Cost estimates and construction bid requests should include materials quantities in addition to costs to evaluate and validate GHG impacts.
• Design professionals with practical experience with archaic building materials and systems are critical to the development of accurate planning level specifications
• GHG emission tradeoffs of proposed new materials and building options should be evaluated early in the conceptual design process

Recommendations

• Incorporate life-cycle GHG emissions analysis into DoD MILCON and SRM programs
• Invest in formulation of carbon calculator system
• Place more emphasis on existing buildings as viable project alternatives to meet mission requirements
• Identify characteristic strengths and vulnerabilities by class of building
  Place more emphasis on existing buildings to meet DoD energy reduction goals
• Avoid modernization treatments that result in loss of original energy saving design features in Pre-War Buildings

Efficient project delivery methods are of critical importance to the task of sustainability and life-cycle management of the built environment.   Job Order Contracting ( JOC ), and SABER are proven project delivery methods for renovation, repair, sustainability, and minor new construction.  JOC and SABER are a form of Integrated Project Delivery for existing buildings and infrastructure.

JOC and SABER provide the following advantages to building portfolio Owners:

•Fast and timely delivery of projects.

•Consolidation of procurement – lower overhead cost and procurement cost.

•Contractor and owner efficiencies in prosecution of the work.  Development of a partner relationship based on work performance.

•Virtual elimination of legal disputes, claims and mitigation of change orders.

•Standard pricing and specification utilizing a published unit price book (UPB), typcially RSMeans-based, resulting in efficient and effective estimating, design, and fixed price construction.

A bit more about JOC –

1. “IPD Lite” for Existing Buildings.
2. Consolidates procurement to shorten Project Timelines and reduce procurement costs.
3. Transparency of pricing and procurement compliance through Unit Price Book.  Owner creates internal estimating (IGE)
4. Long Term Facility Relationship increases productivity and enables reiterative process improvements.
5. Quality and performance incentivized through IDIQ form of contract with minimal guarantee and clear maximum volume.

via.www.4Clicks.com – Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software and services for JOC, SABER, SATOC, IDIQ, MATOC, MACC, POCA, and BOA.  Featurings:

• Exclusive 400,000 line item enhancement of RSMeans Cost Data
• Automated Technical Evaluations
• Contract, Project, Estimating, Document Management
• Visual Estimating

Legal and Policy Framework
•National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 ( Amended)
•Energy Policy Act of 2005
•Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
•Executive Order 13423: Federal Environment, Energy, and Transportation Management (2007)
•Executive Order 13514: Federal Leadership in Environment, Energy, Economic Performance (2009)

Is Cloud Computing More Important than BIM?

Is focus upon the 3D component of BIM an unfortunate distraction?

BIM, Building Information Modeling is the ability to create a dynamic information model of the built environment (above and below ground, inside and out, horizontal and vertical physical infrastructure) for use in all real property related activities:  concept,  rapid prototyping, planning, design, engineering, construction, physical and functional condition monitoring and management, financing, capital reinvestment, insurance, facility management, renovation, repair, sustainability, utilization, leasing, valuation, procurement, sale and decommissioning  with appropriate shared, secure, and collaborative information access and use.

The advent of Cloud Computing, combined with the cost to capture, store, and process information  falling to near zero,  is enabling new capabilities for secure, real-time collaboration.

The altered world landscape relative to the built environment is upon us all.  In addition to technology changes that are altering the ways we interact and conduct business on fundamental basis, there are economic and environmental imperatives.   All of which lead to the AECOO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations and Owner) sector and its stakeholdings needing to collaborate to achieve better, quicker outcome,  at less cost,  and with less risk.

Key challenges to BIM in terms of its true potential, the life-cycle management of the built environment, include:

– The development of uniform standard process, terminology, and technology environments for the new BIG DATA world , encompassing  all  ‘built environment related knowledge domains, competencies, and activities.   

– Clear organization and classifications of information and associated access  rights and rights to use, enabling appropriate, uniform basis intra and international use.

– Workflow-based  Cloud-computing services environments, and plug-ins that are vs.  monolithic traditional software frameworks which are web enabled via virtual server, or even traditional 3-tier web applications such as .NET.   4-tier applications are needed with the ability to link and reuse  information in any manner  relative  to identity/location, building, area, floor, room, occupancy, use, physical and functional conditions,  standardized and actual costs (material, equipment, and labor), et al… – to provide common ‘highly secure’  models for short and long term decision support.

– The acceptance and increased use of collaborative construction delivery methods such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Job Order Contracting (JOC).  The latter a form of IPD specifically targeting facility renovation, repair, sustainability, and minor new construction projects.

–  AUTHENTICATION, ACCESS CONTROL, COLLABORATION, AND STANDARDS …  4Clicks Solutions is about to release a powerful new Cloud Computing solution called CEASEL. It focuses upon transparent construction cost estimating and efficient project delivery.  Each user to controls their own ‘domain’ and access policies (ie ‘who’ can access ‘what’ data, ‘when’ and ‘how’ ). Data in NEVER deleted and  ALL user access and activities are tracked.. .the best form of security.    “Data independency” and  appropriate access for all asset owners, managers, and service providers is supported.   Project development time is reduced because users don’t need to create an identity store and access control system for each project, and projects, estimates, etc. can easily be updated and re-used.

New authentication methods or new kinds of user credentials can be adopted by upgrading just the authentication service.  Associated contracts,  projects, and estimates don’t need to be re-coded.  Changes to access control policy can be made quicker and more easily because it is consolidated in the one place. 

Dedicated and focused security service leads to better overall security – compared with each organization having a part-time resource for security management. 

Security improvements benefit all projects at the same time. 

Less time and effort is devoted to security administration as administrators only need to understand and use one security framework rather than a different one for each project.

Errors are reduced because there is no duplication of identity data and access control policy.A unified view of identity and access control policy is achieved for each user, without breaching the security of other users.

Simplified , auditing and reporting.

If you are interesting in being a pilot user of this new capability, please contact me directly.

 

LEED Abandoned by DOD?

In the recent past, all new DOD construction projects were required to meet the LEED Silver or an equivalent standard and/or to comply with the five principles of High Performance Sustainable Buildings. This year a new construction code for high-performance, sustainable buildings, is expected that will govern all new construction, major renovations and leased space acquisition. This new code, based heavily on ASHRAE 189.1, will accelerate DoD’s move toward efficient, sustainable facilities that cost less to own and operate, leave a smaller environmental footprint and improve employee productivity.

Testimony by  Dr. Dorothy Robyn Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment) before the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies on March 7, 2012 to present the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 budget request for the Department of Defense programs to support installations, facility energy and the
environment covered four topics:

international and domestic basing, including the Department’s request for authorization of two new rounds of Base Realignment and Closure;

management of the built environment, including the programs that support military construction,
family housing,  sustainment and recapitalization;

strategy for managing facility energy to reduce costs and improve installation energy security;

and  management of the natural environment, including the programs that support environmental conservation and restoration, environmental technology and compatible development.

Relative to LEED it is important to note that  Congress has established a requirement to report  the return on investment from using consensus standards such as ASHRAE 189.1.  This is important to note as with more than 300,000 buildings and 2.2 billion square feet of building space, the DoD has a physical infrastructure footprint three times that of Wal-Mart and six times that of GSA.  The DOD’s  energy bill is approximately $4 billion annually—roughly 10 percent of what DoD spends to maintain its installation infrastructure ($40 billion).  Additionally facility energy represents nearly 40 percent of DOD greenhouse gas emissions.

Full Testimony

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DOD Sustainability Scorecard – from OMB

The DoD earned 3 out of 7 red lights on its OMB scorecard for failure to sufficiently reduce energy intensity and fleet petroleum use and to green more of its buildings.

Plan to change those red lights to green: 

Energy intensity: The agency achieved an 11.2% reduction on a goal of 15%. Going forward, the $24 billion Military Construction and Facilities Sustainment, Restoration and Modernization budget will be used to fund programs to reduce facility energy use. 

Petroleum: DoD reduced non-tactical vehicle petroleum use by 6.6% on a target of 10%. Future plans include more alternative fuel vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. 

Green buildings: Fewer than 5% of DoD’s buildings greater than 5,000 gsf meet the Guiding Principles for buildings. To improve, DoD will mandate that all new construction and renovations comply with the Guiding Principles and meet LEED Silver standards, with a particular emphasis on energy and water efficiency. DoD will also work to improve reporting systems.

DoD scored a home run on reducing potable water intensity, reducing by 13% from 2007 to 2010 on a target of 6%. Most of the reduction came from an aggressive leak detection and repair program. The agency also got green lights for submitting the GHG inventory for Scopes 1-3. Finally, DoD got a yellow light for falling short of the mandate to increase use of renewable energy as a percent of facility electricity use.

Final-Jan-2011-OMB-Scorecard-DOD-public-version-4-14-11

via 4Clicks – Premier software provider for efficient construction delivery methods, cost estimating, and project management – JOC, SABER, IPD, SATOC, MATOC, MACC, IDIQ, POCA, BOA …. and referenced from CEIL.

4D, 5D BIM can learn a lot from JOC – Job Order Contracting

The destiny of BIM is life-cycle facility management.  When this will happen is anyone’s guess.

In the interim, BIMers and FMers can learn a lot from JOC – Job Order Contracting.  JOC is arguably the best construction project delivery method for facility renovation, repair, and sustainability.

It is efficient (projects take far less time to scope, bid, and start), performance-based (contractors that deliver quality on time and on budge are rewarded with additional work), collaborative (long term, open relationships are the norm), and transparent (reference cost databases and/or custom cost guides are used along with associated standardized templates, reporting methods, etc.)

JOC shares the benefits of IPD (integrated project delivery) however, has a proven 25 years track record of success.

In a time when the economy and global warming force a new focus upon existing buildings and efficiency…. JOC can delivery today.

For these reasons that JOC adoption is rapidly accelerating in government, institution, and private sectors. .. and why BIM can learn from JOC.

4Clicks.JOC.BluePaper June 2010

Creating a Job Order Contract RFPJOC Trust Partnering Relationships

Thinking Outside the Box

Job Order Contracting and LEED

Creating a Job Order Contract RFP