Integrated Project Delivery
Technology provides the foundation for a more collaborative project model.
What is it about a recession that makes collaboration look so appealing? That’s not to say that collaboration is looked at negatively during strong market conditions; it’s just the fact that when the economy is strong and jobs are moving forward, it’s difficult for many AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) professionals to make certain technological transitions that are necessary to streamline the collaborative process.
Conversely, a declining economy changes the landscape. With fewer jobs on the docket, and even less in the pipeline, companies are thrust into a situation where they need to squeeze every ounce of efficiency they can out of current practices. For many, though, this requires a new way of working, both internally and even externally with partners.
Throughout the past two decades, in particular, tougher conditions have generally accelerated the pace of technology adoption. One needs to look no further than the 1980s. Some would argue that it was during this time that slower market conditions spurred the transition from paper-based planning to CAD (computer-aided design) for many professionals in this industry.
Fast forward 20 years. Facing some of the toughest economic conditions in history, stakeholders in construction are once again looking for new ways to innovate. And for some, this means revisiting the age-old topic of collaboration. Only this time, rather than engaging in traditional means for collaboration, firms are instead looking at a new form of project delivery method called IPD (integrated project delivery). Then again, is IPD that new of a concept?
OLD IS NEW
Due to the evolving nature of IPD, a standard definition does not yet apply. So we turn to Chuck Thomsen, FAIA, FCMAA (fellow, American Institute of Architects/fellow, Construction Management Assn. of America) to provide a framework. Considered by many to be a visionary in the AEC industry, Thomsen founded one of the first professional construction management companies and was chairman of 3D/Intl. until its merger with Parsons Co., www.parsons.com, Pasadena, Calif. Currently consulting with owners who are putting together building programs, Thomsen is in the process of publishing a white paper on IPD and offers up this definition:
“Integrated project delivery is an approach to agreements and processes for design and construction, conceived to accommodate the intense intellectual collaboration that 21st century complex buildings require.
“The inspiring vision of IPD is that of a seamless project team, not portioned by economic self interest of contractual silos of responsibility, but a collection of companies with a mutual responsibility to help one another meet an owner’s goals. To support that vision, AEs, CMs, (architects/engineers, construction managers) and their lawyers are crafting management processes and contract terms intended to align the interests of the key project team with the project mission, increase efficiency, reduce waste, and make better buildings.”
The main crux of IPD is around the idea of assembling all parties involved on a project as early as possible—ideally during schematic design—to provide a collective expertise to the development of a project before anything is designed. To incentivize parties, shared risk/shared reward contracts are established upfront with an understanding that all parties are working together for the good of the project.
Organizations like the AIA (American Institute of Architects), www.aia.org, Washington, D.C., and the AGC (Associated General Contractors of America), www.agc.org, Arlington, Va., have established initial contract offerings around IPD, but neither set of documents is considered to be a universal standard agreement for establishing IPD.
Due to this lack of standards it is hard to accurately gauge the number of projects being completed that fall under the label of IPD. However, Thomsen says IPD projects can be characterized by eight common themes: a legal relationship; a management committee; an incentive pool; a no-blame working environment; design assistance; collaboration software; lean construction; and integrated leadership (see chart).
“There is no technical reason why we cannot produce integrated drawings. And there is no technical reason why we cannot build virtually before we build physically,” says Thomsen. “The only thing that’s standing in the way is this traditional contracting structure where everybody has these independent bodies and liability and insurance and traditional risk management policies.”
Michael Tardif joined Grunley Construction, www.grunley.com, Rockville, Md., in October 2008 with the task of helping the company—which conducts a majority of its business for the federal government—transition to an IPD environment.
Tardif calls IPD “a radical reordering of business relationships,” the principal philosophical difference being that more traditional forms of project delivery typically establish adversarial relationships between contractors and design professionals, whereas IPD creates an environment of shared-risk/shared-reward for all principal project parties.
“Shared risk/shared reward means that if a problem comes up on a project, the focus of the team is on finding a solution rather than assigning blame for the problem,” says Tardif. “So it instantly eliminates a lot of ‘defensive documentation’ and changes the focus of the parties from protecting themselves to solving problems and getting the project done.”
He estimates that as little as two years ago he would have encountered either resistance or concern from people regarding IPD, due to some lack of awareness or understanding. Now, however, he sees a great deal of enthusiasm for and a strong desire to learn about how to make IPD work—and he often wonders what factors have caused such a change.
“Back before anyone had a computer there was nothing about the tools that would have prevented them from working in an IPD environment,” says Tardif. “But I have found myself wondering why now for IPD? Why did it take so long for us to figure this out?”
ENABLING ROLE
Sam Neider, director and co-founder, Proactive Controls Group, Pittsburgh, Pa., prefaces his statements with an understanding that IPD is not predicated on the use of technology. That being said, he believes the practical ability to carry out IPD can be difficult without the use of technology, particularly applications associated with BIM (building information modeling).
“The idea of IPD idea is great, but the practicality of it is dependent upon tools that allow people to have information at their fingertips and can help create a focal point for the team,” he says. “BIM is the tool that is enabling much decision making to happen much earlier in the process, thus enabling IPD to actually happen. So rather than having to only let the architect be involved as the design evolves, everyone can see (the design) and offer their expertise because there is a focal point for a real accurate information that can be in the hands of all the players very early in the process.”
Tardif underscores the important “enabling role” BIM plays in making IPD possible. There is nothing about traditional technologies that precludes parties from working in a highly collaborative IPD environment, Tardif notes. But even the most collaborative business partners would spend a great deal of time and effort “agreeing that what you see is what you see” in conventional drawings. “What BIM does,” says Tardif, “is to make project information so clear that the facts of the project are immediately apparent to everyone, so the parties can spend their ‘collaboration time’ making value-added decisions more quickly and with greater confidence.”
Technology that makes information explicit increases the value of time spent sitting around the same table—literally. “When you hear case studies of IPD teams working in a BIM environment, one of the essential components is co-location of the project team—all of the principal players, empowered to make decisions on the spot, all in the same room,” adds Tardif. “I think anyone can use BIM successfully, independently, but to get the highest value out of it you need to use it in a collaborative IPD environment with business partners.
“Firms that are most successful with BIM are the ones that look carefully at their business model and choose BIM technologies that enable them to enhance their core expertise, but always with an eye toward collaborating with other business partners. These firms are able to move ahead with their BIM deployments independently, but are always ready when business partners come along.”
Mark Sawyer, president and CEO, Vico Software, www.vicosoftware.com, Boulder, Colo., believes BIM can help bring everyone together on the same page early on in the process.
“I think the whole concept of what is being called BIM fits into (the IPD) delivery system beautifully,” says Sawyer. “At the end of the day what we are all excited about is that teams want to behave differently and the systems are being efficient to support that new behavior.”
John Moebes, director of construction, Crate&Barrel, www.crateandbarrel.com, Northbrook, Ill., sees IPD as a natural progression that occurs from investing in BIM-related technologies—a progression that has occurred within the company in recent years.
“When we started working with structural engineers, they were reticent to adopt BIM,” says Moebes. “We then started working with fabricators and found out there is a lot of value working with them on the model. We realized that if we brought them in earlier in a design-assist role, they can do the model rather than the structural engineer. That is technology driven—it solves interoperability issues, and it gets the fabricator’s model to coordinate faster.
From there Moebes began seeing other benefits, like structural fabricators helping structural engineers come up with a cheaper structure. He says, “We have had such good results working directly with the fabricators that we actually want them to weigh in on who we pick as the structural engineer. This creates an interesting dynamic.”
It essentially became a situation where this integrated team process that started via technology ended up having positive benefits for other areas of the projects.
“The technology is compelling us to rethink not only how we work from a documents perspective but also how we start working as a team, challenging us to rethink certain sacred cows, if you will, in our decision-making process that we never thought about before.”
Beyond BIM, other technologies play an important role in the IPD process. For example, Grunley Construction will soon be implementing Newforma Project Center, from Newforma, www.newforma.com, Manchester, N.H. Tardif describes the tool as an information management tool. He says, “Project management tools are designed to manage the workflow of a project, while Newforma is designed to manage information enterprise-wide. It indexes all electronic information and is capable of doing a full-text search of any type of document or file, including text in CAD files and drawings published from building information models. The indexing/search functionality obviates the need for hierarchy in information storage so that anything that exists in an organization’s server environment can be found and retrieved very quickly.”
Newforma integrates with Microsoft Outlook, allowing users to extract emails and any attachments from the Microsoft Exchange Server and save them to the company’s data server, where they can be indexed and searched like any other data file. This makes information that is all too often buried in personal email inboxes available to the entire project team.
Jon Antevy, co-founder and CEO, e-Builder, www.e-builder.net, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., outlines how structured workflow plays a role.
“Let’s say the contractor estimates a dollar amount that an RFI might cost. And if it’s over $10,000, one of our rules in the structured workflow says if it’s over $10,000 to notify the owner right away. If it’s over $60,000 send it to another level; and if they don’t respond within three days, automatically send it to five other people; and of those five level managers, if three of them approve it, but the other two are undecided, the majority rules. And it moves to the next step and then all the while as those numbers are being modified throughout the process, that guesstimate of $10,000 becomes $50,000, for example, and is automatically entered into the cost module.”
As decisions are being made, through a highly structured process, it automatically gets put into the proper exposures in the cost category, instantly affecting the schedule. But, as Antevy warns, the information still needs to be documented correctly, and that remains one of the biggest challenges with using such software systems on a construction project.
Meridian Systems, www.meridiansystems.com, Folsom, Calif., recently partnered with Horizontal LLC, www.horizontal-llc.com, New York, N.Y, where the Web-based Horizontal Glue Server enables bi-directional flow between the BIM model and project management. According to the companies, construction data can be authored within a model and the data instantly populates Meridian’s Prolog or Proliance products. When models are modified, the associated budget, costs, and effect on the project’s bottomline can be managed within Meridian’s technology.
At the core of IPD is the ability to have all data that affects a project stored in one unified database.
“That is the fundamental goal of what we have been advocating right from the beginning—an integrated approach with a single source of info across the entire project delivery,” says Gord Rawlins, president, CMiC, www.cmic.ca, Toronto, Ont. “We see IPD as a powerful movement—and one that is all about efficiency for the entire industry. Every industry works on improving efficiency—and construction has notoriously had
dysfunctional project delivery mechanisms. We definitely facilitate IPD with our technology and have been advocating that for a long time.”
While advancements in technology throughout the past decade have certainly played a significant role in pushing IPD more to the mainstream, some would argue that changing market conditions are playing an equal role. Slower economic times mean companies need to find new ways to lower the risk factor on projects—and that may be the most appealing factor of IPD for the near term.
“BIM allows the reduction of risk through better information throughout the process. So when you look at a project, not only are you gaining efficiencies via clash detection, coordination, scheduling, etc., you are also reducing owner’s risk of exposure for schedule and budget overruns, for claims, etc. Looking at the current economy, owners that would put down big dollars to do a project are no longer doing so. So what will help convince them to do so? You need to convince them there is a much better risk scenario out there and that is what BIM (and IPD) is delivering,”says Neider. •