1. Building Construction Delivery Systems
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Barry D, Strickland, Architect

2. Delivery System Options
Project owners and architects have a wide variety of options for delivering design, construction, and sometimes program management service.
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3. Step One
The owner must provide planning and design services, purchase the goods and services needed to build the project, and ensure effective management throughout.
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4. Step Two
A project team is formed and responsibilities, risks, and rewards for meeting quality, time, and cost goals are determined.
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5. Fundamental Choices
Many delivery options are possible, and no single approach is “best.”
Each option places the major participants in different roles and assigns different responsibilities.
Each allocates risk — reward — in a different way. The choice of delivery approach has legal, ethical, and insurance implications as well.
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6. Selecting Delivery Options
Owners are best advised to employ approaches that respond to their project types, priorities, management capabilities, approach to risk, and desire for involvement in design and construction decisions.
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7. Selecting Delivery Options
Should responsibilities for design and construction be separate or combined?
Who will have responsibilities for design?
When will commitment be made to construction cost — and on what basis?
Who will act as agents and who will act as vendors?
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8. Design Options Owner may provide design services with its own staff.
Contract with an architect, multiple design professionals.
Architect / Construction Manager,
Design / Build entity for design services.
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9. Construction Options
Construction may be accomplished by the owner’s forces.
Contract to a single general contactor or builder.
Contract with series of specialty contactors (perhaps managed by a CM or architect/CM).
Contract with Design/Build entity.
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10. Multiple Prime Construction Contacts
Specialty contractors sometimes prefer to bid directly to, and be paid directly by, the owner.
Major specialty contractors –commonly mechanical, plumbing, and electrical contractors
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11. Disadvantages of Muiti Prime Contracts
The primary disadvantage lies in the absence of a coordinator of the construction work.
This coordination may be assigned to one of the contractors, construction manager, architect / CM or architect.
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12. Design-Award-Build Approaches
For architects — and for many owners — the most common combination produces the design-award-build approach
The owner engages one prime design professional — the architect — for design documentation, bidding / negotiations support, and administration if the contract for construction.
The architect prepares a relatively complete set of contract documents, which serve as the basis for construction bidding or negotiations.
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13. Using this Approach
The persuasive argument for the design-award-build approach is its clarity.
Construction cost commitments are made at the time of bidding or negotiation and are based on full design and documentation.
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14. Design Build Approach
The design - award - build approach isn’t always appropriate.
It requires development of a thorough set of contact documents as a basis for a fixed price.
Many owners see this as a plus; they are unwilling or unable to commit to extensive construction spending with out a set cost.
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15. Design / Build Approaches
The options described so far establish separate contracts for design and construction.
The premise is that design organizations and construction companies are each contracted to do what they do best.
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16. Design / Build Options
An owner may seek “single-point” responsibility for both design and construction, writing one contract with a design / build entity to avoid coordinating the activities of designers and contractors.
Handoffs between design and construction become internal to the designer / builder.
This entity may also be in a position to offer further expanded services, including:
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17. Design / Build Options
Turnkey – The design / build entity provides financing ( and perhaps land acquisition and development ), turning the project over to the owner when construction is completed.
Build – leaseback – The design / build entity retains ownership of the project, easing it back to the client who commissioned it based on terms negotiated at the outset.
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18. Design / Build Options
Build – operate - transfer – The design / build entity retains ownership of the project, operating it according to the client’s requirements, receiving fees from the client during the ownership period, and transferring it to the client at the specified future date.
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19. Design Build Strengths and Weaknesses
The client wishes to be involved in design and to see the design fully developed before construction starts.
The client wants or needs a firm fixed price based on thorough design and documentation before construction begins.
The client seeks the protection of a well-understood delivery process.
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20. Using this Approach
The extra investments in construction management are most often justified in the following situations:
Owner and architect seek construction expertise on the design team and adding a CM is the best, or perhaps only, way to do it.
The CM is added to manage multiple prime fast-tracked construction contracts.
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21. Using this Approach The CM is brought on board early.
The CM recognizes the importance of direct communication between owner and architect—and does not strive to come between the two.
The CM is not seen as a replacement for the architects construction contact administration role.
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22. The Design / Build Entity
A single organization with its own architectural and construction staffs
An organization with its own construction staff that hires the architect as an independent subcontractor
A business firm contacting with both the architect and the builder's as independent subcontractors
A joint venture between an architect and a builder
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23. Construction Management
The past few decades have seen a rise in the use of the construction manager as one way to:
Address questions of constructability, cost, and schedule during design.
Allow the owner to break the construction contracts into many primes, facilitating fast-tracking in order to reduce overall project duration.
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24. CM Roles
During design, the CM typically acts as an advisor to the owner, working with the architect and providing advice on construction technology, constructability, scheduling, markets, and costs.
The CM remains in an advisory role, managing the construction contacts for the owner but assuming no direct financial responsibility for the work.
The CM effectively becomes the construction contractor (CMc), accepting financial responsibility for the work by writing a fixed-price, cost-plus, guaranteed maximum price (GMP) or some other construction contact with the owner.
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25. CM Problems
One of the problems with the multiple prime, fast-tracked projects is cost responsibility and control.
If the owner makes construction cost commitments as the individual bid packages are awarded, the total cost of the project isn’t established until the last contact is written.
In search of an earlier cost commitment, an owner may ask the CM to provide a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) or other form of cost commitment earlier in the project—perhaps at design development or midpoint construction documents.
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26. The Architects / CM
Some architecture firms offer construction management services.
The architect / CM may be a single firm or a joint venture of firms and is most likely to remain in an advisory role during construction.
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27. Basis for Selection
The owner typically selects the design / build entity on the basis of:
A statement of design and technical performance requirements
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28. Advantage of this Agreement
The owner can see several designs, select one, and establish a firm, fixed price very early in the project.
Depending on the owner and project, there may be these disadvantages:
If selection of design / build contactor is based on the price alone, quality may become a variable.
Because the contact is often signed on the basis of something less than fully developed construction documents, there may be disputes concerning what was included or implied by the documents.
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29. Owner Requirements
Within the scope of the project, the three classic design goals are highest quality, lowest cost, and shortest time.
Some clients have fixed budgets, non-negotiable deadlines, or inflexible quality standards.
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30. Fast-Tracking
Strives to reduce overall project time overlapping design and construction.
The number and timing of packages vary.
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31. Disadvantages in Fast-Tracking:
The architect must develop, integrate, and coordinate multiple packages of construction documents
Breaking the project into many individual bid packages may cause design and design coordination problems.
Breaking the project into many individual bid packages adds to the task of on-site construction coordination.
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32. Disadvantages in Fast-Tracking:
There will likely be additional costs in managing the large number of individual construction documents packages and the many prime construction contracts.
The owner must accept one of two risks: (1) beginning construction without a single lump sum price for work or (2) beginning construction with a price commitment based on an incomplete design
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33. Fast -Tracking
A construction manager, if brought onto the building team early enough, may mitigate some of the potential disadvantages of fast-tracking.
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34. It is possible to Fast-Track within most project delivery options.
Combining design and construction, i.e. one entity designs and also constructs the project.
When design and construction are overlapped, the handoffs between them are handled within one organization rather than among many.
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35. Risks and rewards are associated with each of these options.
Fully developed construction documents provide a firm basis for competitive bidding but take time to prepare.
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36. Risks and rewards are associated with each of these options
Making the commitment before documents are fully developed gives the owner and earlier fix on construction cost but creates the possibility of disputes over what the fixed price does and does not include; this may also put some pressure on the owner and the architect to adjust quality to price as the design proceeds.
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37. Relations
From a client relations perspective, different delivery options tent to place the architect in different roles. In design – award - build approaches, the architect is on the job early, has the sole professional contract with the owner, provides design and construction contract administration services, and acts as an agent of the owner throughout.
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38. Relationships
Construction management approaches add another advisor to owner — unless the architect is also the CM — increasing the number of relationships to be managed and the possibility of conflicting goals. Design / build approaches take the architect – of - record out of the role of independent agent; the architect is part of — possibly a subcontractor to — the design / build entity.
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39. Relationships
When a construction manager is added to the project team, additional interaction and, possibly, coordination will be necessary on the architect’s part. The CM approach generally results in more design documentation, meetings, reviews, correspondence, and other project administration. The owner-architect, owner-CM, and owner-contractor agreements must be carefully coordinated to avoid unnecessary duplication or omission of critical services. This approach usually involves more submissions and paperwork, particularly during the construction phase.
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40. Final Analysis
Architects select delivery options as part of their overall service to their clients. Practice management and liability considerations become part of the professional and business decisions being made: which projects to pursue, which delivery options to propose, and what services, compensation, and other contract terms and conditions appear to be most appropriate for the project at hand.
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41. Architect
The architect is responsible for providing the owner with two things, the start of construction, drawings (blueprints) and specifications (specs). In other words, they must detail every aspect of the owner’s wishes everything that is included in them the contractor must provide. Once construction phase has begun, the architect serves as a reference for questions concerning the contract documents, a reviewer of changes and payment applications, and consultant for the owner.
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42. Prime Contractor
The prime contractor is responsible for the completion of contract documents. This includes the construction of the facility exactly in the manner prescribed, as well as doing so in the allotted time frame.
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43. Advantages to Tradition System:
The traditional delivery system in commercial construction is by far the most common, and will likely continue to be so. The reason for this is that is traditional, and the responsibilities of each party are known to and thoroughly understood. This advantage to the owner lies in the single line responsibility, the prime contractor is responsible of the full scope of the contract documents, and no one else.
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44. Competitive Bidding
The owner can select a prime contractor to construct the project on the basis of competitive bidding, negotiation, or some combination of the two.
Two different types of competitive bidding are used in the United States, open and close.
In closed bidding, sometimes used by the private partners, there is no prescribed proposal form, and there are no public openings.
Competitive bidding can also be used where the successful contractor is determined on a basis other than the estimated cost of the construction.
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45. The Negotiated Contract
The forms of negotiated contracts are almost limitless because such agreements can include any provisions mutually agreeable to both parties and that are best suited to the particular work involved.
Most negotiated contracts are of the cost-plus-fee type.
Negotiated competitive bidding is a legal requirement for most public projects except under extraordinary or unusual circumstances.
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46. The Single Prime Contract
Under the single-contract system, the owner awards construction of the entire project to a single prime contractor.
The general contractor is the only party having a contractual relationship with the owner and is fully responsible for the performance of the subcontractors and other parties to the construction contract.
Proper performance of the entire work and remains liable under the contact with the owner for any negligent or faulty performance, including that of the subcontractors.
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47. Separate Prime Contracts
Separate contracts are now widely used to satisfy a number of owner needs and requirements.
Natural division points of the work or subdivision the work into stages or specialty areas can give the owner considerable flexibility in letting the work out to contact.
The use of separate contacts, by breaking the work up into smaller packages, can also result in contacts of shorter duration, the obtaining of highly skilled specialty contactors, and better prices through increased competition.
The use of separate contracts can be very troublesome unless carefully prepared contract documents are used and the work is rigorously planned, scheduled, coordinated, and controlled.
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48. Disadvantages of Traditional Systems
The prime contractor foes not enter the project the contract documents have been completed, and thus are not given the opportunity to review them for constructability. In many cases designers prepare the contract documents without taking into account the cost or the necessary to create the structure, when small changes could substantially costs. This sequential also does not allow for a fast-track construction process, in which construction would begin before the completion of contract documents.
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49. Advantages of Construction Management System
The addition if the construction management serves to correct the disadvantages of the contract documents to be done before their completion. The construction management system relies heavily on teamwork for property execution. The owner, construction manager, and the architect must work during the design phase, and then contractors are added during the construction phase, sometimes making communication difficult.
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50. Responsibilities in Construction Management Systems:
Works as consultant for the owner during design phase reviewing contract documents as they are produced, as well as prepared the contract administration section of the project specifications (front-end). Construction phase the CM works as the representative of the owner, administration contracts, reviewing billings, and manages prime contractors.
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51. Construction Management
There is no universally accepted definition of construction management and, unfortunaly, it is a term that means different things to different people.
There are four different models in which construction management can be apploed to a given project:
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52. Construction Management
The Owner contracts with a construction management from that acts as an agent of the owner.
The CM provides professional management services to the extent required.
The CM does not guarantee project cost or completion date and the owner contracts with the various trade contractors, not the CM.
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53. Construction Management
In this mode, the owner contracts with a CM that plays a broader role in the total process.
the CM not only provides professional services as described in (1) but also plays a more active role in the construction process.
The CM contract directly with the trade contactors, provides construction supervision, provides general conditions construction, and normally establishes a guaranteed maximum price and completion date.
the CM functions more as an independent contractor and serves much like the traditional general contractor.
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54. Summary All Project Personnel:
Need to understand the time & effort required for successfully completing one task.
A quality project with a happy Owner.
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55. Barry D, Strickland, Architect
Thank You
Questions and Comments
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Barry D, Strickland, Architect