While the relationship enjoyed between the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) has been one of mutual benefit to both organizations, the real beneficiaries have been project owners throughout the United States. We believe that the real opportunity for productivity growth in the US design and construction industry rests in new project delivery methods, improved collaboration between all disciplines involved in projects, and an embracing of the expertise of every specialty contractor engaged in a project during the design phase of a project. Design-build project delivery certainly presents a context in which that can occur.
The interest of our industry in design-build project delivery was initially driven by observing the transformation in project delivery methods that took place in the UK during the early 1990s. Our sister organization, The British Construction Steelwork Association (BCSA), reported to us that a significant realignment of the role of structural steel fabricators was occurring. No longer were their members being considered as subcontractor steel fabricators on projects but were now referred to as Steelwork Contractors assuming a greater role in both the design and fabrication of the structural steel frame. The result of this transformation was a significant reduction in project cost and acceleration of project schedules through the tight collaboration between designer and steelwork contractor. Today the majority of projects in the UK are utilizing a delivery structure where the steelwork contractor assumes responsibility for both the design and fabrication of the project’s structural framing system with the structural engineer working directly for the steelwork contractor.
This form of design-build delivery of the structural frame of a building project harmonizes well with delivery of the entire project on a design-build basis. In 2001, AISC and DBIA entered into a cooperative agreement to exchange information and training resources as a means of exploring how the structural steel industry could achieve a higher level of integration into collaborative project delivery. That collaboration has resulted in a greater level of fabricator involvement on project teams and has improved the performance of the structural steel industry. It is my belief that it has increased our productivity and has directly benefited numerous project owners, providing them with excellent projects.
The utilization of the unique knowledge that a structural steel fabricator brings to a project is occurring under a variety of names. Often it is referred to as simply “early involvement,” at other times it falls under the title of “design-assist” or in some cases the fabricator is involved from day one as a full member of a design-build project team. But in all cases the principal is the same — the ability of the structural steel fabricator to convey information that brings value to the project increases dramatically the earlier the fabricator is involved in the project. The fabricator (and perhaps we should rechristen ourselves Structural Steel Specialty Contractors) brings knowledge of material availability, the relative cost implications of different design approaches, shop efficiencies, fabrication cost versus material cost trade-offs, erection coordination, and overall project management that are lost if the fabricator is not engaged until after the final design is complete. Perhaps our greatest current frustration in this area comes with design-build projects that fail to integrate specialty contractors into the project team and still hard bid these critical project segments. To follow this approach robs the project owner of the true benefits of design-build.
The structural steel industry is also very involved in the encouragement of the transition to Building Information Modeling (BIM) and we see it as another means of encouraging early collaboration between all of the disciplines engaged on a project. Today many of our fabricator members are prepared to detail, manage and fabricate projects directly utilizing information developed in the design model and contained in a neutral database file (CIS/2). While we do not believe that the utilization of BIM will be limited to design-build projects, we do see design-build as the ideal harmonization of the early collaboration required on a BIM project and the project delivery philosophy of design-build.
INFO: AISC (www.aisc.org)