DBIA continues its affiliation with New Construction Strategies (NCS) to present cutting-edge information, interviews and hot topics on the DBIA Radio Network.
Available for listeners on the Internet at www.newconstructionstrategies.com/dbia/radio.html, the top names in design and construction and preeminent design-build experts pass along their expertise to listeners giving DBIA members an added membership benefit.
With a site frequently updated, listeners can get the latest from those closest to the design-build action.
Education Angles
As 2008 drew to a close, DBIA President Lee Evey and NCS host Ted Garrison spoke with John Gambatese, associate professor of construction engineering at Oregon State University and discussed innovation with design build. With research and technical interests that include construction safety, constructability, sustainability and design-construction, Gambatese’s said there are specific innovation components that are crucial.
One of them is idea generation, “where we are looking at trying to get all the ideas out there,” he said. “We also need an opportunity for innovation; that opportunity requires the need to develop and implement or test a product or system, and that opportunity is provided by resources, providing people the funding … to create those products.”
Gambatese added that innovation needs diffusion.
“Integrated project delivery – and specifically design-build – is a means to enhance innovation,” he said. “It provides an opportunity for innovation through collaborative environments, through overlapping of design and construction phases, and it leads to very large capabilities for those involved to change.”
From this, he said his research has found that overlapping design and construction phases allows greater communication among all of the parties working on the project. It enhances the review process that helps the design be implemented.
“Employees with diverse backgrounds coming together is another point that we found through the design-build process where we have people who are educated as designers, architects and engineers as well as those with a construction background working together and generating unique ideas,” he said. “We also need to coordinate the goals of both the designers and builders.”
As individual goals come together they will serve to enhance the entire project.
Katrina Rehab
Also featured on the network is an interview with Col. Doug Mouton, commander of the Louisiana Army National Guard’s 225th Engineer Brigade and Director of the Construction and Facilities Management Office.
After about 200 facilities were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Mouton said, the goal was to try and provide help and to figure out how to meet National Guard duties when their facilities themselves had been in the hurricane’s crossfire.
“It’s very unique: You wake up one morning and you have a half a billion dollar problem,” Mouton said. “Without having any real planning for this kind of event, what the immediate challenge was for us was probably three-fold: the first one was to assess the magnitude ... and really find out what was actually the impact of the storm, what was gone, what was damaged, what was absolutely destroyed beyond repair.”
Then, he said, they had to understand the financial and schedule requirements that can be a burden when being federally funded through the Department of Defense.
The restrictive budget cycle is a big hurdle. And the Guard has to meet schedule requirements in order to receive the funds.
“The most challenging [thing] for me as a staff member was understanding what critical strategic decisions I would need to get out of my leadership,” he said. “We all saw the impacts of New Orleans, and our headquarters was at New Orleans, so the question was out there, ‘Is this the best place to put the command and control node?’”
With a short period of time – just 10 months – Mouton had to get the work defined to ensure the funding would be there. As a result, design-build was crucial to the entire process.
“Design-build allowed us to overlap the construction and design phase, pulling the procurement process to the left, if you will, making it shorter and giving us enough time to make that aggressive delivery schedule,” he said. There were still many challenges, however.
Mouton said the Louisiana Guard itself and their institutionally minded approach sometimes makes it want to stay within “safe” boundaries and resist a change like design-build.
“There was a lot of consensus building that had to occur,” he said. “The good news is that because the hurricane was as catastrophic as it had been, there was no trouble selling the leadership at the state and the Guard level that this was a new day, and we had to take new approaches.”
Program Library
These interviews are only the tip of the iceberg at DBIA Radio, however. Since last year, the interviews have grown to nine, and the number of resources continues to grow. Other interviews on the site run the gamut of design-build and construction expertise.
One particular commentary on the site is the “2009 Outlook with Steve Forbes.” In it, Forbes discusses the possibilities for success in 2009 despite the sour economic outlook.
Evey and Garrison also interview Patrick A. Burns, P.E. The retired Air Force general now works for Mortenson as vice president of their Federal Contracting Group. In the Burns interview, he describes how when faced with an exploding budget on a particular project, he came up with the “design-build chain” strategy.
Don Evans, president of CH2M Hill’s Civil Infrastructure Group, outlines his thoughts about how to face the country’s infrastructure challenges, and Dr. Barbara Jackson, former DBIA board member, and director of the California Center of Construction Education, explains the leadership demands on companies to meet today’s challenges.
The interview list continues to grow at DBIA Radio. This is an opportunity for DBIA members to hear from the industry experts why design-build continues to grow as the delivery method of choice for the design and construction industry.
2009 Education Tour
With DBIA at the forefront of design-build education, the 2009 Design-Build Education Tour can take you and your organization to greater heights, with the top names in education and a whole host of new benefits this year.
In addition to individual project delivery courses and education sessions, DBIA this year is offering a new, four-day intensive Designation Workshop Series.
This will include DBIA’s three core courses required for certification, the exam prep course and exam administration. Priced even lower than DBIA’s University-Based Bootcamps, it will put you on the fast track to certification.
But if you want a DBIA Workshop on steroids, don’t miss this year’s University-Based Bootcamps.
Held at CalPoly, Penn State and George Mason University, these also include the three core courses as well as guest lecturers, networking events and a whole host of social activities in a university setting.
Register for the 2009 Design-Build Education Tour at www.dbia.org/development or contact Mihisha Henderson, DBIA’s Director of Education Logistics, at mhenderson@dbia.org.