John Cross, vice president of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) is a long-time advocate of design-build project delivery. He was introduced to design-build in the 1980s, when the engineering firm he worked for offered complete design-build-operate packages with an annual royalty going to the original site owner, which was often a public entity.
Cross has been instrumental in promoting design-build within the steel industry by encouraging steel fabricators to recognize that they were steel specialty contractors who contributed value to projects. ”We demonstrated the value that could be gained by involving steel specialty contractors early in the life of the project,” he says of his work with AISC. “As a result, the structural steel fabricator is increasingly a full member of the design-build team.”
A long-time industry expert, Cross was asked to identify trends that will mold the future of design and construction.
The green movement advances from childhood to adolescence. Sustainable construction will move away from rigid prescriptions to a more broad-based perspective. Frustration over the varying demands of competing rating systems, standards and codes will contribute to this advance. Improving and documenting the operational performance of buildings will be the new focus. Sustainability thought leaders will recognize that the best way to improve the performance of a building is not through a series of small changes implemented by isolated designers but by designers and construction professionals collaborating early in the life of a project.
We have already seen how a collaborative delivery process can make a quantum level improvement in the sustainable performance of a building — the shift from a design-bid-build scenario to design-build has reduced the energy and carbon footprint of the structural steel package by at least 20 percent.
Project financing will be more risk averse. The long-term result of the recession will be tighter lending standards resulting in higher levels of direct involvement and project oversight on the part of project lenders. To decrease the risk level, lenders will increasingly demand fixed-price contracts and will tolerate fewer extras or change orders.
Traditional design-bid-build contractors and sub-contractors will respond by demanding higher levels of completeness and coordination in bid and construction documents, pushing the risk to designers. Designers will either demand and receive higher fees for their services or attempt to return the risk to the construction side. Increased litigation will result.
A better solution would be for designers to change their business model and allow contractors to help control costs through proper influence of the design. The best solution would be for designers to actually embrace a design-build delivery model in which designers and contractors work together.
Only value-based firms will survive because they are productivity driven, and see the effective implementation of technology and innovation as key to success. Whatever the strategy, this technology may be virtual (BIM), physical (plant and equipment), human (training) or business-model based (lean), but a greater portion of building activities will be optimized and implemented offsite. A reduction in the level of on-site labor will be one measure of improved productivity.
BIM will become more interoperable and integrated. The current focus on BIM to exchange model data while resolving geometric conflicts will give way to recognition of the value of exchanging data among disparate systems. This will foster collaborative design activities and generate productivity gains in every aspect of the construction project. By embracing open standards, software vendors will provide data structures that not only allow sharing of information among designers, but also enhance the ability to integrate the design, detailing and manufacturing processes. Again, offsite fabrication of components will increase productivity. At its core, BIM won’t be about technology per se, but about facilitating the level and immediacy of collaboration in the design phase of projects.
Larry Flynn is AISC’s industry marketing manager.