Standard of Care in a Design Build World
The Standard of Care in a Design Build World
By Robert C. McCue, PE and E. Mitchell Swann, PE
MDCSystems® Consulting Engineers
Design-Build Delivery can create new responsibilities for designers where they would not exist in traditional Design-Bid-Build delivery situations and require new awareness on the part of contractors to the iterative and uncertain world of conceptual design. These new responsibilities require a paradigm shift for both Designers and Contractors as the realities of working together challenge the leadership of the organizations.
For designers the change requires them to abandon their traditionally “client only” focused advice and consent role and adopt a new paradigm of working for, or with, the contractor to deliver an acceptable and profitable product. For the contractor working with and supporting the designer changes the very nature of their previous working relationship. The contractor is now working with and for the people they are all too often at odds with concerning project delivery.
The following situation is illustrative of the evolving nature of construction in the Design Build world.
MDC’s client was a building contractor who wanted to bid on a public project being offered as a Design-Build (DB) opportunity. In order to prepare a bid the contractor had to team with a designer and develop the bid from what were advertised as 30% complete preliminary design documents – bridging documents or a “two step” design-build process. In our example the contractor retained a design firm as a sub-contractor. In selecting his design partner, the contractor looked for a firm with significant experience in the region and with the agency soliciting the work. A number of similar DB ventures formed and provided competing bids for the work. The agency soliciting the work provided a bid preparation design fee reimbursement in recognition of the design effort required of the DB teams to prepare the bids. On award the designer was retained to prepare the construction documents as part of the team.
As the contractor/designer team prepared their bid, the contractor looked to his designer to provide technical guidance on interpreting the 30% bid documents and conceptualizing and quantifying bid quantities which formed the basis of the contractor developed unit prices and overall estimate. As the project entered the construction phase, it became evident that there were major features of the project that had not been fully developed in the agency issued bid documents; but those documents were not defined as being a “100% complete” document set. The requirements and constraints for and on the project were described, if not detailed. To be fair there were potential risk items identified by the designer in preparing the bid documents and quantities. But the contractor did ask for guidance from his design sub-consultant on these issues and there was an extension of the bid submission deadline which would have ostensibly created an opportunity to make some adjustments
MDCSystems® Joined ABA in Paradise;
January 30-31, 2014
MDCSystems® joined distinguished colleagues at the pristine waters of Paradise Island, Bahamas, for the Mid-Winter 2014 ABA Forum on the Construction Industry. The two-day program included sessions on best practices in both construction risk management and arbitration, as well as recovery schedules, litigation holds, litigation budgets, and ethical issues arising as a result of data stored in today’s smartphones, tablets and The Cloud.
The MDC Exhibit and Kindle Fire Winner
MDCSystems® wishes to congratulate Howard Krupat, Partner with Davis LLP, for winning the 16GB Kindle Fire Tablet drawing held at our exhibit. We thank everyone who took the time to stop at our booth, collect company information and/or chat with our professionals.
As a long-time sponsor of the American Bar Association, MDC® was pleased to exhibit at this event. We hope to see you again at our booth in April at the Annual ABA Construction Forum meeting in New Orleans.
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