A joint venture, is a temporary singular business entity in which all parties contribute equity and therefore have a common vested interest in the success of the venture. In this case the joint venture refers to the parties involved in a design and construction project which would include the A/E, GC, trades, and ideally the client. The joining of these forces provides a distinct advantage over the traditional approach where these parties would be separate entities. It also has the potential to pose new challenges if all parties are not fully vested and engaged throughout their entire process. Each team needs to believe whole heartedly in this approach and not just have a “well, I’ll deal with it for this project because I need the work, but I can’t wait until it’s over.” Which, believe it or not, I’ve been exposed to that attitude on several occasions. That attitude can lead to resentment and unnecessary tension which will have adverse effects on quality throughout the entire project. However, if all parties are truly on board, the possibilities for success are exponentially greater than the alternative.
To put some figures to this concept, in an early project we saw an estimated 7% reduction in labor costs for pipe detailing by being able to generate fabrication drawings directly from the design model. And even though we were not creating ductwork fabrication drawings directly from the design model we still saw an estimated 3% labor savings on the dry side by having the installers integrated into the design process. Keeping in mind that as a joint venture these are shared savings. In addition to labor savings, as a result of having construction on board during design we estimated a 4% total savings for the client as a direct result of modelling innovations and coordination. If 4% doesn’t sound like a lot, imagine you are the client and you’re looking at a 50 million dollar construction project. Suddenly 4% starts to look like a pretty good number.
Design Build vs IPD
Early in my career, I had the opportunity to work for another design-build firm which consisted of an engineering department and a MEP construction department. Their approach to design build was what I always thought of when thinking of design build. Essentially, we, the engineering department, would develop a schematic design where the design intent and boundary conditions were outlined on schematic construction drawings and specifications, and the contractor would work out the details during construction. Basically our role as the design team was to obtain a building permit and let the contractors figure it out in the field. This was presented as a real cost savings alternative when pitched to the client because they were saving on engineering costs and a potential for a reduced initial construction cost. Even though It was more cost effective than a non-design build approach, it relied heavily on the construction portion of the project and therefore left the door wide open for potential complications and unforeseen setbacks which could result in RFIs and costly change orders. It also relied heavily on the fact that we were the same company and therefore the shared financial risk of the joint venture was built in. It’s easy to see how this approach can have mixed results when design and construction are two separate entities and the shared financial risk is not inherent.
Flash forward to present day and an opportunity to be a part of a brand new approach to design build under the umbrella of this thing called Integrated Project Delivery, or IPD. The real advantage when using the IPD approach to project delivery, is that we pull all of those construction coordination and consideration aspects forward into the design phase and incorporate them prior to IFC, rather than rolling them into construction and having that typical gap between IFC and the start of construction. This includes, estimating, space coordination, pre-fabrication, safety considerations, phasing, and the list goes on.
Throughout this presentation, I will be referencing the two most recent projects that I’ve been a part of as a designer. One was a IPD pilot project where we retrofitted one-third of a semiconductor facility. The other, a full blown implementation of the techniques and lesson’s learned, developed during the pilot project, which effectively spanned one half the entire campus. I can tell you that even after the full blown project there are still many lessons to be learned and techniques to be tweaked. That goes for all parties, design, construction and the client. Streamlined IPD is not something that will happen overnight, or even over the course of a project. There are always new players and challenges that will test your ability to adapt and overcome. Let me stress though, that despite the challenges and pitfalls of these two projects, they were both vastly more successful than previous traditional approaches. Not just financially either. As an A/E we developed a lot of important relationships and had countless opportunities to grow our skill sets.
Construction in Design
Earlier I mentioned construction elements being pulled forward into the design phase by leveraging a joint venture. Being a piping and ductwork designer, one of my favorite aspects of a joint venture is the ability to work collaboratively with the foremen, fitters, and detailers that will actually be installing the routings and equipment in the field. This allows a rare opportunity to incorporate cost savings, installation considerations, and safety directly into the design. For the pilot project, we took the unfortunate approach that we knew what we were doing when it came to pipe and duct detailing and installation, after all we were seasoned designer’s right. So the approach was “we’ll design it, present it to the trades, make a couple minor tweaks here and there, and then issue for fabrication.” If there are any trades in the room, you can probably guess that this approach didn’t go as planned for a variety of reasons. So, lesson learned, we implemented a new strategy developed by, Doug Nachtrieb, one our leading Revit savvy design engineers, who is also a presenter here this weekend. This new strategy implemented a very early collaboration effort in which the trades and designers sat down and reviewed the system P&ID in detail. If you’re not familiar, P&IDs are the foundation on which piping and duct systems are designed.
Example of a P&ID
This early collaboration allowed the trades to provide input into things like making connections between different materials, reducing cost by eliminating transition fittings, and really just implementing 30 years of piping fitting tricks and techniques into the design. Basically getting into the nuts and bolts before a stick of pipe is even modeled and pulling construction details all the way up to pre-design. The P&ID collaboration effort also allowed to pull forward a couple of other key items that we will go into more depth a little later in the presentation. Line numbers, which essentially tie all the information together for pipers are established at this point and added to the P&ID. Bill of Quantities or BOQ can be populated at this point allowing for early, high level estimating. Selecting manufacturers for valves and other appurtenances can be done so that appropriate Revit families can be created. Most importantly though, it opens the dialogue between the designers and trades and tears down communication barriers that can tend to form. It puts faces to names and gets hands shaking so that both teams can work to develop a better design.
Cross Discipline Coordination
So now that we’re nice and aligned with our respective trades, what about coordinating across disciplines? The joint venture lends itself to this concept as well by bringing the entire team together for collaboration and not just pairing up designers and their contractors. By incorporating trade involvement early on in the project, trades are given an opportunity to communicate and coordinate amongst themselves as well, instead of waiting until after IFC or even until they are in the field. Having cross discipline coordination meetings throughout the design process will help identify and resolve routing and phasing issues while the construction elements are still only model elements. By doing this we are able to develop best case designs where disciplines can be tightly coordinated with each other and implement installation strategies, like shared racks, and foster an overall level of innovation that may not be possible under the traditional project approach. In addition this allows each trade to then work with their respective design team to incorporate these new innovative strategies into the actual design. And of course by having the entire design team working in Revit instead of multiple platforms, the resultant model elements are seen by other disciplines in real time rather than waiting for the confederated navisworks model.
As designers we’re great at fitting piping, ductwork, conduit, etc… into tight spaces to make a design work, or design massive elaborate pipe trestles and structures to span buildings. But we don’t always consider how the contractor is going to build it. Will they build it off site and fly it into place pre-assembled? Can a pipe fitter fit into the space where we routed our pipe and is it safe to do so? Through a joint venture and early trade design assist, we can identify those considerations throughout the project and incorporate them into our design, again pulling forward those post IFC, time and potentially cost consuming elements. As part of the full blown project we designed and constructed a massive clean link between two production FABs, on top of which was a high flying pipe trestle carrying eight, eight inch pipes and six by two foot duct header. This sat atop a sixty foot high portion of the link. As you can imagine, to erect the steel alone added considerable cost and an immense safety risk to all who would be working on it. By having the GC and trades involved during design, we were able to design the trestle, piping and ductwork so that it could be broken into three sections which would be pre-assembled on the ground and then flown into place with a crane. The resulting field work was essentially reduced to connecting the elements of the three sections at two joints and attaching the trestle to its base. This eliminated thousands of dollars in construction cost and hundreds of potential safety risks by allowing 90% of the work to be done on the ground or in a shop. This is just one example of how we were able to incorporate cost and potentially lifesaving strategies into our design. The potential for how you incorporate these elements is entirely dependent on your project team and of course the project itself, but the possibilities for innovative construction tactics are endless and can shave time, money and risk.