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Integrated Project Delivery, BIM
Use Highlight 'Change' Conference
By Robert Carlsen
In an aptly titled first-ever "change" conference
in San Francisco recently, architects, owners, public officials
and contractors were all warned, early and often, that the
traditional method of constructing buildings, most notably
the design-bid-build way, is no longer applicable in today's
environment and everyone needs to change their ways.
Hosted by the American Institute of Architects, California
Council, and McGraw-Hill Construction, the two-day "Change
(the Way We Build)" conference at the University of California,
San Francisco's Mission Bay Community Center focused on Integrated
Project Delivery and the inefficiencies that impact all participants
in the design and construction marketplace.
Integrated Project Delivery is the general term applied to
a new project delivery system that utilizes highly collaborative,
cross functional teams composed of all project lifecycle stakeholders
including the owner, architect, general contractor, engineers,
suppliers and security.
Panelists at the conference stressed the need to have the
team assembled early in the process, that all team members
have open and equal access to information, and that they share
equally in the risks and rewards of a given project.
"Teams make better decisions than individuals,"
says panelist Stuart Eckblad, AIA, director of design and
construction at the UCSF Medical Center. The key, he adds,
is to change relationships from the traditional adversarial
way to more collaboration.
"IPD requires a level of comfort for all the parties
involved," Eckblad says.
"There has to be a mutual respect, enhanced communication
and clearly defined, open standards."
Building Information Modeling software - regardless of the
vendor - is a key component of the IPD method, panelists say,
but it is a tool, not the answer.
"Simulation is the key," says Kimon Onuma, AIA,
president and director of technology at Onuma Inc. of Pasadena.
"If you're not in BIM today, your relevancy is already
suffering."
Though no one outright endorsed a particular BIM software,
Onuma says that architects need to let vendors know that they
need to communicate with other software.
Some highlights of the conference:
Michael Hricak, FAIA, principal at Michael Hricak &
Associates, a Venice-based architectural firm, set the conference
off on a good start with the quote: "The fittest may
survive, but the most cooperative succeed," in response
to a hypothetical question about survival in the design/construction
industry of the 21st century.
George Hurley, project executive for Redwood City-based
DPR Construction Inc., says that IPD benefits from openness
and relationships. "In a recent project, we used the
'big room' concept - a doublewide trailer as our headquarters,
and all the principals were based there," he says. "Everyone
got to know one another well, and it was this relationship
that got everyone on the same page."
Hurley also says that 3D modeling allows for more pre-fab
on a project, which results in fewer RFIs, re-work and change
orders.
Will Lichtig of the Sacramento-based law firm of McDonough,
Holland & Allen PC, which developed the Lean Project Delivery
model for Sutter Health, says that IPD is composed of "5
Big Ideas": collaborate, really collaborate; increase
relatedness; establish networks of commitment; optimize the
whole; and tightly couple learning with action. "Really,
this is an all for one, one for all concept," he adds.
Stephen Jones, McGraw-Hill Construction's leader on
BIM, IPD and other issues, says that the current state of
"inoperability" of BIM tools is a major problem,
but that he says he feels the market will drive demand for
a change.
With research findings by a Harris Survey, plus data from
such entities as the buildingSmart Alliance of the National
Institute of Building Sciences, Jones says that construction
nationwide is a $3 trillion industry and that 30 percent of
that figure goes to waste. "We really have to change
our overall culture and focus on the lifecycle of buildings
while being friends of the earth," he says.
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