Design-build bridging documents for complex projects

by Katie Daniel | February 12, 2016 11:11 am

SPECIFICATIONS
By Robert Connors, PE, CCS
Design-build (D-B) proponents laud the construction delivery method as a suitable way for complex projects to accelerate completion, contain liability for cost overruns, and shift operational risks. Potential disadvantages for owners include less control, increased need for earlier and timely owner decisions, and resistance from those unfamiliar with the delivery method.

Properly prepared bridging documents advance owner goals to:

Bridging documents convey design/construction requirements to D-B teams bidding the project. They include a summary of work, technical requirements, plans, project constraints, reference materials, and contractual requirements. Empirical evidence suggests key aspects to consider when preparing bridging documents include project definition, risk allocation, defining the procurement process, and following best practices.

Project definition
To ensure they get what they bought, public agencies typically require more project definition than private owners in bridging documents. Private owners have greater influence when refining the project definition in the final design, because future work will likely be awarded on past performance and personal relationships. Public agencies, on the other hand, have less leverage with D-B contractors due to public bidding laws. Public agencies also have internal customers such as construction, engineering, and maintenance departments that often prefer a higher level of definition and control.

The project definition:

Conveying required elements
Defining scope and technical requirements, the project agreement is the sole document defining contractual requirements. Design elements ‘required’ by the owner must be identified as such.

The bridging documents often include a technical design concept presenting the project scheme and layout. The technical design concept articulates ‘one way’ of designing the project, but not ‘the only way.’ It provides proof of feasibility within the project constraints. The technical design concept represents a five to 30 percent effort level, but varies by discipline and project. It can be used to estimate construction costs. The technical design concept is issued by bidders as a ‘no-reliance’ document, but it should not contain errors or be misleading.

The technical design concept, or portions of which are defined as ‘required’ in the project agreement, is used to define scope requirements and measure compliance.

Performance criteria
To maximize innovation opportunities, bridging documents employ performance criteria, which are measurable performance attributes of products that define their suitability for installation on a specific project. The more the project description is expressed in performance criteria, the more flexibility the design-builder has in creating an efficient final design.

As an example of performance criteria, the Ottawa Light-rail Transit (OLRT) is a complete new system including tunnels, railway, stations, maintenance facilities, vehicles, and a 30-year maintenance term. The bridging documents for this Canadian project established light-rail system performance criteria of 24,000 people per hour (pph). This allowed the proposing D-B teams to find the most efficient combination of vehicle capacity, headway, and station capacity to meet the performance criteria.

Innovation
Innovation in design-build projects is encouraged when performance criteria is used. Collaboration between the designer and builder also results in innovation. As long as the bridging documents clearly define the project requirements and performance criteria and tests, the owner gains value.

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Under a traditional design-bid-build construction delivery model, the owner has separate contracts with the designers and the builder—this creates a liability gap. The designeris responsible to meet a standard of care. The builder is responsible to build to plans and specifications. In D-B, the owner has a single contract and a single point of contact.

Cost
Project cost is the critical owner and proposer concern. Bridging documents are used by the owner to develop a construction cost estimate. An accurate bridging cost estimate is essential for the owner’s budgeting, risk analysis, value analysis, and financial models. Bridging documents are also used by proposers to develop their cost/bids. The overall level of design in bridging documents (and the level of design in specific project elements) is driven by what information is necessary to get an accurate bid and cost estimate.

Schedule
Bridging documents provide proof of feasibility within the project constraints. On longer, more complex projects, and those with long lead items and schedule constraints, it is important to develop an accurate schedule with the bridging documents. The design-build approach results in accelerated project completion—the bridging documents must capture this value for the owner through setting accelerated (but still feasible) milestone and completion dates for the project in the bridging documents.

 WRITING STYLE AND ORGANIZATION

The Project Resource Manual−CSI Manual of Practice (PRM) offers sage advice when it comes to writing style and organization. One should use a clear, concise, and consistent style, and eliminate unnecessary words. Bridging documents are prepared by a large group of professionals with varying styles. It is beneficial to prepare and distribute templates with guidance on writing style before embarking on document preparation.

Bridging documents should be organized using the owner’s standard table of contents. If the owner does not have a standard table of contents, MasterFormat and UniFormat are widely used effective tools for organizing the bridging document information.

Transparency
The bridging documents should disclose all relevant information to teams bidding on the project. Design-build transfers a lot of the risk from the owner to the D-B team, but it does not eliminate claims. Providing all relevant information reduces claims and results in better bids.

Quality control in the D-B project
Quality control (QC) is the sole responsibility of the design-build team. The owner may perform quality assurance (QA) testing or hire an independent QA consultant for acceptance. The bridging documents identify the overall quality planning, controlling, reporting, and auditing requirements. The D-B team is required to prepare a quality plan consistent with these requirements, often prior to selection.

The quality plan must include both construction and design QC components aligned with the owner’s standard requirements. The owner should trust the design-build team’s quality control system, but needs to be smart by requiring independent verification and auditing.

Along with project D-B quality requirements, bridging documents should identify applicable quality requirements of funding agencies, such as:

Risk allocation
As the design is only partially complete at the time of bid and must be finished by the design-builder, the owner’s risk related to the design is low. However, the design-builder is in a high risk position for final design, construction product, quality, and schedule. Its bid is based on the loosely defined collection of bridging documents.

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The design-builder produces the final design product, and assumes the risk for the final project schedule and the construction activity. Ideally, the project allocates risk to the party best able to manage, price, and insure the risk. Bridging documents are used to allocate risk between the owner and design builder.

Market conditions
Conditions in the construction market will affect the response to the request for proposals (RFP). It is important for owners to be able to gage the market conditions and what the construction market will accept. Design-build-operate-maintain, design-build-maintain, and public-private partnerships (P3s) are long-term contracts and have various payment mechanisms. It is particularly important to feel out the market conditions on long-term projects.

For example, the Town of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, requested bids for wind turbine developers. The developers would receive revenue from power purchased by the town, depreciation tax credits, and renewable energy credits (REC) over the 20-year contract term. REC prices vary and can be sold forward in the market, but at a discount. Some bidders sought an adjustment if the renewable energy credit market fell substantially. The town felt that the risk of a drop in renewable energy credits was something they would not accept, so it disallowed the contract adjustment. Three compliant bids were received, but some potential bidders chose not to partake.

Terms of contract
Since the project agreement is the sole document defining contractual requirements, it is important to have it consistent with the project and owner needs. It is advised to provide a copy or draft of the proposed project agreement with the RFP. This document ultimately defines the project and allocates risk.

Procurement process
The procurement process is framed by applicable laws and the owner’s experience with design build. Important decisions in the procurement process are the selection method, handling of alternate designs, and use of incentives and stipends.

Selection method
The selection process establishes how design-build proposers exchange information with the owner. Agencies often pre-qualify bidders through a request for qualifications (RFQ) process. The bidders are most often joint ventures between design and construction firms. Typically, three bidders are prequalified.

Prequalification ensures only high-quality bidders receive the request for proposals, and minimizes the risk of default during implementation. Prequalification also increases the bidder’s likelihood of success and often identifies its competitors. The RFQ evaluates both technical and financial capabilities of bidders; the submissions usually undergo a completeness review by the owner to determine compliance to the terms and conditions.

Once prequalified D-B teams are identified, an RFP is issued, requesting project-specific information, including costs. Types of selection methods for complex design-build projects include cost/design competition (i.e. ‘best value’) and cost competition.

Best-value selection methods provide for the consideration of cost, schedule, and other more subjective factors such as project management, design, QC, and team reputation. This type of selection is gaining in popularity among design builders and owners due to the ability to consider all relevant factors. (For example, visit www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/designbuild/designbuild.htm[1])

Best-value D-B means the highest overall value to the owner, considering quality and cost. The contract award is based on the lowest adjusted score, which is determined by dividing the price proposal by the technical proposal score or similar equation. Essentially, value = price/quality.

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Incentives and disincentives
Similar to what might be expected on a design-bid-build project, monetary incentives and disincentives encourage certain project outcomes and discourage others. However, in design build, the D-B team will finish the design and has more room to innovate, which gives it greater control over project outcomes. The incentives and disincentives in bridging documents should be carefully written, and are usually capped with a maximum cumulative incentive or disincentive.

An example can be found with the Fore River Bridge, spanning the Weymouth Fore River in Quincy and Weymouth, Massachusetts. For this project, traffic impacts were a high priority. The bridging documents enabled the design builder to restrict traffic during limited time periods. They allowed monetary incentives to minimize the restrictions, as well as disincentives for exceeding the traffic restrictions.

Alternates
The RFP may allow proposers to submit alternate designs. Alternates may also include project schedules and construction methods. Review of alternate designs can take significant time and effort, so alternate designs are sometimes not allowed, or are limited in number. Alternate designs are kept confidential between the owner and the alternate design proposer and are not usually shared with other proposers. However, if an alternate design is approved that changes the basis of the bid, project constraints, or project risk allocation, other proposers may be notified of the changes to the RFP. Agencies should define the preferred design direction and also limit alternate design direction(s) in the RFP.

After selection, the design build team may identify alternate designs or value engineering change proposals (VECP). The latter usually consists of a design change and change in project value. Bridging documents should include whether VECPs will be allowed and, if so, how they will be handled.

Stipends
Stipends are partial compensation to unsuccessful proposers for their proposal development costs. Stipends are not always provided. Their amount varies depending on how attractive the project is to potential bidders. Acceptance of a stipend may affect use of unsuccessful bidder’s information. When they are provided, bridging documents must clearly state conditions for award of the stipend (e.g. submission of a compliant bid by a shortlisted team).

Conclusion
Bridging document preparation should focus on project definition, risk allocation, defining the procurement/selection process. Best practices should be followed. The bridging team must work closely with the owner to determine and convey the project objectives. It must be sufficiently flexible to incorporate project changes and bidder feedback, and to evaluate alternates. During the design-build phase, the bridging team must be ready to supplement owner personnel so timely and informed decisions can be made to facilitate the D-B process.

 FOR MORE INFORMATION…
 For more on best practices—from project/people selection and front-end processes to document quality control and submittals—see this author’s piece online at www.constructionspecifier.com/design-build-bridging-documents-for-complex-projects-part-three.  

Robert Connors, PE, CCS, has more than 25 years of experience in engineering and management. He has a varied project portfolio that includes buildings, bridges, rail, wind turbines, and maintenance facilities. Connors specializes in procurement documents, project management, construction cost estimating, cost accounting, scheduling, claims analysis, finance, and contract administration. A certified construction specifier, he is also past treasurer of the Design-Build Institute of America’s (DBIA’s) New England Region. He can be reached at robert.connors@stvinc.com[2].

Endnotes:
  1. www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/designbuild/designbuild.htm: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/designbuild/designbuild.htm
  2. robert.connors@stvinc.com: mailto:robert.connors@stvinc.com

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