Owner Management of Design-Build Project Execution - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 231

Facility Transfer
The process of completing a DB project is similar to that of a traditional project. The same
as-built documentation is required, and the punch list, final inspection, and commission-
ing activities are similar.
The owner may want to provide more vigilant quality assurance oversight of the as-
built documentation, because there may be a concern that with the designer and con-
structor being the same contractual entity, there was no independent check that field data
were properly collected and compiled. The engineer-of-record is, however, part of the
construction team so requiring them to certify that the as-built record is accurate is likely
to be acceptable to the design-builder, because the designer was intimately involved in
collecting the field data. The owner may have similar concerns with punch lists and final
inspections because of the perception that there is pressure on the designer to overlook
corrective items to save money.
As with the traditional delivery process, the comprehensive plan for the startup and
commissioning process, training, operations documentation, record keeping require-
ments, testing success criteria and durations, and spare parts requirements is recom-
mended (see chapter 23). In a traditional project, the contractor has only to demonstrate
that the facility functions as designed but does not need to show that it performed as
planned. If there are performance issues, there would likely be discussion between the
contractor and the designer to determine if the facility was constructed incorrectly or
improperly engineered. In a DB project, this is not an issue for the owner, because design
and construction are the responsibility of the same entity, and they will be required to
make the facility function as intended.
REFERENCES
Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA). 2010. Design-Build Manual of Practice, Docu-
ment Number 202, Competitive Acquisition of Design-Build Services: The Request for
Qualifications (RFQ) and Request for Proposal (RFP) Processes. Washington D.C.:
Design-Build Institute of America.
DBIA. 2010. Design-Build Manual of Practice, Document Number 501, Value Engineering
(VE) in Design-Build: A Value Management Approach. Washington D.C.: Design-Build
Institute of America.
DBIA. 2011. Design-Build of America; Position Statement—Integrated Project Delivery.
www.dbia.org., accessed Sept. 17, 2011.
Water Design-Build Council (WDBC). 2010. The Municipal Water and Wastewater Design-
Build Handbook, 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Water Design-Build Council.