Benefits and Challenges of Design-Build - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 14

Experience With Design-Build
Water and wastewater systems in the United States are very fragmented, consisting of a
large number and varying sizes of public and private utility owners. While DBB project
delivery is considered to be the traditional project delivery method for water and wastewa-
ter projects, the use of the DB project delivery method has been increasing in the public
and private sectors for more than 30 years (Twomey 1989, ASCE 1992, Federal Construc-
tion Council 1993, Songer and Ibbs 1995, Molenaar and Songer 1998, Molenaar et al.
1999). Unlike the federal building sector or even the state departments of transportation,
many utilities undertake significant design and construction projects on a relatively infre-
quent basis. Thus, some owners in the water and wastewater industry have not had exten-
sive experience with DB or other alternative project delivery methods. One 2004 study
found a very limited number of projects were completed using DB; however, this number
is steadily increasing (Figure 2-3) (Molenaar et al. 2004).
Another study completed in 2009 contacted more than 500 owners of public water
and wastewater facilities requesting information for projects completed between 2003 and
2008 with more than $3 million in total value. Of the 100 responses with projects com-
pleted that met the criteria, 31 projects were completed using DB (Bogus et al. 2009). Two
recent owner opinion surveys have been completed, which provide some insight into the
use of alternative project delivery methods for water and wastewater projects (R. W. Beck
Inc. 2009, WDBC 2008). The survey by R. W. Beck Inc. (2009) determined that most
utility owners are at least somewhat familiar with alternative project delivery methods (at
least 90 percent were somewhat or very familiar with alternative delivery methods). How-
ever, only half of owners had actually delivered a project using a method other than DBB.
This limited use of alternative methods leads to the challenge of understanding the
roles and responsibilities of the various parties once the decision is made to use a project
delivery method other than DBB. Barriers that may exist and challenges to overcome
include the institutional barrier within the owner's agency and with understanding the
change in roles between the parties. Often people become comfortable with the way
activities are carried out, and if these activities are done the same way over an extensive
time, people may have a hard time accepting changes to the system. Design-build projects
require a different set of the owners' internal resources and thought processes than DBB
requires (see chapter 6). Additionally, the designer (i.e., architect/engineer) is no longer
the owner's representative but is now working as a part of the team with the contractor to
form the design-builder. Trust becomes an important part of the relationship among all
parties, and this can be challenging for some people (Levy 2006).
The limited use of DB is in many ways due to the legal and legislative constraints in
the public sector (see chapter 4). Some state and local governments do not allow owners
to use DB to deliver projects to the public. Others may allow the use of design-build but
constraints on procurement may inhibit the use of DB (Beard et al. 2001, Levy 2006).
To help overcome a lack of experience with DB, owners can use a DB consultant
(see chapter 10) to assist with the owner's tasks for planning, procurement, and project
execution.