Is Design-Build Right for You? - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 344

Collaboration With the Construction Entity
During the DBB process, the contractor is obligated to construct the improvement project
according to owner's plans and specifications and to meet the time frame as stipulated in
the project's specifications. Under this method, the contractor has no incentive or legal
grounds to recommend cost-saving alternatives. The contractor's incentive is purely finan-
cial (i.e., to make a profit after the project is awarded). In the DB procurement method,
the design professionals work together with the contractor, subcontractors, and vendors
for a common goal as their respective incentives are the same. Constructability reviews
are conducted routinely during the design as part of their value engineering and QA/QC
procedures. This collaboration of professionals helps to produce the most cost-effective
project and helps maintain project costs to the expected levels for the owner.
Comfort With Performance Criteria
In DB projects, owners should be comfortable with developing performance criteria and
allowing the design-builder to develop a design or an alternative solution to meet those
criteria. The DBB specifications are referred to as prescriptive , which means that once the
project is awarded to a contractor, the contract's specifications must be followed as a guide
for the contractor toward the completion of the project. For DB, owners can stipulate
prescriptive and/or performance criteria. These are discussed in detail in chapter 13, but
developing performance criteria and/or negotiating those criteria in the form of perfor-
mance guarantees may be new for an owner.
Design-Build Standard of Care
The design engineer for a traditional DBB project provides a standard of care, which is an
assurance that the design is prudent and reasonable; in DB, the design-builder is obligated
to meet the stated performance requirements, or guarantees, in the contract. Owners
should recognize this difference as a benefit, when performance is a goal for the project.
Design-Build Performance Guarantees
In a traditional construction contract, the contractor is required to warrant all of the con-
struction work, but the contractor is not responsible for the overall success of the project
because the contractor had no control of the design, which is a major component of the
success of any project. This is not the case in a DB project because the design-builder is
responsible to warrant the project's performance. The contractor entity of the design-
builder inherits some of the design liability in the DB approach, and this adds to the com-
plexity of surety bonding and insurance.
Using the DB approach, the owner gains extra assurance through performance guar-
antees that the project will function as required by the owner.