1. Shawn Burnham said budget considerations can often trump collaborative efforts. | 2. Chuck Teter pointed to an increase in support for design-build options. | 3. Too often, said Susan McGreevy, the legal fine print of collaborative efforts created disproportionate risk for some parties. | 4 . Helping owners see the value of technology was a challenge, said Radd Way, because it’s often difficult to measure improvements in things like safety and quality.

Chuck Teter, vice president and unit manager of Construction Operations at Lockton Companies, was more optimistic. “The industry has evolved somewhat,” he said. “They are supporting design/build now.”

On the litigation front, David Rezac was also optimistic. He has found that the more integrated a delivery system is, the sooner collaborators work from an A/E perspective, the less risk there is and the less potential conflict. “Everybody’s at the table helping each other out,” said Rezac. “We’re not seeing the opposite. We’re seeing a very positive thing.”

“You’re seeing in practice how it works out,” said McGreevy. “I’m talking about when you put pen to paper to do the contracts, people don’t realize in their minds that they have shifted responsibilities.” That much said, she added, “If there’s never a problem, it never comes up.”


Persuasion

On the subject of integrated delivery, Don Greenwell asked how much of a sales job had been required to persuade owners to innovate. Or, did experience speak for itself?

“The sales job,” said David Rezac, “is always to get a client to buy into bringing the trades, the contractors, everybody on board earlier to make sure they get a competitive price.” As Rezac admitted, he has not quite figured out how to do this consistently. He added, “It is a tough sell.”

Ramin Cherafat believes that most large owners understand that price is determined from the first minute someone sits down and begins designing the project. He sees the need for “a shift in thinking about what the bid is vs. the real value creation.”

For Shawn Burnum, whose firm’s specialty is metal-studded drywall, the idea of a collaborative effort sounds good but does not always work in the real world. “We’re spending more and more time on the budget phase,” he said, “and then we have to turn around and competitively bid that with no ability to sell those services, no preferential treatment for being on the front end. It’s incredibly frustrating and incredibly expensive.”

Pat McCown understands Burnum’s frustration. He observed that most of the work on every job was performed by the trade contractors and subcontractors. To bring on the CDM early is one kind of sell. To bring on, say, a drywall contractor is another sell altogether.

“From the design perspective,” said Laura Lesniewski, “we love to get the contractors on board early, but it has to be a meaningful engagement.” She explained that there was still huge risk in those early processes, because if original projections don’t hold true as design decisions are being made, “Productivity is completely out the door.”

Lesniewski observed that there was a significant database of anecdotes about owners who had bought into a highly integrated process. “If we can leverage that database of knowledge,” Lesniewski said, “it might help owners make decisions to buy into that.”

Radd Way, the executive vice president of The Weitz Co., questioned how one could put a dollar value on those owner testimonials. How does one measure cost savings, safety, quality? “Trying to figure out how to measure those things is a real challenge,” said Way, “but mutually important.”


Training

Don Greenwell asked how well the industry had succeeded in training trades people, particularly in regards to new technology.