One of our roles in the AEC industry, especially as an Owner’s Representative, is to educate clients on a multitude of items, including Construction Delivery Methods. We have presented the options to clients many times over, only to watch their eyes glaze over with all the acronyms and options. So now, via this blog, we take a bit of a different approach to highlighting the similarities and differences between each methodology.

The Context: Your anniversary is coming up and you want to treat your spouse to a very special dinner; you have budgeted $125 per plate, and you think about what you want to achieve to make it special.

Scenario One. You go to your favorite restaurant and meet with the head chef. You ask him to come up with a meal that includes three courses – salad, dinner, and desert – as well as a bottle of wine. The meal should start at 6:00 pm and be done by 8:00 pm so you can get to your concert. The salad must contain fruit, the dinner a pasta with chicken, and the desert must be chocolate. Next week you come back to see what he has designed based on your discussion and it sounds wonderful. The salad is raspberry vinaigrette with raisins and goat cheese, the main course is chicken breast with capers in a light wine sauce and the desert a flourless chocolate cake with a raspberry sauce. All of the courses will be presented very artistically. You are thrilled with everything, but have a couple concerns. You know the chef but you haven’t met the line cooks; can they make this meal just as described? You ask the cost and the chef says he is pretty sure that it’s at the budgeted amount, but he won’t know until the day of the dinner. Not knowing for sure if this will meet your budget you come up with a plan to reduce the portion sizes, substitute the custom raspberry dressing for a ranch, and downgrade the bottle of wine. This is disheartening to both you and the chef, as you want to make the evening perfect. You also realize that the dinner may come in under budget, so you come up with the option to have the meal as designed, upgrade the bottle of wine and add a course of soup as well. You also discuss the schedule, and the chef says the line cook will be ordering the components and he is monitoring the quality. He doesn’t know exactly how long it will take to prepare the meal but, based on his experience, he believes that two hours should be enough time. You leave nervous because you don’t know exactly how the dinner will go, you don’t know the cost, you haven’t met some of the key players preparing the dish, and you are not 100% sure the meal will be done in time for the show. This is the hard bid meal.

Scenario Two. You go to your favorite restaurant to meet with the chef. You ask him to come up with a meal that includes three courses – salad, dinner, and desert – as well as a bottle of wine. The meal should start at 6:00 pm and be done by 8:00 pm so you can get to your concert. The salad must contain fruit, the dinner a pasta with chicken, and the desert must be chocolate. Your meeting with the chef goes well and you lay out the basic design of the dishes. After the meeting you decide to call in a few line chefs who will work on the preparation. Immediately you recognize that one line chef seems to have more experience with chicken, pasta and chocolate desserts, and you ask specifically for them to prepare the meal. The three of you sit down and begin finalizing the meal. The salad is raspberry vinaigrette with raisins and goat cheese, the main course is chicken breast with capers in a light wine sauce and the desert a flourless chocolate cake with a raspberry sauce. All of the courses will be presented very artistically. Next week you come back to see what has been designed based on your discussion and it sounds wonderful. The line cook has been talking to the chef but hasn’t seen the final meal. He expresses concerns about the cost, as the salad selected has to be brought in from California, the chicken is a select cut and will require four chickens which increases cost, and the chocolate cake could be done cheaper by making it a regular cake, not flourless. You meet with the line cook chef again the next week to go over the schedule and pricing of the meal as designed, only to find it is over budget. The schedule is laid out in detail and there appears to be no issues. After reviewing all the options you decide to go with a lower grade bottle of wine, slightly reduce the portions of the meal, use local salad but make sure its organic, cut out the select cuts of chicken (as you felt it was frivolous) and keep the cake as designed. You leave knowing what the meal is going to be good, you know the schedule, and you have met those who will be preparing the meal. You also feel like the meal is a little more expensive than it should be, but also know that the line could talked to more than one food supplier so you are getting a good value. This is the CM/GC meal.

Scenario Three. You go to your favorite restaurant to meet with the line cook, asking him and the chef to come up with a meal that includes three courses – salad, dinner, and desert – as well as a bottle of wine. The meal should start at 6:00 pm and be done by 8:00 pm so you can get to your concert. The salad must have fruit, the dinner a pasta with chicken, and the desert must be chocolate. You meet with the line cook and chef who pull out their menu. They advise you to select the house salad which contains fruit, the chicken marsala, and the flourless chocolate cake. The prices are not on the menu but they tell you that the meal will be on time and delivered for your budget guaranteed. You have been to the restaurant before and trust that team will work together to make it special. You leave having a pretty good idea of what the meal will be, you have a guarantee on the schedule, and you know who will be preparing the meal. You realize that you don’t know exactly what the meal will be like, if the lettuce is organic, or if you overpaid, but that’s ok as you want to get back to doing other things anyway. This is the Design-Build meal.

Scenario Four. You go to your favorite restaurant and you meet with the chef, mater dee, sommelier, line cook, and pastry chef. You discuss that you would like to have your anniversary dinner and make it as special as possible within your budget and schedule. The meal is to include three courses – salad, dinner, and desert – as well as a bottle of wine. The meal should start at 6:00 pm and be done by 8:00 pm so you can get to your concert. The salad must contain fruit, the dinner a pasta with chicken, and the desert must be chocolate. The team understands the goals and decides that in this case the Mater Dee will be responsible for the coordination. The mater dee starts by contacting the hostess and reviewing the reservation schedule. As it turns out the best seat in the house is available and is reserved. The team then discusses the meal and, using their experience, proposes that the salad should be a tangerine vinaigrette with pine nuts and goat cheese. Before they go any further you tell them that your spouse is allergic to nuts and is not a huge citrus fan. You suggest raspberry vinaigrette with raisins and goat cheese. The team agrees but wants to discuss all parts of the meal before deciding. After much discussion the meal ends up to be chicken breast with capers in a light wine sauce, and the desert a flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. All of the courses will be presented very artistically. The mater dee is tracking the cost with the help of all involved and notices that they are exceeding the budget. The team gets together to discuss and some ideas to reduce cost are presented such as a lower grade bottle of wine, slightly reduced portions, using local salad, and cutting out the select cut of chicken. In this meeting the sommelier notices that the wine being used in the chicken dish is very expensive and suggests that the chef use a bottle of a similar wine already in the store. He also suggests that the salad from California is cheaper than the local if it is shipped with the wine that they have selected from the same region. The pastry chef will also order enough raspberries for both the salad dressing and desert sauce, further reducing costs. You leave knowing what the meal is going to be and that it will be of the highest quality. You know the schedule, that you have the best seat in the house, and that you have met all the players that will be part of the preparation and presentation. You also feel like you have spent a lot of time on this making it perfect. Please note in this scenario that all involved may expect to split the savings in a form of a tip. This is the Integrated Project Delivery meal.

As you can see from the scenarios above, the intent and basic goals of a client (in this case you, who desires to treat your spouse to a memorable anniversary meal) can be met in a variety of ways. The final selection of method chosen comes down to the project and culture of the organization. Delivery methods have different priorities, some are speed, some are cost, and some are precise goals that need to be monitored and met. No one way of meeting your goals is necessarily right, nor are any entirely wrong. It is more a matter of understanding your priorities when it comes to the entire scope of the project you desire to achieve, and making decisions that are driven by those needs.

Quentin Rockwell and Paul Wember, Wember Inc. ~ Owner’s Representative