Commercially managing design risk: design coordination

Author: Tom Haley

In this mini-series, we are focused on design-related issues with a focus on offering some practical guidance on this subject from a quantity surveying / commercial management perspective.

This week’s article is focused on design coordination. There was a time when tracking design change was relatively straightforward. A drawing was revised and if it was issued by the client’s design team, you notified and valued the change and, hopefully, were paid.

The increase in design and build contracts, coupled with the BIM boom over the last 15 years, has seen this process become more challenging. There are multiple parties involved at RIBA Stage 4 with the contractor, designers, and specialists working together, which makes it difficult to establish who has root cause liability for the design changes that inevitably occur.

It has been on my mind whether we have made RIBA Stage 4 more complicated than it needs to be, or is it genuinely complicated so we need to innovate to improve this part of the construction process?

RIBA Stage 4

A quick overview for those who are less familiar with this stage of the design process, or a quick refresh for those who are.

This is the Technical Design stage between Spatial Coordination (Stage 3) and Manufacturing and Construction (Stage 5) so, in effect, the design is being turned from concept information into information that can be used to build.

The information at this stage is primarily for construction; however, there will be other requirements too, including: procurement and tendering processes; applying for building regulation approvals; discharging pre-commencement planning conditions; integrating with specialist subcontractors, etc.

These competing demands and priorities create more complication at an already demanding stage of the construction process.

You might find that Stage 4 is broken into further stages to bring some structure to the flow of information and conclusion of deliverables required from those producing this design in that period. However, even with an increased semblance of control, the sub-stages inevitably merge together because of the dependencies between the various parties involved.

BIM

There is no doubt that the introduction and increased use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has revolutionised the way we build by dragging the construction industry into the twenty-first century. It has allowed key stakeholders to develop their design and problem solve in a common data environment (CDE). The introduction of information into that model makes the digital asset data rich and a fantastic source of information for present and future purposes.

I remember there being much talk about how contracting models needed to modernise so that problem solving in that environment was liberated, thereby allowing engineers to work with their peers to find solutions that optimised construction performance and the performance of the built asset.

However, it doesn’t feel like a great deal has changed, and whilst we have tools and processes that promote cross-discipline collaboration, we predominantly remain stuck with the full transfer of risk at RIBA stage 4 to the contractor and that risk being transferred to specialists who become responsible for coordinating with each other. The absence of ownership quickly creates problems for all involved.

If we are talking about improving productivity and reducing conflict, then, for me, fixing this issue would be a good start: develop contracting models that liberate, rather than constrain, those who design and engineer built assets.

Design development allowances

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, according to Mr Albert Einstein.

So if main contractors use old methods to estimate the time and price allowances required for the RIBA stage 4 and continue to struggle to deliver to programme and budget, at what point do we call this insanity?

The market expectation might be that you include a 4% price allowance and a 16-week period for RIBA stage 4 (note: these are hypothetical allowances), but does that reflect what it actually takes? Should a technically complex project demand more allowance for time and cost that will actually be incurred in the construction process, or should we just stick with market norms?

I can’t put my finger on why contractors tend to be driven back to the market position. Is it because we fear losing the project, is it because we genuinely believe they are achievable, or is it because we simply don’t know how to programme and price this complicated part of the construction process? Is it a mixture of all these reasons and more?

For me, this is one of the elephants in the room in the construction industry discussion about financial sustainability. That is because the current approach isn’t sustainable, and there needs to be more discussion about either how we innovate the model and calculate risk allowances using technology, or there needs to be openness about pricing expectations versus the reality of delivery.

I can’t see it changing otherwise; just a thought.

Final reflections

While I have some ideas, concerns, and possibly even some frustrations about the way design coordination is managed and controlled on construction projects, I accept that I do not have the entire answer.

This is a cross-functional and cross-construction industry issue where various people and companies have a piece of the puzzle and we need to build the full picture through constructive and open discussion about the problems and the solutions.

That isn’t a silver-bullet solution simply because there isn’t one, but moving the conversation towards the root cause issues will help.

Next week, we will continue this theme with a focus on key design risks, in which we will provide some helpful guidance in the final part of this mini-series.

Keep an eye out for that and, in the meantime, enjoy the rest of your week!