Comparative Analysis of Owner Goals for Design/Build Projects

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study that compared what owners believe is important to achieve their project goals using design/build project delivery to what they make important in their design/build proposal evaluation plans. It also explores industry attitudes and compares those with owner attitudes regarding design/build project success. The conclusions are based on the analysis of 221 survey responses from 37 states compared to the results of a previous content analysis by Barton on 110 design/build requests for proposals. It was also able to confirm its findings with a 1997 owner design/build attitudes study by Songer and Molenaar finding that the main reason owners select design/build project delivery is to compress the project’s schedule. The research concluded that although owners believe that design/build team qualifications are the most important to project success, they give price the heaviest weight in design/build proposal evaluation plans. This effectively forces design/build teams to submit a low price to win the project. The study also found that owners are not putting as much weight on the technical design as the industry design professionals believed. Thus, this paper will sensitize design/build project owners to the importance of publishing an evaluation plan that matches the most important aspect of the project and assist design/build practitioners in better understanding the way owners articulate their requirements in the proposal evaluation plans.