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O P I N I O N
Progressive design-build The acronym is PDB, not to be confused with PBR, the beer, or PBR, professional bull riding. Bone up on the latest method of project delivery.
B y some statistics, design-build accounts for some 40 percent of all non-residential construction in the U.S. today. As of 2016, there is now enabling legislation in all but three states to permit public owners to use design-build in some form, and to a varying extent. Most public procurement laws in the state and federal sectors utilize a selection method that has come to be known as the “best value” selection method. This is often known as a “three-step” selection process. In step one, the public owner issues a request for qualifications to design-build teams. Based on qualifications alone (like the Brooks Act for architects and engineers), the public owner short-lists the most qualified teams of design and construction professionals to three to five, tops. Then, the owner issues a request for proposals in the next two steps.
G. William Quatman
Step one is a technical proposal, which often includes some level of design submission, together with a schedule for completion and other specified criteria. The technical proposals are opened publicly, and ranked in accordance with pre-established criteria and a rating system contained in the RFP documents. At this time, the third step is invoked in which the owner opens the sealed price proposals. Those proposals are ranked in some fashion from lowest price to highest. The selection committee then combines the scores from steps two and three (technical and
price), to come up with a combined score for each short-listed team. The team with the top score, representing the “best value” to the public owner, is awarded the design-build contract. Price is often the dominant factor in these best value selections. Under the best practices promoted by the Design- Build Institute of America, “Design-Build Done Right,” the top ranked team gets the contract, and the other short-listed teams receive a “stipend”
THE ZWEIG LETTER April 3, 2017, ISSUE 1194
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