Minds of Steel Q&A: Integrated Project Delivery

Jason: IPD is a fundamental change in the contract agreements between an owner, an architect, engineers, and the contractor. It incentivizes collaboration to achieve a common goal. In fact, the contracts often include a set of goals that are agreed to by all parties. Everyone is rewarded if those goals are met. If sacrifices are determined to be necessary, all parties have to agree on how that needs to be solved. I think most folks assume that was always happening, but in some cases the contracts didn’t incentivize that level of collaboration and the building of consensus across all groups.

Jeffrey: There are so many hidden problems that come to the surface when you have poor coordination. And IPD can best be described as better coordination. One benefit of IPD is having a person on the project who coordinates with the design team and the engineers of record during the design phase to ensure everyone is aligned. That’s being done, but it’s often happening later in the process. IPD ensures it’s happening sooner during the design phase. It’s compressing what’s done over a longer period of time into a shorter, upfront period of time so that you don’t get deep into a project and realize not everyone is on the same page.

Jason: My experience with IPD is that it has resulted in coming up with way better designs. Designs that better align with an aspirational vision that a client or community has, that are more cost-effective, are easier to build. As an example, I think this contract format is becoming more prevalent in the healthcare sector, and it allows us to build things faster because from the very early stages, a contractor has been working with the architect and the owner to understand the goals and the main drivers. So when they’re getting started, they’re not needing to get up to speed, they’re already in the loop.

Jeffrey: I’ve worked on projects at the World Trade Center, and they had the foresight to get all the consultants sitting in the same room. And that may not be IPD in the truest sense, but that was a version of it that added lots of benefits. We sat in that room with lots of people—all the architects and consultants. And the construction issues were significantly less than what I’ve seen on other projects.

Jason: I don’t know if the answer is more domestic suppliers or other agreements. But seeing that whole picture through an IPD lens is helpful. If I can work directly with fabricators who are letting me talk to their suppliers, or just being transparent about their suppliers’ workloads, I might tailor certain decisions I make as an architect around that. Or the owner might let things be purchased sooner because we have confidence that this is the right thing to do.

Jeffrey: With supply chain issues, there’s still a long road to go. IPD speeds up the timeline. And by bringing everyone to the table, including, say, fabricators, they can let me know if there’s an issue with availability of something like a joist. During the design, if I know that, I can pick a different member. The engineer of record should be integrated into the process, so they don’t turn over a design that has to be redone because of supply chain issues. It’s a methodology for all of us to be integrated better into supply and availability.

Jason: IPD is becoming more prevalent in the healthcare sector, and it allows us to build things faster. So when a contractor, architect, and owner are getting started, they’re not getting up to speed, they’re already in the loop. And they can even make suggestions along the way about using certain levels of finish or certain levels of detailing. Through IPD, they can identify, for example, a huge lead time needed for elevator design and focus on reducing it.