CM-AT-RISK AS A HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION DELIVERY SYSTEM IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES

misbe2011 Tracking Number 19

State Highway Agencies (SHAs) in the United States discovered long ago that construction delivery systems used by the vertical construction industry could be successfully adapted to highway and bridge work. The main benefit that the SHAs were seeking was less time between project conception and project completion. The adoption of Fast Track contracting methods like Design-Build (DB) and all its sub-systems like Design-Build-Operate, Design-Build-Operate-Transfer, etc. fulfilled the promise of a shorter project duration than the SHAs were accustomed to under the traditional Design-Bid-Build delivery system. However, the newfound speed came at a cost. Not a financial cost, but a cost that SHAs are increasingly interested in eliminating. The cost is the loss of control over the design process. In most Fast Track delivery systems, including all of the DB family of methods, there is no contractual relationship between the design firm and the SHA. This often leads to uncomfortable situations for the SHA. Of course there is always the danger that the contractor and the owner will conspire to deceive the SHA when something goes wrong. Certainly there is the temptation for the designer to tell the SHA that some “problem” with the construction discovered by the SHA was built “as the designer intended” because any cost incurred by the contractor to correct the problem is money lost by the designer as party to the joint venture or whatever agreement has forged the designer and the contractor into one entity. Even if the contractor and designer are of high character and do not set out to deceive the SHA, sometimes they can find something wrong with the project as constructed and set out to fix it without telling the SHA. Even if the failure to tell the owner about the problem is an oversight due to a sincere effort to fix the problem as quickly as possible, the SHA is in the unenviable position of not knowing what is happening on their own project. Now, SHAs are looking for a way to keep the speed of a Fast Track contract while retaining the control over the design process that they have in the DBB contract. Many SHAs are looking to Construction Manager-at-Risk (CMR) as the solution to the problem posed by the question “how do we retain the speed of Fast Track contracting while retaining the control over the design process offered by the DBB delivery system? This research project included interviews with of all the SHAs and other relevant public transportation agencies in the southeastern United States (11 states). Each agency interviewed was asked if they had ever used CMR, or had plans to. If they answered in the affirmative, they were asked a series of questions about the project. If the project seemed especially important or interesting, the research team visited the project for a week, conducting face-to-face interviews with personnel with the construction manager, top-tier subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, design professionals, suppliers, owners, and consultant inspectors. The results of the interviews and case studies are reported in this paper.