Hospital Pass
Part of the role of USACE, as the client’s representative, is to conduct design reviews for design-bid-build contracts (read traditional contracts). These are done at 35, 65 and 95% with comments provided back to the project manager and design team, be it in house or a consultant, through an online system (Dr Checks). The designs are reviewed by us at construction division as well as the design division and are passed out to the clients and facilities managers, probably amongst others.
A couple of weeks ago, due to staff being on leave, I was given one of these to look at the pumps, seemingly alone. Having no idea what to do I browsed the drawings to work out what the issues might be. The project is a new 750,000 U.S. gallon water tower for domestic water and as a fire supply so my pavlovian response was Bernoullis!
After checking the answer it seemed about right although there were no accompanying design calculations to the contract and drawings so I chalked up my first comment. The rest of the checking passed with less excitement. There were a few clauses that had been missed from the contract, some ill thought out processes and demolition elements missing from the drawings. It seems a common theme though that construction division give the most comments, usually about build ability and, as discussed in the past, what is actually existing at the site.
So what have I learnt:
Hopefully I’ve done Bernoulli’s right; simplify the problem and sketches work.
Designers, it appears, live in a magic construction dreamland and it is always the same build ability issues that are picked up. By using traditional contracts USACE does assume a lot off risk and pays handsomely for the privilege if elements aren’t caught by the construction team prior to tendering. Having recently moved into dreamland, albeit part time at present, the fine detail is easy to forget.
And as ever, time spent on recce…
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Henry, sounds like a typical traditional procurement issue with the design team lacking the know of how to build the thing. Why does USACE insist on design bid build for items that may well suit a design and build approach? Do they believe there is some price certainly in the traditional method that design and build does not offer? if there is a mistake identified in the design post tender is that the client’s risk or the designer?
Out of interest, what is the water tank made from? How is it erected? What was the answer to your demolition question?
The issue may be the awesome power of the US bureaucracy and the effect it can have on the rationale thought of humans that would otherwise come up with pragmatic solutions.
Damo,
I can’t put a handle on why USACE seems to prefer DBB contracts but, as Jim has indicated, I imagine it has something to do with bureaucracy and being able to review the design before committing to any building. Maybe even that a commander (on the client side as we are merely an intermediary) might want to see what s/he is signing off so it is seen as a more conservative approach by people who are probably less experienced in construction than your commercial clients?
The water tank is made of reinforced concrete, I wasn’t really checking the buildability of the tower itself, rather the ancillaries. The main issues were location of known services, boundaries of the site and the sediment socks we have to put around the site. On the demolition side they had specified all the elements that were required to be demolished line by line, but had missed off a load of elements that had been added retrospective, meaning they were probably working from the ‘as builts’ rather than a recce. A better contract clause would likely have been something along the lines of ‘return to woodland’, therefore specifing the effect rather than how to do it?
Henry, do the design reviews constitute anything contractually? We have had a number of issues where subcontractors have submitted designs to John Holland for review. When the items have turned up on site there have been issues either with dimensions or specifications. I have had a few subcontractors then try to pass this back to John Holland, but luckily within the standard contract there is a line which states – The review will only be of a general nature to ascertain if the design appear to comply with the intent of the contract documents. It goes on to say that the review does not relieve the contractor from any contractual and statutory requirements. I’ll point out that a lot of the issues arise from the fact that these reviews have been conducted by the procurement team back in Brisbane. As Henry points out the actual real value is added by the review of designs from a build ability/site point of view. This also gives the opportunity to assist designing out some of the construction risk.
Matt,
USACE generally operate using traditional contracts (Design, Bid Build or DBB to use the terminology over here) and this design review was conducted before bidding. At the 95% stage it is really a case of catching all the design and buildability issues before the contract goes out to tender. Knowing more about the process now I imagine that this calc should have been checked at the 35% or at worst the 65%. All of these checks are really throwing back RFI’s to the designer, be they in house or a consultant.
What you are describing sounds more like my day to day business of checking ‘submittals’ where the contractor (or sub contractor) will submit their shop drawings, major components etc. Here we are sure to ‘accept’ rather than ‘approve’ the submittals meaning that the contractor still holds the liability.
I can imagine that design reviews conducted remotely are an issue, the most productive part of ours are about local knowledge of buried services as well as checking the drawings to the ground.
I won’t say I told you Bernoulli would come in handy……..
Good 😉
Thanks Henry interesting read