Builder blog

Current events and commentary regarding the construction industry. Opinions are my own.
Justin Reginato, Ph.D.
  • About
  • Builder Blog
  • Tacos & Tower Cranes
  • In the News
  • For CM Students

The Changing Nature of Construction

1/7/2018

0 Comments

 
Wow, it has been almost two years since I have made a post. That is going to change in 2018 and I am going to kick the year off with some commentary on a site visit I was lucky enough to attend last week. I, along with some students in the Sac State Construction Management program and some friends from industry (Bob Kjome and Yvone Hobbs of Roebbelen Contracting) attended a site visit at the Rudolph & Sletten UCSF Precision Cancer Medical Building in San Francisco.  The site visit was arranged by John Elwood, a Senior Project Executive at R&S and involved several people from R&S's preconstruction and field operations and from two of their key trade partners.

The entire site visit was very illuminating, yet there was one theme I want to highlight with respect to the title of this blog post. Stuart Eckblad, the Vice President for Major Capital Project at UCSF, was describing the innovative way that UCSF selects designers and contractors. In a nutshell, they start with a CM at Risk delivery model, allowing them to hire an architect and general contractor separately. They shortlist the qualified architecture firms to three (typically). Then, they select a general contractor based on fees and billing rates. Once a general contractor is selected, they as the GC which architect they want to work with out of the three shortlisted and that team is combined into a project team that will complete the construction of the project under a design-build delivery model. Specialty trades are then selected based cost (per public sector contracting rules).  Sounds complicated, right? It is, yet it allows UCSF the best of many worlds (independent selection of designer and GC with a single contract and competitive pricing from qualified teams; I could discuss this forever if there if people want to dig deeper).

However, it is the qualitative portion of the selection of the GCs, in addition to fees and billing rates, that most intrigues me and shows how the construction industry is changing. Stuart asks two key questions during the interviews of shortlisted GCs: 1) "What are you going to do to cure cancer?" (UCSF is a leading cancer research and treatment institution) and 2) "What will you do to bring collaboration to the project?" Again, I could talk about these questions and their significance forever, but there are two key points I want to make. First, Stuart makes the tacit point that he doesn't really care about how the selected GC is going to actually build a structure. He knows that the GCs being considered are all capable of building complex and technical structures because they are shortlisted by qualifications. But he is truly interested in how the selected GC is going to enaqble and enhance UCSF's mission.  In other words, UCSF is not hiring a general contractor, they are hiring a partner in their war against deadly diseases.

Secondly, Stuart wants to know how the selected GC is going to work well with others. Not just the architect and owner's construction management team, but also with doctors, nurses, research scientists and, most importantly, patients and their loved ones. In fact, they have the design-build team meet with patients to gain a first-hand understanding of the curing process and what patients need for successful outcomes. I will guarantee you that patients rarely, if likely never, bring up construction topics like change orders, general conditions, maintaining the critical path, etc.

As the site visit concluded, John made a key point that also highlights the changing nature of the construction industry: construction is a people business. Many people in the construction industry already know this, but this concept is accelerating and, on the flip side, the days of hard bidding and only building what is represented in the plans and specifications without care or consideration of owners' and end users' needs or desires, is decelerating. As builders, it will be increasingly important to work with owners and end users to meet higher-order goals and to truly understand their missions. This is a positive change.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    September 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    July 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    Economics
    Real Estate
    Technology

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • About
  • Builder Blog
  • Tacos & Tower Cranes
  • In the News
  • For CM Students