Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs (2000)

The federal government, like private corporations and other organizations, acquires buildings and other facilities to support specific functions and missions and the general conduct of its business. The federal government is, in fact, the nation's largest owner of buildings and spends more than $20 billion per year for facility design and construction (NRC, 1998).

When acquiring a facility, most owners, both public and private, participate in a multiphased process involving conceptual planning, design, procurement, construction, and start-up. Traditionally, design review has been viewed as a discrete component of the facility acquisition process that primarily involves reviewing a facility design that was prepared by others, either an in-house design team or an architect/engineer firm. However, in developing a detailed scope of work for this study, the Federal Facilities Council found that no two of the sponsor agencies defined the design review process and its elements in exactly the same way. Nor was a common start or end point identified for design review.

In view of the lack of a commonly accepted definition of the elements, duration, and substance of the design review process, the Federal Facilities Council determined that it would focus on practices for reviewing facility designs over the entire facility acquisition process, from conceptual planning to start-up. Stated another way, in this study the term design review is used to signify the review of facility designs as part of a multiphased process and is not limited to reviewing designs during the design phase of facility acquisition.

The core issues of this study concern the value-added of design review processes and the appropriate role of facilities owners, particularly federal agencies, in such processes. The study objective was to identify a range of best practices and technologies that can be used by federal agencies and other owners to provide adequate management and oversight of design reviews throughout the facility acquisition process.

Finding 1. Effective design review processes add value by saving time and money over the entire facilities acquisition process. Effective design review processes result in the preparation of more comprehensive and

accurate design and construction documents that, in turn, result in lower project construction costs. Areas of savings include less rework on the part of the construction contractor, fewer change orders to the owner for correction of design errors or omissions and the cost of belatedly adding project upgrade features that should have been addressed in the original design. Indirect cost savings can be realized by avoiding costs associated with loss of productivity during construction-delayed facility start-up, and litigation. In short, effective review of designs maximizes the probability that a business requirement will be successfully supported by a facility that was conceived, designed, constructed, and placed into operation efficiently and effectively.

Finding 2. The team responsible for design oversight should include participants from all project stakeholders: owner, user, architect/engineer, construction contractor, operation and maintenance staff, and major equipment vendors. The team should participate in and contribute to design-related activities associated with each phase of the facility acquisition process, i.e., from conceptual planning through start-up.

Finding 3. The use of metrics by federal agencies to measure the value-added of design review processes is not well established. Although research has been conducted by the Construction Industry Institute and other organizations to identify metrics that may be used to measure both the efficiency and the effectiveness of each phase of the facility acquisition process, the extent to which individual federal agencies measure design review processes and analyze results is highly variable.

Finding 4. To provide effective oversight of design review processes, the owner's interests are best served if the in-house staff can fulfill the functions of a “smart buyer.” A smart buyer is one who retains an in-house staff that understands the organization's mission, its requirements, its customer needs, and who can translate those needs and requirements into corporate direction. A smart buyer also retains the requisite capabilities and technical knowledge to lead and conduct teaming activities, accurately define the technical services needed, recognize value during the acquisition of such technical services, and evaluate the quality of services ultimately provided.

As long as the owner retains the in-house capabilities to operate as a smart buyer of facilities, there does not appear to be any greater risk from contracting out a broad range of design review-related functions, so long as such functions are widely available from a competitive commercial marketplace. If the owner does not have the capacity to operate as a smart buyer, the owner risks project schedule and cost overruns and facilities that do not meet performance objectives.

Finding 5. The ongoing revolution in information technology and communications offers opportunities to improve design review processes. Examples include audio and video teleconferencing, immediate and widespread data distribution via the Internet, computer-aided design and drafting, and a wide range of project management software. Emerging technologies such as the use of holographic projection techniques to create three-and four-dimensional models of project designs guarantee a continuing stream of future enhancements.

Research conducted by the Construction Industry Institute, The Business Roundtable, the National Research Council, and the Federal Facilities Council, among other organizations, and interviews conducted for this study resulted in the identification of 18 best practices for the review of designs, summarized as follows:

Role of the Owner: Be a smart buyer. Develop a scope of work that clearly and accurately defines the owner's expectations regarding cost, schedule, performance, and quality. Avoid the temptation to micromanage the design review process.

Teamwork and Collaboration: Use teambuilding and partnering techniques. Ensure that all interested parties participate in design review processes. Use the same architect/engineer throughout the process. Use senior, experienced staff to evaluate the evolving design and guide the review process. Commit for the duration of the activity. Participate in a design awards program.

Advance Planning: Focus attention at the front end during the conceptual planning and design phases where the ability to influence the ultimate cost of the project is the greatest. Do not start the final stage of design until the preliminary engineering is complete.

Process: Tailor the review approach to project specifics. Keep up the pace of the process to maintain momentum. Pay special attention to civil, structural, architectural, electrical, and mechanical interfaces. Exploit technology. Conduct a post occupancy evaluation to develop a lessons-learned document.

Benchmarking: Measure results achieved by the design process. Document both unusually good and bad performance.

Four areas were identified where additional research and discussion could lead to either fundamental new approaches or significant improvements to current practices: (1) establishment of a senior-level advisory group on federal facilities issues; (2) identification of a set of metrics that could be used to measure performance across all phases of the facility acquisition process; (3) an evaluation of current practices of federal agencies with regard to the standards, guidelines and policies supplied to architect/engineers in support of facility acquisition activities; and (4) a study of the potential benefits of establishing a peer review process for agency design review practices.