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

Chapter: 4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs

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Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
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4

Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs

The mere existence of a design review process elevates both the work of the architect and the aspirations of his or her clients. In my experience, this has been design review at its best. At its worst, design review can become stylistic tinkering or design by committee. David M. Childs, Senior Design Partner, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (Brown, 1995)

For purposes of this study, the Federal Facilities Council (FFC) used the term design review to signify the review of facility designs as part of a multifaceted process that begins in conceptual planning and continues in some fashion throughout the facility acquisition process. The core issues of this study concern the value-added portions of design review processes and the appropriate level of oversight for facilities owners, particularly federal agencies, in such processes. The study objective was to identify a range of best practices and technologies that could be used by federal agencies and other owners to provide adequate management and oversight for reviewing facility designs in an era of limited resources.

During the course of this study a literature search was conducted, industry experts and practitioners were consulted, and federal agencies were surveyed. The findings of this report as they relate to the original questions posed by the FFC about the value-added of design review processes and the role of facilities owners are the following:

  • What is the value-added of design review processes?

Design reviews are an essential component of the facility acquisition process. An effective design review process helps to unify and align all interested parties to a common objective and integrate their knowledge, experience, and skills throughout all phases of the facility acquisition process (conceptual planning, design, procurement, construction, and start-up). In the end, 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.

Effective design review practices result in the preparation of more comprehensive and accurate design and construction documents which 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. By reducing changes required during the construction phase, effective design review practices also

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×

generate significant indirect cost savings by avoiding costs associated with loss of productivity during construction-delayed facility startup, and litigation.

  • How do (and how can) federal agencies measure the value-added?

The nine federal agencies that responded to the FFC's questionnaire indicated that they currently measure the value-added of design review processes primarily from a broad context: Their insight is both subjective (is the user reasonably happy with the completed facility?) as well as objective (how close did the completed facility come to the original cost and schedule objectives?). Sufficient industry research has been conducted in recent years to identify metrics that can be used to measure both the efficiency and the effectiveness of each phase of the facility acquisition process and compare the results to established benchmarks. The extent to which individual federal agencies currently take such measurements and analyze results varies widely.

  • What is the role of in-house staff, and what value do they add to design review processes?

Within most federal agencies, facilities are a means to support the agency's mission rather than the mission itself. The agency's in-house facility engineering staff exist to support the agency's mission. First and foremost, the in-house staff should be able to identify facility requirements in the context of impact on the agency's mission success and, in so doing, to act as a smart buyer. The staff should be capable of leading a strategic planning process involving representatives of the agency's facility user community where give and take decisions are made balancing the facility's ultimate performance, cost, and schedule. During the tactical facility acquisition phase, in-house facility engineering staff should be capable of providing the overall process leadership, ensuring that all activities proceed in the best interest of the owner. Toward this end, the owner's interests are best served if the in-house staff can also perform in the role of a “smart buyer” of the necessary technical services. A smart buyer is one who retains the requisite technical knowledge to accurately define the technical services needed, recognizes value during the acquisition of such technical services, and can evaluate the quality of services ultimately provided.

  • What functions are being (and should be) contracted to outside consultants?

Individual and often uncontrollable circumstances have resulted in nearly all facility engineering functions, from conceptual planning to project start-up, being contracted to outside consultants at one time or another. Today's general practice among federal agencies is to outsource design development and, to a lesser extent, certain specialized technical review functions such as shop drawing reviews, value engineering, and constructability.

As long as sufficient skills are retained in-house to meet the smart buyer approach discussed above, there does not appear to be any greater risk from contracting out a broader range of design review functions including such services as construction document discipline reviews and code compliance checks, so long as such functions are widely available from a competitive commercial marketplace. The exception occurs when complex projects include unique and specialized features of high mission relevance and limited skill availability in the commercial marketplace (examples would include NASA wind tunnels, Veterans Affairs medical research facilities, and high-security military facilities). Agencies are well advised to retain such unique specialized skills in-house as core competencies, with design review a primary in-house responsibility.

  • What skills and resources do federal agencies need to provide effective oversight of design review processes?

Industry-related research and the author's interviews with public and private sector practitioners suggest that agencies should retain the capabilities in-house to:

  1. define facility requirements in relation to the agency's mission, assess facility-related mission impacts, and conduct facility-related strategic planning activities;

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
  1. lead and conduct teaming activities involving participants from various interested parties (owner, user, A/E, construction contractor, specialty consultants, etc);

  2. develop, implement, and maintain overall policy and direction of the agency's facility engineering function; and

  3. perform as a smart buyer of outsourced technical services.

  • What risks and liabilities do federal agencies face in outsourcing most or all of their design review functions?

The risks and liabilities will vary depending on whether an agency maintains the in-house capabilities to perform the design review-related functions listed above. If an agency does not retain such in-house resources and capabilities, agencies risk the following consequences:

  1. Consultant access to agency decision makers may be limited, resulting in difficulty understanding the owner's project performance expectations.

  2. Project schedule may be compromised at key decision points due to lack of owner insight.

  3. A design review process with little or no owner participation may become ineffective without the owner being aware of the developing process deterioration. An owner with little or no participation in design reviews is less likely to become aware of any breakdowns in the process; the owner may find out too late to remedy the problem or to save the project schedule, and this may result in cost overruns.

  4. Consultants may find it difficult to communicate with owner staff regarding technical issues and problem solving.

In the case of unique, unusual, or high-tech facilities, consultants may have limited access to unique skills, potentially resulting in naïve and inappropriate technical solutions.

  • How can new and emerging technologies be integrated into design review processes?

The ongoing revolution in information technology and communications offers unlimited opportunities to improve design review processes. Examples range from relatively simple practices, such as effective use of audio and video teleconferencing to improve meeting flexibility, to emerging technologies using holographic projection techniques to create three- and four-dimensional models of project designs in order to visualize the impact of proposed changes. The Internet and computer-aided design and drafting can be used for fast, comprehensive, paperless communication between reviewers, managers, and A/Es.

Benchmarking offers one tool to identify which technologies offer the most return for the investment made. Agencies can identify similar organizations that have successfully incorporated desirable technologies and adopt those practices that offer significant improvements in process, cost savings, time, or resources.

Agencies can also consider joining any of the many trade and professional organizations that assist their membership in identifying and implementing appropriate technology-based practices. It is important to recognize that some of the technology practices will cause major changes to established routines, require new equipment and software, and require mastering new sets of skills.

BEST PRACTICES

Effective design review processes require work, some of it obvious and some of it quite subtle. The following list of 18 best practices relies heavily on research conducted by the Construction Industry Institute, The Business Roundtable, the National Research Council, the FFC, and similar organizations. The author's interviews with a wide range of experienced design, construction, and operation professionals, and the author's personal experience also contributed to the compilation of the following list. The best practices are organized into five categories related to the role of the owner, teamwork and collaboration, advance planning, process, and benchmarking.

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Role of the Owner
  1. Be a smart buyer. Facility acquisition processes (including review of designs) work best when the owner has sufficient in-house expertise to qualify as a smart buyer. A smart buyer is one who retains an in-house staff that understands the organization's mission, its requirements, and its customer needs and who can translate those needs and requirements into a corporate or strategic direction. A smart buyer also retains an in-house staff that includes technical experts who can both articulate the nature of technical services being bought, recognize good value during the negotiation of such services, and evaluate the quality of the services as they are provided.

  2. Develop a scope of work that clearly and accurately defines the owner's expectations regarding facility cost, schedule, performance, and quality. The owner's standards, more than those of any other entity involved in the acquisition process, will set the tone for all aspects of design review activity. The owner's scope of work should be used as the yardstick against which to measure performance.

  3. Avoid the temptation to micromanage design reviews. A/Es are selected based on their experience and expertise; they should be given wide latitude to bring that expertise to fruition.

Teamwork and Collaboration
  1. Use teambuilding and partnering techniques to build good working and communicative relationships among the participants.

  2. Ensure that all interested parties participate in design reviews from the planning and design phases, so that all perspectives are represented as the design evolves. Broad participation creates early project endorsement or “buy-in,” reducing the potential of later disagreement or need for changes. At a minimum, involve representatives of the owner, the user, the A/E, construction management staff, maintenance and operations staff, and special staff such as procurement, safety, and fire protection. Where possible and appropriate, include the construction contractor, permitting agency staff, and independent specialists for value engineering and independent review. Err on the side of excess participation—it is cost effective protection against unexpected and expensive fixes or oversights.

  3. Use the same A/E throughout the facility acquisition process to maximize continuity and allow participants to build and apply their experience baseline. Using the same A/E for conceptual planning, detailed design, construction support engineering services, and start-up takes advantage of the A/E's intimate understanding of both the owner and his project needs, and supports continuity of personnel involved.

  4. Use senior, experienced personnel who understand the relationship of a facility to meeting the agency's overall mission and who can effectively evaluate the evolving design and guide the review process.

  5. Participants should commit for the duration of the activity to ensure continuity. Changing participants from any of the organizations involved in reviewing the design can disrupt the work flow and threaten the stability of good teaming relationships.

  6. Participate in a design awards program in order to recognize and motivate excellence. Nothing succeeds like success! Recognition of a job well done gives visibility to a successful process and motivates all of the participants to continually improve.

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Advance Planning
  1. Focus attention on the review of designs during the conceptual planning and design phases where the ability to influence the ultimate functionality and cost of the project is the greatest. Effective design review processes start out being very intensive and proactive, with an intensity that declines through the procurement, construction, and start-up phases of the acquisition process.

  2. Do not start the final stage of design—preparation of the construction plans and specifications—until the preliminary engineering has been completed. To do otherwise could significantly slow the overall design activity due to frequent interruption and rework caused by incomplete project scope definition.

Process
  1. Tailor the design review approach to project specifics. Project complexity, cost, mission criticality, visibility, method of contracting, and schedule are just a few of the variables that can drive aspects of the design review approach such as frequency, intensity, and reliance on outsourced experts and consultants.

  2. Keep up the pace to maintain momentum and keep the facility acquisition process on schedule. The review of designs at each phase of the process should not impede progress toward a completed facility. A stop–start or prolonged process impacts the acquisition in many ways, perhaps the most critical being the increased potential that organizations will reassign participants.

  3. Pay special attention to the civil, structural, electrical, and mechanical interfaces. Historically, 30-50 percent of all construction change orders result from interference fit problems between trades. Is the power supply appropriate to the specified mechanical equipment? Does the HVAC ducting pass through structural members?

  4. Exploit technology. The technological revolution has provided many tools to enhance design review processes, including computer-aided design, three-dimensional modeling, data collection and distribution software programs, and rapid communication systems, including the Internet.

  5. Conduct a postoccupancy evaluation to develop a lessons-learned document for future reference. After facility start-up, the design review team should document objective results (how did final cost and schedule compare to planned?) as well as subjective results (is the user pleased with facility performance?). The postoccupancy evaluation should also relate approaches taken during the various phases of the facility acquisition process with the final results.

Benchmarking
  1. Measure results achieved by design review processes in order to assess its level of performance. A process cannot be managed if it is not measured. Successful benchmarking requires an organization to identify relevant performance characteristics, measure them, and compare results against either established industrial norms or against similar measured characteristics of other organizations recognized for their excellence.

  2. Document both unusually good and bad performance for future reference. Even better, find a way to share such information with other organizations and federal agencies.

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FOLLOW-ON STUDY

In the course of preparing this report, four topics were identified in which additional research and discussion could lead to either fundamental new approaches or significant improvements to current practices.

  1. Create a senior-level advisory group on federal facilities issues. Study the alternatives, costs, and benefits of establishing a senior-level policy council within the federal government that would advocate, lead development, and direct implementation of policies and strategies designed to raise and maintain the practice of facility engineering and stewardship of federal facilities at the highest level. Such a council would comprise senior facility engineering executives from all agencies with facility responsibilities as well as representatives from professional organizations, trade associations, and the industry 's private sector.

A similar recommendation was made by the Committee to Assess Techniques for Developing Maintenance and Repair Budgets for Federal Facilities. Their recommendation was published in the 1998 National Research Council Report Stewardship of Federal Facilities: A Proactive Strategy for Managing the Nation's Public Assets and was focused primarily on improving management of facility maintenance and repair activities. Nonetheless, that committee 's recommendation is equally relevant for the facility acquisition process and is therefore reiterated below:

The authoring committee recommends that an executive level, federal facilities advisory group be appointed to provide policy direction and set priorities for the effective management and maintenance of the facilities portfolio. This group should include senior level federal managers from civilian and military agencies, other public sector managers, and representatives of nonprofit organizations and private sector corporations. . . . An advisory group of senior officials from DOD, DOE, GSA, NASA, other federal agencies responsible for managing facilities portfolios, OMB, GAO, the National Science and Technology Council, and other appropriate agencies and organizations should be appointed to focus on the policy issues related to maintaining and enhancing the functionality and quality of federal facilities. This group should also include representatives of state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private sector corporations with facilities-related responsibilities to provide a broad perspective in facilities management. An executive level advisory group will give the issue of federal facilities maintenance, repair and stewardship greater visibility. Initially, this effort may require the investment of more staff time and resources, but, in the long term, it should result in savings of both time and resources through greater cooperation and sharing of facilities management knowledge (NRC, 1998).

  1. Identify a set of metrics that can be used to measure performance across all phases of the facility acquisition process. Each phase of the facility acquisition process (conceptual planning, design, procurement, construction, and start-up) contains characteristics that can be objectively identified and measured as an indicator of performance. Such metrics can be effectively used either within a single agency or among different federal agencies to document a level of performance and compare it to recognized benchmarks. A number of individual federal agencies have attempted to develop such a system of measurement for one phase of the process or another, with varying levels of success. But a governmentwide system of measurement addressing all phases of the process and that is applicable as a method of comparison between agencies does not exist. The National Research Council study Stewardship of Federal Facilities, mentioned above, also recognized a similar need for governmentwide performance measures for facility maintenance and repair activities. Specifically, the report recommended that “Government-wide performance measures should be established to evaluate the effectiveness of facilities maintenance and repair programs and expenditures” (NRC, 1998).

  2. Study current practices of federal agencies with regard to the standards, guidelines, and policies supplied to A/Es in support of facility acquisition activities. Sources cited in this study, both in the literature and through interviews, indicate that the way in which owners' expectations are defined through standards, guidelines, and policies is critical to both the efficiency of the design process as well as the resulting product. Well-prepared guidelines help an A/E understand the general direction the design is expected to take and can save a lot of time getting the project underway. On the other hand, overly prescriptive guidelines can limit the initiative and innova

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×

tion that the A/E is allowed to contribute to the design. It would be useful to compare and contrast how federal, other public sector agencies, and private sector organizations approach this issue.

  1. Study potential benefits of establishing a peer review process for agency design review practices. In a peer review activity, an organization desiring to evaluate its own internal management process and practices requests that another organization with similar products and responsibilities visit in order to conduct an intensive investigation focused on how work gets done at the requesting organization. Normally, the organization invited to conduct the review is recognized for its excellence and is sufficiently independent that its findings and recommendations can be both objective and nonthreatening. The peer review process itself may sound simple and straightforward; however, it has evolved into a sophisticated and highly structured activity with increasingly successful outcomes for both the inspecting as well as the inspected parties. Peer review is much more common in the private sector, but would appear to have application in the federal sector.

Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
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Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
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Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 42
Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 43
Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 44
Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 45
Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 46
Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 47
Suggested Citation:"4 Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs." National Research Council. 2000. Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Process: Best Practices for Reviewing Facility Designs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9769.
×
Page 48
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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.

Adding Value to the Facility Acquisition Processidentifies 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.

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