Water Design-Build Council Blog

Rice Lake Construction Group, in conjunction with AE2S Engineering and the City of Watford City, successfully completed the first construction management at-risk delivery of a municipal wastewater treatment facility project in North Dakota. Below are a few items that made the project a success and a few that could have made the process better.

Being on a CMAR project is like being part of an Olympic 4 x 100 relay team. Similar to the way the countries select the fastest runners for their Olympic relay teams; as an owner you select the best design and construction teams in the industry for your project. But having the fastest runners or the best CMAR and design teams isn’t enough. All the relay runners must come together as a cohesive team and the most critical aspect of any relay race is the transition between runners. Runners must be in lock step; they must be able to adapt to each other’s speed, excitement, and timing to move the relay baton through each leg of the relay and win the race. The same holds true for a CMAR project team. As a project moves from conceptual design, detail design, construction, and finally start-up and commissioning, each handoff of the project baton must be seamless. What would happen if you waited to find your third and fourth runners until after the race had started? Undoubtedly, that would put your relay team at a major disadvantage.

The single most important factor for ensuring the success of the collaboration process is the careful selection of the individuals involved. This is perhaps even more critical in construction management-at-risk project delivery than in other design-build delivery methods due to the nature of the contracting arrangements.

Several of our industry’s best collaborative-delivery methods— namely construction management at-risk (CMAR) and progressive design-build — rely on an open-book process for developing cost and pricing during preconstruction.

The single most important factor for ensuring the success of the collaboration process is the careful selection of the individuals involved. This is perhaps even more critical in construction management-at-risk project delivery than in other design-build delivery methods due to the nature of the contracting arrangements.

This week’s blog recap focuses on construction management at-risk. If you’re not familiar with this collaborative delivery method, or afraid that it might not work for your projects, take some time to explore these blogs, as well as others on the WDBC website, and see for yourself how this delivery method can be to your benefit. 

This is the second in a series of three blogs about employing best practices in collaborative delivery methods such as design-build and Construction Management At-Risk (CMAR).

When faithfully applied, these best practices provide superior project results. Today’s blog will focus on contracts and contracting best practices.

Perhaps the most important element of a sound design-build contract is the fair and equitable allocation of risk. Early in the life of the project (during the programming and planning phase), owners should seek industry and stakeholder input to cooperatively identify project-specific risks and how those risks will be addressed.

If you’re an owner looking to engage in a more collaborative delivery process (than that of design-bid-build), but not confident that your organization is prepared to pursue a design-build procurement process, then the delivery method identified as Construction Management at-Risk (CMAR) could be the right fit for your project.

An interview with Ryan Adler of Crossland Heavy Construction.

Several of our industry’s best collaborative-delivery methods— namely construction management at-risk (CMAR) and progressive design-build — rely on an open-book process for developing cost and pricing during preconstruction.