EVALUATION OF INTEGRATED PROJECT DELIVERY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Abstract

The construction industry is fraught with waste and inefficiencies resulting in projects often failing to meet owners? expectations. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is the newest project delivery system and changes the traditional roles and relationships of key project stakeholders. Through increased early collaboration IPD attempts to eliminate waste and deliver the highest value projects to owners. It is seen as a potential solution to many of the challenges impeding successful project performance. However, a transformational change towards IPD has yet to reach a ?tipping point? and its use is not prevalent throughout the construction industry. Little research has been done to quantitatively analyze IPD compared to the more commonly used delivery methods. Through substantial collection of quantitative project performance data and univariate statistical analysis, this study fills the gap in research by evaluating the effects of IPD on building construction projects across a wide range of performance metrics from the perspective of general contractors and construction managers. This research demonstrated that IPD/IPD-ish outperformed Non-IPD projects with respect to performance in communication, change management, and business performance areas. Evidence of superior communication performance was found in terms of the number of requests for information (RFIs) per million dollars; change management in terms of change order processing time; and business performance in terms of a project?s impact on company image and the potential for return business. A new term called the Project Quarterback Rating (PQR) that combines key performance metrics was used to quantitatively evaluate overall performance. Statistically significant evidence of overall superior IPD/IPD-ish performance was found compared to Non-IPD projects. This research also evaluated other project attributes and found evidence suggesting that higher overall performance was related to implementation of Lean construction techniques, a more engaged and empowered project leadership team, a higher level of stakeholder involvement throughout a project, and inclusion of an incentive clause in a construction contract. The results should encourage owners to consider the use of IPD, or the utilization of IPD principles in conjunction with other delivery methods, in future capital facilities endeavors.