Attitudes and perceptions towards early contractor involvement procurement

Early contractor involvement (ECI) procurement is a relatively recent development in construction, which allows the contractor to have input into the design phase of a project. In comparison, under traditional construction procurement, the design is completed before the contractor becomes involved in a project. The aim of the paper is to examine the attitudes and perceptions of contractors and architectural designers towards ECI in general and design-build procurement in particular as the most common form of ECI procurement in the Auckland commercial construction market. Face-to-face surveys and semi-structured interviews have been conducted with contractors and architectural designers to gain an in-depth understanding of the different aspects of ECI procurement, in comparison to traditional design-bid-build procurement with regard to Auckland commercial construction projects. The findings of the study indicate that ECI procurement is viewed positively by both contractors and architectural designers. Both parties also consider that ECI provides benefits for them, though each has some concerns in certain areas of ECI that they feel adversely affect their particular role. These areas of concern are where there are differences in the perceptions of the two parties. ECI was found to offer significant advantages over the traditional approach in terms of cost, design and relationship factors, but results were inconclusive with regard to time and quality advantages.