Design & Build: An Effectiveness Study

Integrated procurement and private finance initiative (PFI) is often seen as the way to develop better buildings. It is assumed that the improvements in terms of enhanced collaboration, better knowledge exchange, supply chain optimizations and fewer transactional negotiations will result in more on-time deliveries, lower costs, better innovation potential and higher quality. However, there is little sound empirical evidence to support this assumption. The few studies on this issue were mostly in the civil engineering sector and were based on interviews rather than real project-based comparisons. This might be because in building construction, projects, project teams and the project environment are unique and therefore difficult to compare. This paper presents a new method that can be used to objectively compare building projects on cost and time delivery. It reports on six Dutch case studies, two of which were traditionally contracted, while four were design & build projects. Remarkable differences in time and cost performance were found between the two types of projects.