Delivery Methods

Batson-Cook has been providing contracting services for more than 100 years throughout the Southeast to every sector of commercial construction from civil to industrial to high-end multi-family residential facilities.  

Traditional Design-Bid-Build

This approach is also called “Bid,” “Hard Bid,” “Low Bid,” “Lump Sum Bid,” and “General Contracting.” The owner contracts with an architect for design, puts completed drawings and specifications out to general contractors for competitive bid, and awards the contract to the lowest bidder.

The main advantage is simplicity and ease of understanding. The main disadvantages are that it is frequently an adversarial approach, does not involve the contractor during design, and frequently involves costly change orders (“lowest bid” does not necessarily mean “lowest total project cost”). These disadvantages can be minimized if the projects are small and uncomplicated.

Construction Management at-Risk

The owner contracts with an architect for design and with a construction manager (CM At-Risk) for valuable input during design. At or near the end of design, the CM At-Risk contractor establishes an all-inclusive guaranteed maximum price (GMP), which the owner can accept or reject. Typically, the CM At-Risk competitively bids all or most of the work to subcontractors and selects the lowest bid for each trade to ensure the lowest possible GMP or price to the owner.

Advantages include construction input to design to help ensure owner goals are met in cost, schedule, and quality; a faster schedule; fewer change orders; a less adversarial and more partnering approach; full disclosure of contractor project and cost information; return to the owner of savings. The main disadvantages are the approach is not easily understood and requires more owner involvement.

Design/Build

The owner contracts with one firm for design, construction and related services. The most common Design/Build entities are those with all or most design and construction services in-house, and construction firms that contract for design services. However, Design/Build entities can take several other different forms.

The main advantages include only one contract for all services, better accountability, and better coordination. The main disadvantage is the potential for owner expectations in quality and scope not being met.

Program Management

Program management (PM) is not so much a project delivery approach as it is a partial outsourcing of owner responsibilities for managing the entire design and construction process. The owner contracts with a PM on a professional services basis to serve as the owner’s representative. The owner will also have contracts with those firms providing project delivery, such as a design firm and contractor or CM At-Risk. The PM is charged with representing the owner and with directing the design and construction teams.  PM can be used in conjunction with any of the other approaches described.

The main advantage is that PM allows the owner to have the equivalent of specialized staff without hiring permanent staff. It works well for a difficult project, a large group of projects, a peak in construction program workload, or where in-house staff capabilities are inadequate. Potential disadvantages are that the owner has one more contract to deal with and must still have contracts with the firm(s) providing project delivery; PM cannot guarantee or be at financial risk for the project outcome; in some situations, a PM firm may feel pressured to demonstrate value for the owner to justify their fee, sometimes at the expense of the design team and contractor or CM

Comparison of Common Project Delivery Approaches