Achieving Excellence in Joint Venture Design-Build Management

The design-build approach to large construction projects is increasingly popular. In particular, the design-build process implemented by the State of New York’s Governor Cuomo facilitates combining design and construction services into single contracts. This helps expedite new and repair work to vital NY infrastructure and saves taxpayer money.

Leveraging a Solid Track Record and Process Acceleration

The building of the new Kosciuszko bridge, the largest project in the history of the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), began in May 2014 after contractors had submitted their design-build proposals. Phase 1 of the $555 million contract was awarded to the joint venture (JV) team of Skanska, Kiewit, and Ecco. The design-build contract for this project was modeled after the accelerated process for the New York bridge project to replace the Tappan Zee bridge and used by another JV team leveraging hosted project management services from LoadSpring™.

The Challenge of Joint Venture Project Management

Collaborating on a project under a JV is already highly complex. The contract specifications for the Kosciuszko bridge construction also require the JV team to standardize on Primavera P6 and Contract Management, to provide 4D models (where the team selected Synchro), and to leverage a Primavera certified third-party hosting provider.

LoadSpring was selected to support this JV team partly due to our long-term partnership with the NYSDOT, which started with Primavera hosting for the Alexander Hamilton bridge. We are providing the team with access and support for:

• Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM (both the web and professional interface)
• Primavera Contract Management v14
• Synchro
• AVS Media converter (Synchro video editor)
• BI Report writing services
• Primavera user training (required by NYSDOT to be granted access)

LoadSpring deployed this new environment about 3 weeks from contract execution. Thanks to the excellence of the functionality of LoadSpring’s enabling technology, LoadSpring’s project controls platform, only 12 support cases have arisen in the past 15 months across an environment of 60 users.

Replicating Success in Other Projects

Managing a project in a JV scenario is tough and requires substation collaboration and real-time information sharing for all companies to be on the same page. A few keys to the success of this JV are:

• Early engagement – LoadSpring worked with both the owner and the design-build team well before they received NTP (notice to proceed).
• Standardization – both the owner and the builder (comprising three separate companies) are on the same version for project scheduling and controls, thanks to their collaboration on LoadSpring’s platform
• Support – Since LoadSpring Cloud Platform is a neutral Cloud-based platform, all users have access to support and dashboards with real-time data without impacting each company’s IT organization or sacrificing security.

Talk to LoadSpring today to see how this approach can empower you to plan and execute your design-build projects successfully and open up new construction contract opportunities with joint venture partners.