Award Date

8-2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Construction Management

Department

Construction Management

First Committee Member

Pramen Shrestha, Chair

Second Committee Member

David Shields

Third Committee Member

Neil Opfer

Graduate Faculty Representative

Nancy Menzel

Number of Pages

119

Abstract

With an unsure market and scarce work, owners across the United States, especially universities, are finding themselves in situations where they are unable to complete their projects within cost and schedule using the traditional delivery method: Design-Bid-Build (DBB). Under the DBB project delivery method, many competent contractors are electing to send low bids on projects just to keep work on their books, with plans to receive change orders once the project is underway; this practice is leading to cost and schedule overruns. Public universities across the United States are beginning to elect to use Design-Build (DB) as an alternate project delivery method over the traditional project delivery method of DBB in order to aid in reducing the cost, schedule, and change orders.

Due to current legislation in effect, all 50 states are able to use the DB delivery method. However, only 20 states and their public agencies are permitted to use DB for all types of design and construction projects. In 18 states, DB is widely permitted, but not all agencies are permitted to use this delivery method. In the remaining 12 states, DB is a limited option.

In order to analyze and compare Design-Build (DB) and Design-Bid-Build (DBB) projects, this study collected data, by means of convenient random sampling, from construction projects built by Planning and Construction Departments of U.S. universities. Statistical tests were conducted to determine if the metrics related to cost, schedule, and change orders were significantly different from each other in these two types of projects.

The findings of this study will help public universities decide what delivery method is best for them in terms of controlling costs, schedule, and change orders. The results showed that DB projects significantly outperformed DBB projects in terms of Contract Award Cost Growth, Design and Construction Schedule Growth, Total Schedule Growth, Construction Intensity, Construction Change Order Cost Growth, and Total Change Order Cost Growth.

Keywords

Applied sciences; Building--Design and construction; Communication and the arts; Construction contracts—Evaluation; Design-bid-build; Design-build; Public universities; Requests for proposals (Public contracts); Universities and colleges--Design and construction

Disciplines

Architecture | Civil Engineering | Construction Engineering and Management

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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