Over the years of designing and building HVAC infrastructure, I’ve been fortunate to be able to complete the projects via integrated project delivery (IPD) and design-build (D-B), in addition to design-bid-build (DBB) and construction management (CM).
Why is this being fortunate? Well, unlike DBB (and to some extent CM), IPD and DB require full team participation (FTP). In my world of design and construction, FTP was mandated to the owner, O&M department, trade contractors, TAB company, design team, and commissioning firm if we were going to go this route of project delivery. In fact, before commissioning became a much-needed task, our FTP approach inherently provided our own commissioning process because there was ownership by all. Consensus and not any one individual made the team decisions. As we scoped out the design intent based on what the owner needed (e.g., replace antiquated chillers), we did so via team estimating within our FTP process.