Initiating IPD concepts on campus facilities with a “Collaboration Addendum”

Integrated project delivery (IPD) is attracting the attention of owners, seeking a more collaborative, shared risk, design and construction environment for high-performance building projects. However, the administration of a tri-party or multi-party contract requires a high level of owner involvement and experienced contractors. For owners considering an IPD approach, but unable or unprepared to pursue a multi-party agreement, several “IPD-lite” options are being tested within the construction industry. This research uses quasi-experimental observational case studies of four campus facility projects to follow the progress of the Pennsylvania State University’s facility management organization, the Office of Physical Plant (OPP), through the development and implementation of a Collaboration Addendum as a supplementary contract attachment. Since the selected case studies are planned using traditional delivery methods, the Addendum was designed to integrate desired characteristics of an IPD approach, including: early involvement of project participants, collaborative decision-making, collocation and a performance-based incentive program.  The development of the attachment followed a three step procedure of (1) defining the collaborative intent, (2) refining the intent on a project or team-specific basis and (3) outlining the desired process for achieving meaningful collaboration. Metrics for assessing the success of the Addendum were developed to determine the effectiveness of achieved levels of collaboration and included performance measures of timeliness of communication and meeting effectiveness. This paper reports the development and in-process implementation of the Addendum on selected case study facilities, as a means of promoting collaborative team behavior.