Here’s an excerpt from the introduction to my new publication, PSMJ’s AEC Issue Brief: Integrated Project Delivery, which you can only find exclusively here at AEC Insight (or in the book, if you buy it!). It is the publisher’s March “Book of the Month.”

Introduction: Why You Should Care About IPD

When I first started writing about design and construction in 1993, a new concept in project delivery gripped the industry’s attention. Its passionate supporters presented it as the next big thing, an innovation that every large and mid-sized project would someday incorporate into the delivery process.

We saw the future of project delivery and its name was partnering.

I remember thinking that the idea of bringing together all key participants in a major project at the very beginning sounded good. In theory, it would allow everyone on the project team to understand the expectations and ideas of the others, while opening communication lines and creating personal relationships.

At the same time, I wondered if partnering would ever gain widespread acceptance in an industry where time and money are of such critical importance and at such a premium. How could architects, engineers, contractors and owners— people with barely enough time to return a phone call, with schedules booked solid for weeks and months ahead— drop everything for several days to live in huts and sing “Kumbaya” around a campfire (which is how partnering’s many skeptics often described these events)?

Seventeen years later, partnering hasn’t exactly taken the construction world by storm. Do a Google search on “partnering on construction projects”; you’ll find that most of the books and articles on partnering came out a decade ago or more (or that the word is used in an entirely different context). Few people in the industry, and almost no one in small and midsized firms, have ever participated in a partnering session as we then knew it.

It is true that some clients and projects still practice partnering in various forms and to varying degrees. It is even possibly an ancestor to other collaborative planning techniques, including Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), the subject of this publication. But partnering in 2010 is no more a staple of the design and construction industry than TQM (total quality management) or BPR (business process reengineering), two other ideas that sounded good in theory.

It’s fair to say that partnering didn’t live up to the hype.

The hype is now buzzing relentlessly around IPD. It is the increasingly frequent subject of seminars and webinars, conferences and workshops, articles and books, organizations and associations. If you’re not talking about, learning about or thinking about IPD, you’re living in a figurative cave.

“IPD is hot! IPD is now! IPD is the project delivery method of the future, so you better get on board now or the train will leave without you.”

Just wait until architects, engineers, owners and contractors actually start using it on real projects.

You see, despite the incredible “hotness” of IPD, relatively few projects in the U.S. have actually used this delivery method. And, depending on how you define IPD (more on that later), the “few” may be even fewer.

So while IPD is currently the toast of the industry, it is a distant, mysterious concept to the vast majority of professionals working in the estimated one and a quarter million AEC companies in the United States. Some AEC firms may even be working in IPD arrangements, at least as some define the term, and not even know it.

This begs the question, why write this treatise on IPD if it is possibly just another fad? Why should you, the reader, waste time learning about something that could wind up being this generation’s version of partnering?

First, it’s important to remember that not everything about partnering went the way of the Discman, Spuds McKenzie and other 90s fads. Many people credit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) with originating partnering as we came to know it. And while the terminology has changed— the Corps now seems to prefer the term “Collaborative Planning”— remnants of partnering live on in some large USACE projects. They’re not alone on this, either.

Collaborative planning is a good term that strikes at the essence of both partnering and IPD, without the “touchy-feely” baggage that grew to accompany the former. In 2010, collaborative planning among project team members survives in a number of forms, including as a basis for some of IPD’s principles (e.g., collaborative innovation, mutual respect and trust, open communication).

So even if IPD eventually goes down the same path as partnering, some of its better elements may survive to help create the next industry trend.

More importantly, IPD is not partnering.

Partnering and IPD both grew out of the commonsense concept that projects benefit from the people involved cooperatively considering the process and the product before creating too much of either. Both are the backlash of an industry that has unintentionally built distrust, inefficiency, and finger-pointing into the system.

A major difference between the two is that partnering addresses mainly the “softer” side of the problem, where IPD can affect many of the harder elements of a project, such as the contractual terms.

The 65-page briefing delves into several aspects of IPD, including how it is defined, how IPD projects work, the history of IPD, some sample IPD projects, and the outlook for IPD.

As I wrote at the end of the intro, “The overriding charge of this PSMJ AEC Issue Brief is to offer an entirely unbiased, agenda-free perspective on IPD and the role it plays— and is likely to play— across the wide AEC industry.” I believe the document lives up to that mission and hope the readers agree.

With Democrats relishing his gift of gaffe and fellow Republicans supporting him the way Gatorade did Tiger Woods, lame duck Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning has ended his game of political solitaire. Bunning, an MLB Hall of Fame pitcher in his younger days, today backed off his refusal to allow a vote on a spending bill extension. This means nearly 2000 furloughed DOT workers will be back on the job on Wednesday, and fears of massive stoppage of federally funded roadway projects can be set to rest…for another month anyway.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A Republican that had been stubbornly blocking a stopgap measure to extend help for the jobless relented on Tuesday under withering assaults from Democrats and dwindling support within his own party.

Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky had been single-handedly blocking the $10 billion measure, causing federal furloughs and threatening the unemployment benefits of hundreds of thousands of people. He was seeking to force Democrats to find ways to finance the bill so that it wouldn’t add to the deficit, but his move sparked a political tempest that has subjected Republicans to withering media coverage and cost the party politically.

The bill is now slated to come to a vote Tuesday night. It passed the House last week and is likely to be signed into law immediately by President Barack Obama so that 2,000 furloughed Transportation Department workers can go back to work on Wednesday. They’re likely to be awarded back pay once the program is revived.

A law that provided stopgap road funding and longer and more generous unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless expired Monday. Without the extension, about 200,000 jobless people would have lost federal benefits this week alone, according to the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project.

The measure to be voted on tonight would extend through the end of the month several programs that expired on Monday, including the jobless aid, federal highway funding and help for doctors facing cuts in Medicare payments.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_budget_impasse

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post today wrote what a lot of people inside and outside DC are saying about former MLB pitcher and current Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning.

In his 17 years pitching in the big leagues, Jim Bunning was known for his graceful curveball, his rising slider and his sidearm fastball. Now 78 years old and about to retire from the Senate, the Republican of Kentucky is apparently down to only one pitch: the screwball.

Bunning’s solitary opposition to an extension spending bill has, among other things, resulted in nearly 2000 DOT employees being told to stay home Monday.

In a press release, the DOT said it “will furlough nearly 2,000 employees without pay Monday, temporarily shutting down highway reimbursements to states worth hundreds of millions of dollars, national anti-drunk driving efforts, and multi-million dollar construction projects across the country. The action comes as a result of Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to block key legislation that would have extended several critical priorities for middle-class families. That legislation covered tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, as well as the short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund. The Fund supports all surface transportation programs for the nation—highways, bridges, transit and safety inspections.”

Here’s more of Milbank’s take on Bunning:

For four days, he has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers.

Democrats can hardly believe the gift Bunning has given them by single-handedly shutting down these popular programs. Bunning’s fellow Republicans are aghast. If this were baseball, the Hall of Famer would be on his way down to triple-A. But this is the Senate, where any one of the 100 members has the ability to bring proceedings to a halt, and Bunning continues to hurl his wild pitches.

The ornery Kentuckian said he was merely insisting that Congress find a way to pay for the $10 billion, 30-day extension, but that was difficult to square with his recent votes against attempts to rein in debt and spending.

This left people puzzling over Bunning’s motives. Was he taking revenge on his senior colleague from Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who helped to push Bunning into retirement? Or was he just being, well, crazy? This second possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. With the Phillies and the Tigers, he had enviable accuracy, boasting one of the best strikeout-to-walk ratios. But since his reelection campaign, in 2004, Bunning has had some serious control problems.

He said his opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. He suggested that he and his wife had been roughed up by “little green doctors” at a political picnic. He refused to debate in person, instead doing so by teleconference from Republican National Committee offices in Washington, where he used a teleprompter.

Just over a year ago, Bunning resumed his erratic form when he predicted in public that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

Yet, with the possible exception of that perfect game in ‘64, the events of the past week have been Bunning’s most visible.

You can read the full column here.

The USDOT, including fellow Republican Ray LaHood, also didn’t hold back its criticism of Bunning:

“As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.”

Because of the shutdown, federal inspectors will be removed from critical construction projects, forcing work to come to a halt on federal lands. Projects span the country, including the $36 million replacement of the Humpback Bridge on the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, $15 million in bridge construction and stream rehabilitation in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and the $8 million resurfacing of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. A full list of the FHWA construction projects affected by the furlough is below.

You can read the full release, including a list of affected projects, here.

One of the key findings from PSMJ’s 2010 AEC Firm U.S. Market Sector Forecast was that the higher education market would likely be off a bit, but still remain relatively healthy overall. Here’s some news from South Florida about one school that is keeping the capital construction program alive:

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Construction is booming at the University of South Florida. Four projects will add nearly 475,000 square feet to the campus, about as much space as in a 35-story skyscraper. So how can USF afford $179 million in construction during a recession? Most is being paid for with state public education capital outlay funds, utility tax revenue budgeted years ago specifically for construction. Contractors are hungry, so “we really get to stretch the dollar,” provost Ralph Wilcox said. And USF needs the space, administrators say. They cite a state analysis projecting that in 2012 USF will rank last among Florida public universities for having enough classrooms, teaching labs and especially research labs.

Note the reference to “hungry” contractors, which is helping the school stretch its dollars. Could be a trend.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/college/article1076403.ece

When President Obama announced the winners of $8 billion in high-speed rail grants last month, it revived a debate over the wisdom of investing in this transportation mode. While high-speed rail advocates applauded the move, detractors called it irresponsible and impractical.

High-speed rail supporter America2050.org said the investment is a ”critical step toward implementing the long-term infrastructure vision our nation needs to pull itself out of the Great Recession and position itself for long-term competitive growth.”

But it’s a only a very small step, according to a February 10, 2010, article by Steve Hargreaves of CNNMoney:

“Most of the $8 billion in high-speed rail funds that President Obama awarded last month will not be used for high-speed projects, but rather [for] improvements designed to make existing lines faster,” he wrote.

“Only $3.5 billion is being spent on truly high-speed rail, a sum that’s not remotely close to what’s needed to build a 21st century rail network. The money is going toward two projects — one in California and the other in Florida — that have yet to begin construction.”

Whether the effort to bring a high-speed rail network to the U.S. is too expensive or impractical remains to be seen, but it seems a worthy effort nonetheless. High-speed rail is a travel staple elsewhere in the world and has shown promise in its limited appearance in the Northeast Corridor (i.e., the Acela trains, which are currently as high-speed rail as we get in the U.S.). 

But, as Hargreaves writes, will the price tag be too much — $100 billion just to build out the DOT’s proposed network and possibly five times that if they want the trains to run in excess of 150 mph?

In the Hargreaves article, Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, is quoted, “Rome wasn’t built in a day. What you’re seeing is a growing program of pieces that fit together.”

But Ronald Utt of the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation’s most outpoken critics of the high-speed rail plan, told Hargreaves, “It’s the most expensive way to move passengers from A to B. Of all the things the government has to do, are they really going to say, ‘Yeah, let’s have high-speed rail.’ ”

Hargreaves reports that Utt is skeptical California or Florida will be able to raise the matching funds to get the projects done.

Supporters want to see $50 billion dedicated to high-speed rail in the next transportation bill, which is slogging its way through Congress.  In these economic times, that’s likely to be a tough sell.

It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of this debate. My guess is that one solid success story — particularly if it’s a high-profile project in Florida or California — will go a long way toward accelerating the push for high-speed rail in the U.S. If most or all of these initiatives falter, high-speed rail will slide back into the shadows of U.S. transportation planning policy. 

Below is an excerpt from the section on high-speed rail in PSMJ’s 2010 AEC Firm U.S. Market Sector Forecast (which, by the way, is PSMJ.com’s book of the month for February):

As part of the ARRA legislation, the Obama administration committed $8 billion to “jump-start the process of developing a comprehensive high-speed intercity passenger rail network.”

On October 6, 2009, Federal Railway Administration Commissioner Joseph Szabo announced that the agency received 45 applications from 24 states totaling approximately $50 billion – more than six times the available amount. California alone requested $4.7 billion.

High-speed rail, a major player in the transportation scene internationally, is hot in the USA – at least in theory. And if these projects take shape, it could mean significant work for firms across the spectrum of the AEC industry.

This newfound U.S. commitment to high-speed rail is not only attracting attention from cities and states across the country; the world is noticing.

Ansgar Brockmeyer, head of public transit business for Siemens (Berlin, Germany) told the New York Times, “[The U.S.] is a developing country in terms of rail. We are seeing it as a huge opportunity.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the U.S. expects significant private investment in high-speed rail in coming years, with firms from Europe and Asia factoring heavily in its development. “Companies involved in (overseas) high-speed rail are in the U.S. right now,” he said in July. “I think you’ll see private investment in high speed rail from Europe and Asia, not just the United States.”

Some of the 24 states that have submitted applications for federal high-speed rail funds are aggressively making a case for why they deserve the funds. Florida, for example, launched a marketing campaign dubbed “Life at 128 mph.” Officials say they could complete construction of a high-speed rail line by 2014.

Utah formed an alliance with three other western states to support its proposal. The group says projected population growth justifies high-speed rail service that would run between Salt Lake City and Denver.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in mid-October entitled “Developing Viable High Speed Rail Projects under the Recovery Act and Beyond.” It offers guidance on effective use of the funds, potential challenges, and the government’s ongoing work on the issue.

“Several principles could guide the effective use of the Recovery Act funds and any future federal investments in high speed and other intercity passenger rail. These principles include establishing clear federal objectives and stakeholder roles, clearly identifying expected outcomes, basing decisions on reliable ridership and other forecasts, and reexamining how intercity passenger rail service fits in with other federal surface transportation programs,” the report states.

“In addition, determining which, if any, high speed rail projects may eventually be economically viable will depend on an accurate determination of such factors as ridership potential, costs, and public benefits. These projects also face many challenges, such as securing the significant up-front investment for construction costs, sustaining public, political, and financial support; and resolving outstanding liability issues.”

The GAO says its role is to ensure that states meet the guidelines established for successful implementation and to oversee the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) as it doles out and manages funds.

Not everyone is on board the bullet train bandwagon.

Ronald Utt, writing for The Heritage Foundation (Washington, DC), says that high-speed rail is a “fantasy.” Writing on the web site of the oft-called “conservative think tank,” Utt says the costs being floated in various high-speed rail proposals are understated and the need to upgrade infrastructure to accommodate the systems is financially untenable. He also complains that stimulus money designed for high-speed rail would likely be diverted to freight rail infrastructure and, indirectly, to Amtrak.

“Sooner or later voters catch on to the misrepresentations HSR proponents use to advance their cause: In 2000, Florida voters approved a ballot initiative (absent any cost estimates) to build an HSR, but in 2004 they reversed that vote once the excessive costs became apparent,” Utt wrote.

 This type of opposition doesn’t appear to be slowing the momentum of high-speed rail.

International Examples of High-Speed Rail
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan

It looks like the general media is noticing unemployment in the construction industry. Today’s news item from Yahoo! Finance:

The construction industry has been slammed with record-high job losses in recent months. The industry shed 75,000 jobs in January alone. Most of those cuts came out of non-residential specialty trade contractor positions, which plummeted by 48,000 jobs.

Of course, these massive job losses are nothing new for the construction industry. In December 2009, 53,000 construction jobs vanished. Since the dawn of the Great Recession in December 2007, the construction industry has lost a grand total of 1.9 million jobs.

Construction Workers Should Hold on to Their Hard Hats

Experts say construction job losses probably won’t come to an end anytime soon. That’s because the industry’s unemployment problems have created somewhat of a domino effect. In this tough economy, building owners can’t get financing from banks, which means they can’t afford to hire developers. Consequently, developers aren’t hiring construction companies to work on building projects. As a result, many construction companies aren’t earning enough to pay their workers, which leads to — you guessed it — countless job cuts. That means the construction industry likely won’t see employment increases until the economy finally bounces back.

While it’s disappointing that we probably won’t see a new funding program for another year, this would at least provide some assurance that projects in the pipeline this year will not be halted due to a lack of a designated funding source. 

Senators are expected within the next two weeks to introduce legislation to sustain surface transportation spending, John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highways and Transportation Officials, said Tuesday.

Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told industry representatives that they will offer two measures, Horsley said. One will extend the existing transportation program known as SAFETEA-LU through the end of calendar 2010. The second will transfer $20 billion from general revenue to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent.

Horsley said the two measures will likely appear as part of a larger tax package that the Senate will consider. The Senate is also working on a jobs program “in which transportation investment is expected to be a major component.”

Horsley said he didn’t know how much of the jobs package would go to surface transportation, but he hoped that it would be close to the $27.5 billion for highway and $8.4 billion for transit that the House approved in December.

AASHTO released a report on the first anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Horsley said that $23.8 billion of the $26 billion for highway projects had been obligated by states for construction projects. States also obligated $7.2 billion of the $8.4 billion that the recovery act dedicated to transit. All told, states launched 11,000 projects employing 280,000 people. Thirty percent of the projects came in under engineers’ estimates.

“We’re delivering value,” Horsley said. “Thousands of projects have been delivered. The states’ success in delivering on the Recovery Act highway and transit dollars is quite remarkable.”

Florida Trend reports today:

A spokesperson for PBSJ Corp. has responded to a story that was included among the links in Tuesday’s Daily Pulse summary of Florida business news. C.L. Conroy, president of the Conroy Martinez Group, says the story, reported by Dan Christensen in the Broward Bulldog, an online site, inaccurately reflected the circumstances of CEO John Zumwalt’s resignation. Conroy says Zumwalt’s decision to resign was part of a succession plan established a year ago, and not the result of pressure from “a group of unhappy employee-shareholders,” as Christensen reported based on an anonymous source. “Zumwalt’s transition will happen when the company, which has an executive search under way, identifies an appropriate replacement, with the target date being no later than the end of the company’s fiscal year, Sept. 30, 2010. The timing of the announcement is a result of the company’s pending annual shareholders meeting next week. John is currently on the company’s proxy as a candidate for the board of directors, for which he continues to serve as chairman,” Conroy says. “To say Mr. Zumwalt is leaving ‘amid scandals’ is solely the opinion of the writer and not at all a fact,” says Conroy. “The PBSJ Corporation is self -investigating an overseas matter involving its international operations. The executive team has already been cleared of any involvement by the investigation, as reported in the company’s recent 10K filing with the SEC.”

According to Florida Trend, John Zumwalt of PBS&J is stepping down.

The boss of one of Florida’s biggest government contractors has announced he’s stepping down. The news comes weeks after embarrassing disclosures about his personal involvement in a corporate pay to play scandal, and disclosures about possible corrupt payoffs overseas by company officials. “After a decade of my executive leadership through the best of times and through difficult times it is now time to plan an orderly transition to a new CEO,” said PBS&J chief executive John Zumwalt. Zumwalt will continue as chairman of PBS&J’s board of directors. A company source told Broward Bulldog that Zumwalt was forced out by a group of unhappy employee-shareholders. PBS&J spokeswoman Kathe Riley Jackson denied it.