Comparative Analysis of Project Delivery Systems Cost Performance in Pacific Northwest Public Schools
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 134, Issue 6
Abstract
Alternative project delivery systems such as construction management at risk (CMR) are increasingly used in public school construction in the United States. CMR is expected to benefit owners with a guaranteed maximum price (GMP), decreased change order cost, and increased cost “certainty.” This paper empirically compares cost growth performance of the CMR and design-bid-build (DBB) methods in Pacific Northwest public school projects. Data were collected from state records and previous studies on 297 completed schools in Oregon and Washington. The analysis of the data shows no statistically significant difference between CMR and DBB in construction change order costs, school project costs exceeding the GMP in 75% of the cases, and a statistically significant difference in cost growth between CMR and DBB projects during buy out, making CMR projects less efficient at controlling cost growth at buy out. These results counter some of the traditional expectations of the CMR delivery method.
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Acknowledgments
The writers want to thank Gerry Williams and Lei Liu for providing access to their original data sets; as well as Debbie Crawford, Keita Laine, and Megan Simmons from OSPI for their enthusiastic and timely assistance.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 134 • Issue 6 • June 2008
Pages: 387 - 397
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 23, 2007
Accepted: Jul 13, 2007
Published online: Jun 1, 2008
Published in print: Jun 2008
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