Federal Acquisition Regulation Applied to Alliancing Contract Practices
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 139, Issue 5
Abstract
The U.S. federal construction sector led the development of partnering as a project-delivery method and continues to use it as standard practice. Alliancing has since emerged as an evolution of the partnering method and offers substantial advantages over partnering, but it also poses more difficulties with federal acquisition regulations. This research aims to determine if an alliancing contract can be effectively utilized in federal construction and, if so, to create a framework under which federal agencies can utilize the advantages of alliance contracts within existing regulations. A commercially available standard form alliancing contract was selected for analysis against the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Key practices that characterize the alliancing method were identified. Utilizing a panel of federal contracting experts, qualitative data were gathered to analyze which of these key practices do or do not comply with federal regulations, why certain practices do not comply, and how those practices could achieve compliance. The results show that most alliancing key practices can be utilized in a federal construction project. Although other practices cannot be used effectively under current regulations, these limitations do not significantly hinder the use of a comprehensive and effective federal alliancing contract.
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Acknowledgments
The writers would like to thank the excellent contract review participants and the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment for their invaluable contribution to this work.
The views expressed in this article are those of the writers and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, or the Air Force Institute of Technology.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 139 • Issue 5 • May 2013
Pages: 480 - 487
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 24, 2011
Accepted: Jul 24, 2012
Published online: Jul 27, 2012
Published ahead of production: Jul 28, 2012
Published in print: May 1, 2013
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