A Comparison of Project Delivery Systems on United States Federal Construction Projects

Previous subjective research identified shortened project duration as the primary reason for public owners' selection of design-build for project delivery. This study presents specific comparisons of the design-bid-build and design-build delivery systems to objectively inform federal project owners of actual project performance. The United States Federal Construction Program, deeply rooted in traditional design-bid-build project delivery, has attempted to a limited degree to deliver projects via the design-build delivery system to better meet project cost, schedule and quality goals. This research first analyzed 273 completed private, public and federal construction projects to provide direct, objective comparison of cost, schedule and quality performance between design-bid-build and design-build project delivery systems. An in-depth investigation was then conducted on the 88 federal construction projects to compare projects by delivery system based on equivalent project delivery system start at zero percent design complete.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH is the author of 'A Comparison of Project Delivery Systems on United States Federal Construction Projects' with ISBN 9781423559269 and ISBN 1423559266.