We’ve been talking about contracts for integrated project delivery since before the start of the Lesser Depression, since before Ben Bernanke was chair of the Federal Reserve; about when the Boston Red Sox won their last World Series. Yet, we’ve not come very far in implementing its promises. How come?

The initial hype promised nothing less than a revolution in efficiency and cost savings. For example, the AIA’s “Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide”(2007) tantalizingly proclaims: “The United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce (UKOGC) estimated that savings of up to 30% in the cost of construction can be achieved where integrated teams promoted continuous improvement over a series of construction projects. UKOGC further estimates that single projects employing integrated supply teams can achieve savings of 2-10% in the cost of construction.” This echoed an Economist article from 2000, also cited by the guide, which claimed that there is 30% waste in the US construction industry. If we can achieve such savings by adopting integrated project delivery, why isn’t everyone doing it?

Fact is, we’re not. Autodesk adopted IPD for construction of its new architecture, engineering and construction headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts in 2008-2009. It was an exception. IPD is such a radical concept today, noted Phil Bernstein, Autodesk’s vice president of building industry strategy & relations, that Autodesk’s AEC HQ project was one of only about 10-15 “100-percent pure-play” IPD projects undertaken in the United States as of that time. Things have not changed. At the annual meeting of the ABA Forum on Construction Law in 2011, Howard Ashcraft, one of the foremost authorities on integrated project delivery in the United States, acknowledged that since then institutional owners have pulled back from IPD, insurance brokers are not hearing about it, and the industry, as a whole, is not much in the mood for innovation at this time. He noted that developers of heavy civil projects have concluded that IPD is not suitable for that industry segment.
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