Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)
“A project delivery approach that integrates people, systems business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to the owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication and construction.”
American Institute of Architects definition, as reported in Raising the Bar: Integrated Project Delivery, John P. Martin, in PSMJ Resources Inc., Sept. 2009.
“There’s a myth in this industry that design and construction are two separate processes and they’re not. They’re totally interlined and reliant one upon the other.”
Brian Chamberlain, president of Chamberlain Construction Services Ltd., an integrated architecture and contracting practice that has applied IPD for 25 years.
Building Information Modelling (BIM)
“A BIM is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. As such, it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its lifecycle from inception onward.”
National Association Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), Washington DC, in National Building Information Modelling Standard; Version 1, Part 1, Dec. 2007.
“BIM is a general term to describe all the information gathered and applied to a building model during design and construction. BIM uses virtual representations of the actual building materials used to build a building. By using this process, we are able to provide information that sometimes be lost when the project is passed on from the designer to the production team and then onto the contractor.”
Jorge Calderon, principal of Kubick Architects and Associates, Inc. (Phoenix AZ), writing in the June 2010 issue of Professional Services Management Journal (www.psmj.com.).
Other resources
For an excellent overview of the challenges you face in deciding to implement BIM and IPD, see PSMJ’s AEC Issue Brief: Resolving the BIM Dilemma, by Jerry Guerra. See http://www.psmj.com/documents/BIM.pdf.
