Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION HANDBOOK 2
higher expectations. Success and performance factors are evolving; the market is looking for
increased collaboration and for a reduction in litigation (Tang 2001, Sun and Aouad 2000). There are
different approaches to project delivery systems and contracting structures around the world that are
heading towards achieving an integrated project. For instance in the United States the American
Institute of Architects is leading the development of the integrated project delivery (IPD) (AIA
National and AIA California Chapter 2007) and a coalition formed by different construction industry
stakeholders released the ConsensusDocs contract documents for collaborative projects in 2007
(O’Connor 2009). On the other hand in Australia, the United Kingdom and other parts of the world
the relational contracts, the alliancing and partnering structures are other platforms that support
project integration and team collaboration (Rooney 2006, Rahman and Kumaraswami 2004, Skal
2005).
The principles of project integration are: respect, trust and ethics among project team members in
order to build a culture of collaboration; the project and the entire team should agree common goals
and objectives set early in the process where the best interest of the project primes; the benefits and
rewards should be linked to the performance of the project; there should be a collaborative decision
making process; research, innovation and creative thinking should be encouraged; all key stakeholders
should be part of the team early in the process when they can contribute more to it; the team should be
formed not only by the client, designer and contractor, but also by the facility manager, the
subcontractors, the suppliers, and other players depending on the nature of the project; enough time
and resources should be allocated to the planning and schematic or conceptualization phase in order to
make the major definitions; a culture of open communication, accountability and on time conflict
resolution should be built among the team; technology should be used to standardize information
exchange; top management and the client should be committed to the process; risk should be shared
and when necessary should be allocated to the party that can handle it and has the capacity to bear it;
the team selection process should be based on contribution potential and previous experience;
adequate training should be available for the different stakeholders of the project; and integration
should be vertical and horizontal (AIA National and AIA California Chapter 2007, Tang
2001,O’Connor, Whaley 2009, Skall 2005, Rooney 2006, Rahman and Kumaraswami 2004).
For integration to take place, it is necessary to understand the project as a continuous flow, not
separate phases carried out by different parties. The project has to be analyzed from its
conceptualization and planning, design, implementation and construction, start up, and operation
perspective. All the definitions and decisions should be moved to the first stages of the project, when
making changes is less expensive and there is greater possibility to influence the project (AIA
National and AIA California Chapter 2007, Rahman and Kumaraswami 2004, Tang 2001). In
addition, risks have to be identified as a team early in the process in order to avoid them, minimize
them and handle them appropriately. Risks should be shared by the team and when needed should be
allocated to the party that can better bear them (Rahman and Kumaraswami 2004).
Project integration would led to benefits in terms of project performance, not only in regard of
enhancing project sustainability, but also in terms of overall cost and duration reduction, team
relationships and productivity improvement, quality enhancement, and risks and safety issues
reduction. Risk can be reduced since more details will be identified and discussed earlier in the
project, along with the ability for all team members to suggest risks to be included in a risk log for
mitigating issues during project execution (Tang 2001).
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Methodology
This chapter proposes a framework to explain the influence of each project team member on the
optimization of the interaction between the different phases and activities of an integrated project and
the sustainability criteria in order to maximise the overall sustainability of the project. The framework
is based on the development of a matrix that visually represents the intersection between each project
activity and each sustainability criterion showing the team member(s) that could maximise the
interaction. In order to determine the activities of the construction process, the phases of the integrated
project delivery were used, that is conceptualization, criteria design, detailed design, implementation