Collaborative project delivery methods are believed to contribute to faster completions times, lower overall project costs and higher quality. Contracts are expected to influence the degree of collaboration on a given project since they allow or restrict certain lines of communication in the decision making process. Various delivery systems rank differently on the spectrum of collaboration. Because collaborative project delivery methods require owners and AEC stakeholders to meet frequently early in the delivery process, they are thought to add additional upfront costs to the project. The purpose of this study is to test if collaborative project delivery methods impart enough value so that the upfront cost incurred at the beginning of project is eventually surpassed by realized savings. Ideally, the extreme forms of project delivery methods, that is, Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Design-Bid-Build (DBB), should be compared to test the effects of collaboration on benefits to the owner. Due to difficulty in obtaining data on IPD and similarly scaled DBB projects, for this study, their close cousins, CM-at-Risk (CMR) and Competitive Sealed Proposal (CSP) were compared. The study engaged statistical comparison of cost of change orders and overall project cost performance of 17 CMR and 13 CSP projects of similar scales by same owner. Project cost performance observed under CMR projects was found significantly more than those under CSP. This study is expected to help boost confidence in the benefits of collaborative project delivery methods. It is likely that the results will encourage acceptance of IPD for public projects. Owners who were previously discouraged by the increased upfront cost of collaborative projects may also find interest in the results of this study.

It has been shown that there exists a correlation between the cost of construction of elementary schools and the project delivery systems. Previous research showed that Competitive Sealed proposal contract method of construction is $4000 cheaper than the Construction Manager at Risk method of construction per student for elementary school construction in Texas. This research investigates the elements causing construction cost variation in elementary schools of Texas by comparing and contrasting the two forms of contract documents, CSP and CMR. Two schools were selected for the study, although the schools are technically in different regions of Texas, the geological record suggests that there is not much difference in the techniques used for foundation construction and hence a reasonable comparison is possible. A comparison was completed of the contract documents for two elementary schools. School A was built using CSP and School B using CMR. The two schools were built for about $13000 per student in line with A. N. Reinisch’s findings for CSP contracts in Texas, but not CMR average costs. The two ISD’s who supplied the documents were clearly concerned at cost control and appear to have managed this process. The earlier findings of a cost difference between CSP and CMR are not overturned by this study. Future studies involving a greater number of schools and the development of a central database are recommended.

In recent decades, the use of construction manager-at-risk (CMAR) has surged as an innovative construction project delivery method in comparison to traditional competitive bid procurement methods. The conceptual pros and cons of the method are widely accepted throughout the construction industry; however, very little quantitative research exists validating such beliefs. The study presented in this technical paper empirically compares the performance of CMAR to that of the more traditional method of competitive sealed proposal (CSP) in the construction of higher educational facilities. In a study of 33 projects constructed by The Texas A&M University System, 19 procured using CMAR and 14 procured using CSP, observed results show a reduction in schedule growth and change order quantity when using CMAR over CSP. However, additional results show that CSP is more apt to result in decreased project and construction costs than CMAR. Business practices of The Texas A&M University System, statistical significance testing of research data, and practical applications of research findings are included.