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Water Design-Build Council Board Members Listen to Municipal Water Leadership Perspective |
Drew Goins presents reasons he believes in alternate delivery for municipal water and wastewater infrastructure |
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Jun. 23 -/E-Wire/-- Drew Goins, Assistant Director of the Augusta Utilities Department (AUD) gave a special presentation to the Water Design-Build Council (WDBC) Board members on the municipal perspective of implementing water and wastewater projects.
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Mr. Goins is in a unique position to offer an owner's perspective because, over the almost 30 years of working in the water wastewater field, he has overseen projects using traditional design-bid-build, design-build, and construction management at-risk project delivery.
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Most recently, in 2000, the AUD created a capital improvement plan which included four major facilities; a raw water pumping station, two surface water treatment plants, and a major upgrade to a wastewater plant. "Our utility provides water and wastewater services to 180,000 connections and has a total water treatment capacity of 85 MGD and a total wastewater treatment of 48 MGD. This translates to about 1,100 miles of water mains and about 800 miles of sewer lines, the oldest of which is over 140 years. Making the needed improvements to our water systems was critical to our community and had to be done in the smartest way possible," said Mr. Goins.
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"After working on many water and wastewater projects, we've learned that the number one driver of any project is quality," said Mr. Goins, "and using alternate delivery is one of the best ways to provide quality for our utility and for our citizens."
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"We have used alternate delivery, specifically design-build and construction management at-risk (CMAR), for many of our water and wastewater projects over the years, and we have found that it takes the potentially adversarial relationship between engineers and contractors out of the process," said Mr. Goins. He continued, "Once the egos are checked at the door, then the engineers, contractors, operators, and the owner can work in a collaborative manner; we find that the end product is superior to that of a design-bid-build project."
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When asked about the importance of the cost of the project, Mr. Goins said that his experience indicates that projects using alternate delivery can often have the least expensive lifecycle cost – even though the initial capital costs may be more.
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Mr. Goins' presentation highlighted the following reasons that the Augusta Utilities Department prefers to use the alternate delivery methods of design-build and CMAR over design-bid-build:
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* Augusta's Design-Build and CMAR partners, as well as the engineers are selected based on their qualifications, not price
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* A"team" concept fosters improvements through collaboration
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* Alternate delivery allows owner input on equipment and subcontractors
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* Alternate delivery allows owner input on project management team
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* Early involvement of construction and operations staff leads to project improvements
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* Alternate delivery allows for negotiation opportunities and enhanced risk management
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* Alternate delivery allows for contingency and allowance allocation.
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About the Water Design-Build Council
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The Water Design-Build Council is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting best practices for the application of design-build and construction management at-risk in water and wastewater projects in North America. Above all, these best practices should enable owners to realize maximum value through superior design and construction, speed, cost savings, and focused accountability.
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For more information about the Water Design-Build Council, please visit www.waterdesignbuild.org.
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