Cogence Alliance announces the winners of the 2018 Cogence Drive Awards.
Cogence created the Drive Awards to honor the best in project collaboration. The awards highlight the critical role and immense value that collaboration and innovation bring to building projects. The awards also demonstrate to the A/E/C community how their contributions are improving project outcomes.
Cogence accepted submissions for three categories: the Project Award (Large), Project Award (Small), and the Individual Award. Submissions were evaluated by an independent, national jury.
The awards were presented Wednesday, September 12, at the Cogence Town Hall in Cleveland, Ohio.
Drive Award, Small Project: University Hospitals UCRC II Data Center Upgrades
This complex and sensitive data center upgrade project was ultimately successful because each team member supported a collaborative culture.
University Hospitals (UH) completed a $4.07 million data center upgrade to eliminate single points of failure and to upgrade existing infrastructure. UH was a tenant in the building, and their goal was to install new redundant data center cooling and emergency power, isolated from the landlord’s systems.
Highlights from the project:
- The consultants and CM all advocated for a more collaborative approach to improve project delivery. The design team advocated for CMR, given the complexity of the project and need for full-team collaboration. The CM took it a step further, recommending design-assist.
- Despite delays that negatively impacted the schedule, the team delivered the project six weeks early. They collaborated to rework construction activities and phasing.
- The project had one change order: a deduct returning $21,000 of the remaining contingency to UH.
Drive Award, Large Project: Cleveland Clinic Lakewood Family Health Center
This project was Cleveland Clinic’s first Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) project. Their investment in collaboration realized an actual savings of approximately $1.2 million.
Cleveland Clinic’s new Lakewood Family Health Center is focused on community health and wellness. It replaces dated facilities with a new, $24.3 million (construction) building offering a 24-hour emergency department, imaging services, and multi-specialty and family medicine.
Highlights from the project:
- Cleveland Clinic used an IPD contract, using a Tri-Party Agreement with joining agreements. The 13 signatories put 100% of their profit margin at risk, meaning they would need to perform at a certain level to earn their profit.
- The team used Lean tools (such as Last Planner, A3s, collocation, and component team design) for collaboration, decision-making, and waste reduction.
- Fostering and monitoring the team culture was an important part of the project. Among other things, Cleveland Clinic used team surveys throughout the project to evaluate the level of trust on the team.
- The mechanical team tried something radical: Working in the same model. Instead of having a separate “design model” and “construction model,” the mechanical contractors worked in the mechanical engineers’ model. Their goals were to reduce known waste, increase the level of detail in the design model, and eliminate the separate creation of a construction model.
- During construction, batching led to productivity gains and a high level of quality craftsmanship.
Drive Award, Individual: Bryan Wahl, AIA, Bostwick Design Partnership
Bryan Wahl, AIA, brings his passion for collaboration to both his projects and his firm.
Wahl, a Senior Associate at Bostwick Design Partnership (BDP), leads projects from design through construction, focusing on healthcare, higher education, library, and corporate design. He emphasizes continuous innovation and improvement in design.
Wahl has provided leadership on five different collaborative projects. Most recently, he was the project manager for Cleveland Clinic’s Lakewood Family Health Center, which had the first Tri-Party agreement signed in the greater Cleveland region.
Within BDP, he has become a leader in Lean design practices and processes. He brought his passion for collaborative process back to his office, organizing internal presentations to introduce his colleagues to the project tools that made Lakewood Family Health Center so successful.
Wahl has also presented at professional conferences regionally and nationally, educating owners on collaborative delivery.
The recommendation letters accompanying Wahl’s nomination emphasized his authenticity and engagement, as well as his desire to keep learning and growing.