Resource Categories

Ready to learn more? You’ve come to the right place. Here, you’ll find resources that COGENCE has developed related to risk management, design-assist, design-build, and other collaboration-focused topics. You’ll also find links to articles and commentary across the Web.

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Design Assist

The “Design Assist” delivery method is much different than the traditional Design-Bid-Build and Design Build delivery methods.  The Design Assist method allows the owner to hire a design assist contractor for pre-construction services.  This usually takes place around the schematic design phase.  The design assist contractor does not have any liability for the design.  The …

No-Surprise Construction

In 2004, Ava Abramowitz, Esq., wrote an article for The Construction Lawyer called “Implementing New Contracting Relationships to Create Successful Projects for All Parties in the Construction Process.” In it, Abramowitz called for a change in the way the industry approaches construction contracting. She termed the approach “No Surprise Construction.” This resonated deeply with our …

What Is Lean Design & Construction?

Lean Design and Construction is a respect- and relationship-oriented production management approach to project delivery. The Lean Construction Institute (LCI) defines five cornerstones of Lean Design and Construction: Respect for people Focus on customer defined value Delivering value and eliminating waste Continuous improvement of processes Optimization of the whole While collaborative project delivery does not …

Tuwhanna Williams Lean 0 Comments

The Discipline of Teams

The industry has used the term “project team” forever to describe any group of people assembled to deliver a project, regardless of how these people work with each other (or don’t) or how successful they were at delivering a project. It seems obvious that an owner would want high-performing teams on their projects, yet historically …

Design Assist Delivery for Prefabricated Building Components

Prefabrication of building systems is being used on many building projects. The extent of prefabrication, including the types of systems and the number of different building systems, is expanding. Reasons include better quality of construction, reduced waste/LEED objectives, increased efficiency/reduced construction cost, worker safety, and project schedule. For the projects I have been involved with, …

Design Assist White Paper – Ohio Construction Transformation Council

This white paper discusses key aspects of design assist. In it, the authors: Provide an overview of the design assist process Talk about the benefits of design assist, which include design efficiency, pricing accuracy, speed to market, and constructability Address some of the challenges of design assist and offer potential solutions The authors include three …