Main Contractor's View on Building Services Designers; External Consultants or S

A Main Contractor's View on Building Services Designers; External Consultants or Sub-Contractor In-House Design Teams?

CIBSE Technical Symposium, DeMontfort University, Leicester, UK
6th-7th September 2011

There has been heavy criticism in recent times aimed at the UK construction industry due to its heavily fragmented composition. In particular the separation of the design and construction process has come under scrutiny and is being blamed for a number of problems. The design and build (D&B) arrangement is one of a number of contract arrangements which are considered to be solutions to these issues. However, in the D&B procurement method, there still remains a clear divide between the design and construction teams. This research has investigated the building services design team arrangements in D&B projects. The design can be, and is usually carried out by an external building services consultant but it can also be carried out by a building services sub-contractor with an in-house design team. The research aimed to seek main contractor’s views on both of these arrangements in order to determine whether there is benefit in having the design and construction carried out by one organisation. A critical literature review identified nineteen performance attributes that were deemed important for designer selection. These attributes were used in a survey, which was completed by 41 professionals employed by main contractors. The survey gave strong indications that M&E sub-contractor in-house design teams were outperforming building services consultants in seventeen of the attributes, in particular value engineering, budget control and ‘buildability’, giving strong indications of the benefits of having one organisation carrying out the design and construction.