By: Joseph M. Leone, Drewry Simmons Vornehm, LLP
ConsensusDocs released its new and improved Integrated Project Delivery form contract on January 12, 2016. Titled the Multiparty Integrated Project Delivery Agreement, but still identified as ConsensusDocs 300, the CD300 received a total make-over from its previous iteration. The Agreement contains many of the customary IPD terms, such as a multiparty agreement between owner, designers, and constructors, cost reimbursable payments, and risk sharing by all of the major project participants. But, the CD300 expands on traditional IPD agreements by addressing the business terms, the management structure of the project, and the construction process all within the Agreement.
The CD300 incorporates extensive use of Lean Construction techniques in project planning, design, and construction. The purpose of IPD as a project delivery method is to align the incentives for all project participants to reach overall project objectives. Traditional construction delivery methods tend to create differing incentives for each party to maximize their own goals, sometimes to the detriment of the project as a whole. By integrating Lean Construction techniques, the new CD300 provides a process to bring those incentives to every aspect of the construction process, right down to the field level.
The Lean Construction process focuses on eliminating inefficiencies through better planning, more collaboration between owner, designers, and constructors, and incentivizing project based over individual outcomes. By using the new CD300, project participants are obligated to work together toward reaching collective goals and through the incentive structure within the agreement, the parties are rewarded for doing so.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have been a part of numerous ConsensusDocs drafting committees, including the CD300. ConsensusDocs form contracts are drafted through the involvement of dozens of different trade associations, which include groups oriented towards owners, designers, constructors, and insurers/sureties. As such, the final ConsensusDocs products usually contain terms which take into consideration many different viewpoints. The process of creating a ConsensusDocs form contract can be frustrating, but, in the end is incredibly rewarding. The result is that there is a certain fairness inherent in ConsensusDocs forms and that is especially true of the new CD300. This is definitely the new gold standard for IPD form contracts.
You can obtain more information about ConsensusDocs and the CD300 by visiting the ConsensusDocs website at www.ConsensusDocs.org.