CREJ

/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / MARCH 2017

Racing to the Finish: Fast-tracking School Projects

ith over $3 billion approved for new

school construction, and state popula-

tion growth at an all-time high, the race

to build new schools is faster than ever before.

School districts, designers and builders are all

working together to find solutions to speed up

project delivery without sacrificing quality while

staying within budget.

To get students into new facilities, out of porta-

bles, and to reduce bussing, an integrated delivery

process is critical. This approach provides an oppor-

tunity for the general contractor to play an active

role in the design phase of a new school. By having

representatives from the general contractor sitting

at the drawing board, they can provide important

input in key areas, including:

Real-Time Pricing:

As options are explored for things

such as materials, equipment and labor, the gen-

eral contractor can provide the design team with

up-to-the-moment information regarding current

costs and anticipated pricing trends. This informa-

tion helps the architects and school districts to plan

ahead and make sure that there won’t be unfore-

seen budget overruns.

Availability of Materials:

Considering the construction

boom taking place across multiple sectors in our

state, materials may or may not be readily available.

For example, lead times on storefront windows con-

tinue to increase and therefore must be purchased

and stored ahead of time, if they are going to be in-

corporated into a project in a timely way.

Construction Trades and Labor:

Not only is finding

skilled tradespeople a challenge, but so is the ability

to recruit and hire a dependable workforce. A gener-

al contractor who plays an active role in the design

process can predict where manpower will be most

needed during the construction process, and also

know where pools of talent exist to provide neces-

sary support at critical junctures.

Constructability Review:

As the design of a new school

building takes form, the representatives from the

general contractor can provide intermittent con-

structability reviews. These reviews provide every-

one on the team with the opportunity to determine

the best and fastest approaches to build different

building sectors. By anticipating potential challeng-

es ahead of time, the designers can correct potential

flaws, and the GC and determine the most efficient

scheduling and most effective approach.

A recent school project that is implementing a

fast-tracking, integrated delivery process is the Far

Northeast Campus No. 28, located in Green Valley

Ranch for the Denver Public Schools. As part of the

integrated delivery process, two pull-planning ses-

sions were held. IDP utilizes pull-planning sessions

as a way to work from a target completion date

(milestone) backward to define and sequence tasks

so that their completion releases the next phase of

work. As a result, workflow becomes more reliable

and efficient as the waste of waiting, redundancy

and overprocessing are eliminated.

The first pull-planning session with the design

team identified critical decision points in the design

process where systems would need to be selected in

order to meet submittal requirements or to facilitate

early packages to authorities having jurisdiction. At

the beginning of construction, a second pull-plan-

ning session was conducted with the design team

and the contractor to coordinate mandatory dead-

lines for different construction phases. This helped

the team to define a critical path to the completion

of the building by better anticipating potential chal-

lenges and knowing how to overcome those chal-

lenges ahead of time.

Jessica

Blanford

Principal,

MOA

Architecture

ELEMENTS

Green Schools

Far Northeast Campus No. 28