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Bridging may be the projectdelivery solution for companies wanting to build quickly or overseas
In June of 1994, executives at Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., decided they needed a new light electronics manufacturing plant. They knew they wanted it built in Mexico, and they knew they wanted it done fast.
So, they turned to the Satulah Group, an Atlanta-based project management, corporate real estate, and design firm that developed strategic facility plans for them in the past.
Satulah said it could have the plant up and running in about a year and offered Scientific-Atlanta expertise in building in a foreign country through a relatively new, and somewhat controversial project-delivery method called bridging.
Bridging, explains Satulah's principal-in-charge George Heery, is a hybrid of traditional project delivery and the design-build method, which takes the best elements from each and discards the problem areas.
The basic concept behind bridging is that the owner's architect/consultant creates preliminary drawings and performance specifications for a project, and then represents the owner's interest through the rest of the process.
Based on the owner's initial documents, a firm price is agreed upon with a design-builder and a contract is set. The contractor's architects and engineers then prepare final construction documents and specifications. The contractor is paid for these documents when they are in compliance with the preliminary drawings.
At that point, the owner has three options. He can go forward with construction, shelve the project, or terminate the relationship without cause and take the final construction documents to another builder.
If construction begins, then the owner's consultant monitors the process and approves payment to the contractor. The contractor's AE checks shop...