Constructibility and Design Reviews: Analysis and Recommendations for Improvement

Constructibility and design reviews at the early stages of a construction project are critical to controlling time and cost growth. These reviews identify omissions, ambiguities, and inadequacies in the design, reducing contract modifications and change orders during the construction phase and thus minimizing cost overruns. In addition, proper review can contribute to low operating and maintenance costs throughout the facility service life and encourage value engineering options that might not otherwise be considered. To improve its review process, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asked the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory USACERL to investigate the existing procedures and recommend remedial actions. The response has been a 5-year effort by USACERL to identify weaknesses in the current system and develop management principles and techniques to optimize reviews. In general, it was found that the volume of comments to be handled, the reviewers other workload, and the number of construction projects were making manual review management inefficient. Therefore, USACERL proposed development of an automated system to assist reviewers and project managers in tracking and documenting reviews. The ultimate product of this research is the Automated Review Management System ARMS, which has been field-tested and is ready for implementation.