The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) began service over one hundred
years ago, and has grown to become the nation's third largest water utility. DWSD
treats an average of 650 million gallons of water per day to serve a population
of about four million people in 126 separate communities over an area of 1,000
square miles in southeastern Michigan. Like many water utilities in mature urban
areas, DWSD is facing the combined challenges of requiring new infrastructure due
to increasing customer demands while addressing an increasing need to replace
aging infrastructure installed early in this century. With the increasingly
competitive environment in which municipal utilities are now operating, these
challenges must be met by delivering major capital projects in a timely and
cost-effective manner, without major increases in the utility's personnel and
other resources. DWSD has successfully met some of these challenges by completing
several Design/Build (D/B) projects. Over the past five years, DWSD has
increasingly turned to design/build to deliver a variety of challenging and
routine projects. DWSD currently has over ten design/build projects valued at
over $700 million in various stages of development, execution, or completion.
DWSD has generally been pleased with the results of the design/build project
delivery method, and is expanding its application. DWSD is convinced that the D/B
project delivery method provides, among other things, reduced project delivery
time, with single point responsibility, at a lower cost, and without overly
stressing the Utility's organizational resources. Now DWSD is attempting to move
the state of knowledge forward by adding long-term maintenance to traditional
design/build, and are currently in the process of procuring a design/builder to
replace DWSD's 75-year-old water filtration plant at Water Works Park. The
objective of this project is to deliver a state-of-the-art 240 million gallons
per day water treatment facility that DWSD will operate effectively for the next
century. This paper discusses the DWSD's procurement process for design/build and
design/build/maintain projects which differs from the process DWSD uses for
design/bid/build projects. Contract documents, which also differ among these
procurement processes, are discussed. The potential cost savings of design/build
projects are addressed. Includes figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 370 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 15 |
| Published : | 01/01/1999 |
