Construction Management and Design-Build: An Owner's Experience in the Public Sector

Abstract

Using these three factors as a guide, the General Services Administration (GSA) established a system of construction management along with phased construction in the early 1970's. (Phased construction is a system to speed the completion of a building by allowing design and construction activities to proceed simultaneously.) The catalyst was a GSA study report, Construction Contracting Systems, ' which involved a comprehensive survey of construction methods. The report recommended that new methods be adopted by GSA, since the traditional method of contracting for construction, then in use, resulted in completion times for major projects far in excess of schedules achieved in the private sector.