Duke University
Romeo Guest Associates, Inc. Romeo Guest Associates, Inc. is a general contractor
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Bovis Lend Lease Bovis Lend Lease is proud of its partnership with Duke University and the exceptional teams that have helped deliver successful projects on the Duke campus for 20 years. Whether providing up
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construction management services, our goal is always the same—delivering safe, sustainable, innovative solutions with profitable outcomes for our clients. the budget, the schedule and the guaranteed maximum price—which are all laid out at an initial meeting with the staff and the construction company’s project executive, as well as me and my project manager. At the completion of the project, I meet with the project executive for the construction company, and we mutually determine how the bonus money will be divided among the workers.” The construction company keeps a small amount for employee withholding taxes and cuts checks for the workers. Everyone meets for lunch, at which time Manning gets to hand out checks to each of the workers. Manning notes that monetary incentives are not appropriate for architects and engineers, because their goals differ. “For instance, their incentive has to be a design problem that is interesting and complex and that piques their intellectual and artistic abilities.” When Manning took on the responsibility of director of the Project Management Office, his first job was to improve the bifurcated project delivery and organizational systems. “There were two groups operating at the time—the Office of the University Architect and the Office of Construction Services. The former was responsible for managing the design
and sometimes the design and procurement of the construction, including setting the budget, schedule and scope. Then that office would turn the project over to Construction Services, which was responsible for implementing the budget, schedule and scope—which they had no involvement in defining. Not surprisingly, this process had some difficulties.” So Manning combined the two staffs into the Office of Project Management, responsible from concept to commissioning all capital projects, utility projects and renewal projects for the University. “It’s now a cradleto-grave responsibility and accountability, which is a big change. Our success rate is a lot better now.” When considering a new project, Manning allows the project priorities to determine what the delivery method will be. “The key is always to define the cost of the project at the appropriate point in the development of the design,” he says. “The earlier you try to transfer risk from me as owner to a contractor, the less definition there is of that project and the softer the number is because of the contingencies and allowances involved.” Typically, larger projects use the construction manager at risk project delivery method since most of the buildings are very complex, in part due to the strict schedule driven by the academic calendar. “When the project’s construction documents are about 70 to 80 percent complete, the construction company produces a guaranteed maximum price, and the risk is transferred from Duke to them. At this point the project is well defined and the risk is minimal, so the allowances and contingencies are minimal.” Duke University has always made it a point to be a preferred client in an area with many construction requirements in the Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill area, with its array of universities and pharmaceutical and R&D companies. Although the university side of Duke had been expending about $160 million worth of projects annually, it will expend $100 million this year and $70 million next year as a result of losing about 25 percent of its endowments due to the recession. But when the recession eases, Manning expects the university to increase the number of projects to prerecession levels. “We want contractors in the area to be interested in working for Duke because we’re a lean and private organization,” Manning says. “We pay more quickly than most other companies, and we utilize a net-zero pay for contractors so they receive a check a week after we receive their approved requisition. Duke always wants to be the one that architects, engineers and contractors prefer to work for, and we do that by keeping paperwork streamlined, getting them answers quickly, and getting them paid quickly.” www.duke.edu
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