The Water Design-Build Council (www.waterdesignbuild.org) has released the Second Edition of its Municipal Water & Wastewater Design-Build Handbook.  The Handbook is an educational tool for owners.  It discusses basic concepts and best practices for executing design-build and construction management (at-risk) projects on public water and waste-water projects.  From defining design-build through managing the design-build contract, the Handbook offers a thorough discussion of design-build project delivery.  

The most interesting portion of the Handbook appears in Chapter 2:  Deciding on the Project Delivery Method.  Here, the Council publishes survey results from telephone interviews with 20 public owners who have used design-build on water or waste-water projects.  On the issue of why they chose design-build, the owners offered the following reasons (in order of popularity):

1.  Single point of responsibility;

2.  Having the Constructor involved in the design phase;

3.  Speed;

4.  Price Certainty;

5.  Construction Quality;

6.  Reduced Change Orders and Claims; and

7.  Cost Savings.

The entire Handbook is available at the Water Design-Build Council’s website