Integrated project delivery (IPD)
Integrated project delivery (IPD) is a project delivery model built around a collaborative alliance of stakeholders who each share risk and reward. It involves the key project stakeholders (the client, architect, contractor, and so on) entering into a single contract that encourages collaboration, optimises results, reduces waste and maximises efficiency and expertise.
The stakeholders collectively determine project goals, budgets, allocation of risk and compensation. The contract typically specifies the separate responsibilities of the stakeholders but enshrines collective responsibility for the project’s successful delivery.
The IPD contract agreement is typically signed by a ‘leadership team’ comprising the client, lead designer/architect and contractor. They are primarily responsible for delivering the project to the budget, schedule and quality specified by the client. Subcontractors and other stakeholders may agree to become ‘risk/reward partners’ (or they can be contracted on conventional sub-contract agreements).
Risk/reward partners agree to be reimbursed on a cost plus overhead and profit basis if the project performs well. The profit is fixed as a lump sum amount at the point at which the contract amount is negotiated and agreed by the stakeholders. The risk/reward partners may lose some or all of their profit if the project falls behind the budget or schedule, and the contract will lay out the terms of this loss. It is usual for the client to agree to pay for the project at cost if all profit is lost, thereby allowing stakeholders to limit their losses purely to the profit they would otherwise have earned on the project.
The benefit of the IPD method is that the contract removes barriers to collaboration and innovation, combining incentives for the project team as a whole rather than having them seek increased profits from the project individually. Instead of individual successes or failures, the overall outcomes determine the collective rewards.
By openly sharing the project goals, risk and rewards, this can result in a more dependable flow of information between the main parties, leading to a sharing of knowledge and technology. In addition, the project can benefit from being able to adopt lean construction principles, overlapping design and construction phases, and so on.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- Collaborative practices.
- Consortium.
- Construction contract.
- Construction manager at-risk.
- Construction management contract.
- Construction project.
- Design and build.
- Integrated project team.
- Integrated supply team.
- Just-in-time manufacturing.
- Joint venture.
- Kanban.
- Lean construction.
- Managing the procurement process.
- Partnership.
- Procurement route.
- Tender process.
Featured articles and news
Introducing or next Guest Editor Arun Baybars
Practising architect and design panel review member.
Quick summary by size, shape, test, material, use or bonding.
Types of rapidly renewable content
From forestry to agricultural crops and their by-products.
Terraced houses and the public realm
The discernible difference between the public realm of detached housing and of terraced housing.
Put digitalisation and sustainability at the core of curricula
Project management educators are urged.
Looking back at the influence of climate events
From a designer and writer: 'There are limits to growth but no limits to development'.
Terms, histories, theories and practice.
Biophilic design and natural light
Letting in the light and natural elements into spaces.
APM Programme Management Conference 2024
Strategies for Success.
Residential takes the reins as contract awards even out
Contracts down, but remain above the last quarter of 2023.
Celebrating Eid and the largest mud-brick building.
Barry Kingscote claims prestigious CIOB CMYA Award.
The British Mosque: an architectural and social history
The story of some 1,500 mosques or more in Britain.
Heat pump refrigerants, efficiencies and impacts
R12 to R1270 what are the differences?
Global heat pump market in 2023
Challenging times with positive but modest outlook.
Beyond the infrastructure pipeline
Opportunities and chokepoints.