The final blog to review in this year’s Best Construction Blog competition won the competition last year. The reason for this inversion: I decided to simply review the blogs alphabetically, and Whirlwind?Steel’s blog has the last letter (or word?)
Unless the company elects to engage a massive vote-getting competition this week, the blog will probably not duplicate its competitive success last year, but that doesn’t diminish the blog’s overall quality and effectiveness. It’s well written and designed, and the commentary associated with our report on its 2016 competition success remains quite valid today. (The blog notably has had a really effective design refreshing — it reflects state-of-the-art blogging practices).
The blog combines practical product-service related information and success evaluations with solid industry insights. I especially enjoyed this post about?Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), a business model worthy of further and increased application in the industry.
WHAT IS INTEGRATED PROJECT DELIVERY?
The IPD approach is a joint venture that uses a carrot much more than a stick. A builder, an architect, and an owner enter into a single contract (that sounds like the set-up for a joke, doesn’t it?). However, what IPD can accomplish isn’t a joke; it is the approach that yields better outcomes than current practice does.
As we were saying, three professionals enter into a contract together. The group can include others such as engineers, large subcontractors, and suppliers who all work together to determine:
- Project objectives
- Goals
- Costs
- Stakeholder responsibility
- Risk sharing
- Compensation
Everyone is involved from the beginning of the project, each bringing particular expertise, to design and build a project that should have less rework, fewer errors, and adhere more tightly to the needs of the owner.
IPD promotes effective communication and collaboration among the owner, architect, and builder from the earliest stages until project hand-over. Every member of the project reaps the rewards of teamwork, so everyone has an incentive to do what is best for the project.
Helping make it all happen is a technology that we have written about before: building information modeling (BIM).
BIM works best when every trade involved with the project looks over the 3D or 4D plan to make sure everything will work as expected. IPD takes that a step farther by having all the stakeholders working together throughout the project.
There’s more, so I encourage you to read the entire post.
Overall, Whirlwind would get my vote as a serious contender for 2017’s Best Construction Blog competition, even if the company doesn’t elect to compete assertively.
The popular vote closes this time next week, on March 31. You can vote here:
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