Enhanced design/construction collaboration

• Create a win/win/win situation so that all parties (owner, designer and contractor) are motivated to cooperate and put forth extra effort when needed.
• Develop a partnering agreement between the parties to define the rules and responsibilities for cooperation.
• Foster continuous communication through regular and frequent (periodic) meetings among the participants.
• Enable the participants to easily meet on an unscheduled basis to ensure that issues can be discussed and decisions rendered as they arise without delaying the work (ad hoc process).
• Utilize and maximize goal-oriented processes.
• This involves the use of "onboard reviews," meaning that the review process will be performed as a group effort as much as possible, enabling all parties to work collaboratively on the review.
• The objective is to more quickly develop an understanding of the issues as they impact the various participants and thus be able to quickly come to acceptable decisions.
• Railroad issues must be discussed and addressed very early in the developmental process to avoid potential delays or rework in the design.
• Environmental constraints must be defined early to allow the design to properly address environmental issues.
• Effective project coordination requires the early and continuous involvement of all relevant disciplines.
• The project manager must ensure that issues and decisions are documented in a timely fashion.
• All parties must have commitments for the maximum time allowed to deliver their portion of the work, and the project manager must ensure that these commitments are met.

• Benefits: Provides participant flexibility. Improves quality of relationships between partners. Limits claims and reduces risk.
• Barriers: Potential of higher cost. Requires changing of mind set. While railroad approvals are critical for portions of the work, the railroad does not necessarily feel the same level of urgency since their functioning is not going to be improved by this project.
• Challenges: Requires a well developed chain of documentation. Need to develop means of owner protection and risk allocation among partners.
• Coordination: Must include railroads early in the design process. Design and environmental sections must work together and develop a strong understanding of how they impact one another. Need decision makers involved early in the process.

Acceleration of project development (design and construction)

• Advertise project for bidding at a preliminary stage (approximately 30 percent) of design development – Caltrans' design sequencing is an example of this approach.
• Have final design and construction proceed concurrently.
• Complete final design for a portion of the work, i.e., the foundations, as soon as possible to enable construction to begin.
• Remaining design activities must proceed at a fast pace to avoid being overtaken by the construction work.
• Designer must be very responsive in evaluating the contractor's proposals or addressing the contractor's concerns.
• The contractor's means and methods must be incorporated into the design through close coordination among the owner, designer and contractor.
• Have the designer contracted independently with the owner so that the owner maintains control of the design process.(This is different from DB, where the contractor controls the design process.)
• Because the method of contracting places high demand on the designer, the contract may need to incorporate monetary incentives for the designer to insure the desired responsiveness.
• This method of contracting requires a high level of partnering among the owner, designer and contractor.

• Benefits: Accelerates both design and construction. Elicits construction feedback earlier in the design process. Encourages innovation in design and construction.
• Barriers: Need to allocate risk among all parties. There is limited adaptation of this approach in the U.S. Need to determine owner's capability to respond to the contractor's proposals or requests as quickly as needed. (This is a manpower issue.) Project must be bid with a PS&E package that is not fully developed. Risk exists for all parties, but it is the owner who assumes the most risk – the designer has no incentive to assume any risk. Inter-related design or construction problems may be overlooked at a partial stage of design; the owner may have to redo or modify construction work after construction has begun because unforeseen problems require that design changes be made. Structures that are less complex, (i.e., routine) greatly reduce the potential for problems.
• Challenges: Need to develop pay item quantities as much as possible at the preliminary design (bidding) stage. Establish provisions for quantity and bid price adjustments in case quantity revisions occur as plans become finalized. Must develop proper incentive programs for both the designer and the contractor. Must have a designer who is very responsive to the contractor's requests for change as the design is developed; needs to be adaptable to the fast pace of evaluation and decision making.

Accelerated design development

• Consider pre-contracting on a task order basis for design consultation. Since the design work is a controlling activity on the project critical path, the process for procuring design services must be very efficient so that valuable time is not lost in obtaining these services.
• Schedule pre-design bridge workshops for TS&L development.
• The conceptual design is illustrative of Pareto's Law, which states that 20 percent of the effort will yield 80 percent of the benefits.
• It is important to have a strong effort with multiple sources of input at the concept stage to guarantee that the concept employed will be an effective and appropriate choice.
• Utilize an accelerated design review process with collaborative meetings.
• Minimize the design detail required of the designer, i.e., do not require the designer to produce reinforcing bar list sheets since the contractor must do this as part of the normal contract requirements.

• Benefits: Accelerates design process. Ensures that the conceptual design is the most appropriate choice through collaborative effort. Reduces the design effort required by eliminating redundant activities.
• Challenges: Requires buy-in by all parties. FHWA must see the driving benefit (cost versus convenience). Requires adapting to changes in normal practice, i.e., minimizing or eliminating elements of the contract plan detailing. Must adapt to a faster design pace.

Prefabrication of structural components

• Recommend prefabrication of virtually all bridge components, including the following:
  • Foundations.
  • Piers.
  • Abutments.
  • Girders.
  • Deck slabs.
  • Barriers.
  • Complete superstructure spans.
• Components for other structures such as retaining walls and sound barriers can also be prefabricated.

• Benefits: Allows for faster construction. Provides potential to improve worker safety. Minimizes impact on road users, reducing road user costs. Reduces owner's time for contract administration, which reduces owner's personnel costs. Provides higher quality of components due to fabrication in a controlled environment.
• Barriers: Must overcome perception of higher cost of prefabrication. Need to weigh user benefits against higher construction costs. Must address concern over durability of connections between prefabricated components and related concern over long-term maintenance costs. Note lack of contractor familiarity with prefabricated construction – must address contractor preference for conventional construction methods due to equipment investment and desire to maintain personnel staffing commitments, skill sets and familiar procedures. May also encounter designer's lack of familiarity with some types of prefabricated component detailing. Requires greater degree of preliminary planning, engineering and coordination. Market availability for components may not be sufficient.

Innovative construction methods

• Roll in: Construct new bridge adjacent to its final position while maintaining traffic on the existing structure. Slide new structure laterally into position after the existing bridge is removed. Requires construction of temporary substructures.
• SPMTs: Use SPMTs to quickly remove or install entire bridge spans – they have virtually no limit to the load they can carry because their modular design allows flexibility in configuring them for a particular load. (Even multiple span continuous bridge superstructures have been moved into position by SPMTs.) Requires an area of adequate size near the travel way to allow the contractor to construct the new bridge span on temporary supports and then transport it with the SPMTs to the bridge site.
• Longitudinal launching: Prefabricate the new structure at one end of the bridge site and push into position longitudinally. Eliminates the need for falsework.
• Cranes: Use cranes in combination with other equipment such as beam launching trusses to minimize disruption to traffic. Note: cranes are the most commonly used equipment for prefabricated component erection.

• Benefits: Requires minimal road closure. Improves worker safety; using SPMTs allows the span demolition and construction crews to perform their work in the relative safety of the staging area away from traffic. This allows the work to be done much closer to the ground, minimizing the consequences if a worker should lose balance and fall. Improves quality of construction when work is performed away from traffic. Improves speed of construction.
• Barriers: Increases cost due to procurement of specialized subcontractor services. State lacks experience in developing the appropriate contractual provisions and procedural requirements. There are a limited number of specialized subcontractors with the requisite equipment and experience, which could mean a limited availability to perform the work or a lack of competition to restrain price for the work.
• Challenges: Need good geometric control to insure that the new superstructure fits properly with the substructure when it is moved into position. Must coordinate traffic control. Need to assess applicability of site and bridge type to determine which options are viable. Locate a feasible staging area during the planning stage to ensure that the area will be available to the contractor.

Procurement of materials

• Pre-procure beams, steel H-piles, cement, pre-cast components, drain pipes and manholes.

• Benefits: Guarantees availability of necessary materials so that work can proceed as planned. Guards against material price increases during construction. Guarantees that the item or material procured is exactly what the designer anticipated using.
• Barriers: May necessitate owners assuming ownership of material if is procured before the contract is awarded. There is little or no space to store material. Owner does not have staff to accept, inspect and maintain material in good condition and therefore is unable to bear the cost of storing inventory. Material damaged during storage becomes a loss for the owner. Price of materials could drop after procurement of contract. Material incompatibility with contractor's means, methods or experience may create a situation where the contractor resists using it or says that it created problems, leading to a contract claim.
• Contractor may be able to buy material at a better price than the owner can.

Performance of materials

• Use HPC for decks, overlays, girders and piers.
• Consider fiber reinforced polymers, i.e., carbon fiber wrap.
• Utilize HPS. Consider pile type.

• Benefits: Provides greater durability and thus promote greater longevity of service. An example is the use of low permeability concrete in bridge decks. It resists penetration by road salts to a much greater degree than traditional concrete and thereby prevents corrosion of reinforcing steel and the subsequent deterioration of the deck concrete. Higher strength materials enable longer spans, leading to fewer substructures. Higher strength materials also enable shallower spans to meet roadway vertical clearance requirements. Lightweight concrete facilitates construction methods by reducing the weight of prefabricated components that must be moved into position. Lightweight material reduces the structure weight, reducing the size of foundations and substructures needed.
• Barriers: Need to familiarize parties with materials: the owner, designer and contractor do not properly understand the material characteristics. Owner lacks material specifications and experience with the material (or had a bad experience in previous applications). State has a lack of suppliers with experience in producing these materials. Contractors lack experience in the proper handling and installation of these materials. The State faces the possibility of very high material costs due to the unfamiliarity of the supplier and/or contractor with these materials.

Economy of scale

• Package multiple structures into a single contract.
• Utilize a phased approach to control the project sequencing and packaging.
• Use standardized components and repetitive designs; this offers benefits to both the designer and the contractor.

• Benefits: Tends to lead to a lower per-unit bid price for the work. Plus, the cost of any specialized equipment can be distributed over a larger number of structures. Larger contracts attract contractors with greater equipment and manpower capacity. These contractors may have greater experience in employing innovative/time-saving construction methods. Smaller contractors may still be able to perform a portion of the work by functioning as a subcontractor to the larger prime. Standardized components and repetitive structure design reduce design and construction costs; have a shorter learning curve; and can lead to faster, better-quality construction. The contractor's familiarity with standardized components and repetitive structures may reduce the level of design detail required of the designer and also reduce the amount of construction oversight and engineering required. This leads to fewer contract modifications and a greater ability to stay on schedule and avoid claims. This simplifies the coordination needed between contracts.
• Barriers: May encounter resistance from the contracting community, i.e., the AGC; they may not be supportive of contracts that are too large for local association members to handle. Must have consistent phasing throughout the corridor. Need to check availability of funding to support a large contract, particularly when it is performed at a fast pace.
• Challenges: Need to ensure proper phasing of the work so that multiple structures can be package under one contract. Need to assure that the funding is in place to support a large contract. Must complete all the necessary environmental studies and obtain approvals to allow the work to proceed.

Temporary structures

• Use temporary structures to maintain traffic flow with as little interference as possible.
• Demolition of existing structures and construction of new ones can be accomplished in a way that minimizes the need for multiple phases of work.
• The temporary structure would consist of a reusable superstructure (examples of commercially available structures are the Acrow or Mabey bridges) that is placed on temporary substructures.
• The substructures may or may not be reusable.
• Temporary foundations must be constructed.
• Need to consider contractor access and temporary substructure bents.

• Benefits: Can be used in multiple locations. Can become the property of the State for use in a future emergency, i.e., a bridge washout, where quick response by the ITD is needed. This offers a value-added component to the use of a temporary structure. Minimizes or eliminates the need to perform staging of bridge work. May simplify traffic control. Offers a safer environment for workers than multiple phasing of construction across the width of the bridge. Improves contractor access to the work site.
• Barriers: May necessitate more modification of the bridge approach. Costs more. Need to allow additional time for the construction of the temporary substructures. Need to look at available ROW for temporary bridge and approaches.
• Coordination: Must coordinate traffic control to enable the installation and removal of the temporary structures.