Construction

Current Design-Build Practices for Transportation Projects

16. Value Engineering

Some contracting agencies give design-build proposers as much freedom as possible with preliminary designs in order to achieve the lowest price and shortest duration, but with a resulting quality project. These agencies treat proposed changes to the owner's RFP design concepts as value engineering changes with savings shared between the owner and the design-builder. However, post-award design changes to either the concepts in the design-builder's technical proposal or other design submittals by the design-builder are not treated as value engineering changes and the design-builder is not required to share savings with the owner. On the other hand, other agencies have declared that any change to the RFP design or to a proposer's technical proposal would be viewed as a value engineering change with the resulting savings being shared.

LADOTD (May 2009) - LADOTD shares 50% of the savings resulting from design changes developed by the contractor.