Exploring the Design-Integration Manager's Role on Design-Build Projects: A Comparison of the Building Construction, Highway, and Industrial Market Sectors

There are differences in implementing a design-build approach across the building construction, highway, and industrial sectors. These differences affect many aspects of a project, including the role of the design-integration manager. A design-integration manager is an employee of the designer-builder who serves as a bridge between design lead and construction manager. The role of a design-integration manager was explored through virtual research charrettes, surveys, and one-on-one interviews. Participants in these activities included academics and subject matter experts (SMEs) from industry with sector-specific knowledge on design-build. From the qualitative data collected, unique characteristics of the industrial and highway sectors were identified that differentiate their projects from projects in the building construction sector. The results show that the complexity of highway and industrial projects differs from building construction due to different factors such as project scope and size, construction phasing, and public involvement for highway projects. For industrial projects, facility design is dependent on process design, uncertainty in design persists longer, and time to market is extremely important. The results of this study show how the practice of design management in design-build will need to change to accommodate the differences between market sectors.