Full Description

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) began service over one hundredyears ago, and has grown to become the nation's third largest water utility. DWSDtreats an average of 650 million gallons of water per day to serve a populationof about four million people in 126 separate communities over an area of 1,000square miles in southeastern Michigan. Like many water utilities in mature urbanareas, DWSD is facing the combined challenges of requiring new infrastructure dueto increasing customer demands while addressing an increasing need to replaceaging infrastructure installed early in this century. With the increasinglycompetitive environment in which municipal utilities are now operating, thesechallenges must be met by delivering major capital projects in a timely andcost-effective manner, without major increases in the utility's personnel andother resources. DWSD has successfully met some of these challenges by completingseveral Design/Build (D/B) projects. Over the past five years, DWSD hasincreasingly turned to design/build to deliver a variety of challenging androutine projects. DWSD currently has over ten design/build projects valued atover $700 million in various stages of development, execution, or completion.DWSD has generally been pleased with the results of the design/build projectdelivery method, and is expanding its application. DWSD is convinced that the D/Bproject delivery method provides, among other things, reduced project deliverytime, with single point responsibility, at a lower cost, and without overlystressing the Utility's organizational resources. Now DWSD is attempting to movethe state of knowledge forward by adding long-term maintenance to traditionaldesign/build, and are currently in the process of procuring a design/builder toreplace DWSD's 75-year-old water filtration plant at Water Works Park. Theobjective of this project is to deliver a state-of-the-art 240 million gallonsper day water treatment facility that DWSD will operate effectively for the nextcentury. This paper discusses the DWSD's procurement process for design/build anddesign/build/maintain projects which differs from the process DWSD uses fordesign/bid/build projects. Contract documents, which also differ among theseprocurement processes, are discussed. The potential cost savings of design/buildprojects are addressed. Includes figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 01/01/1999 Number of Pages: 15File Size: 1 file , 370 KB