On October 8th, Graycor Construction Company’s Steve Crowley, along with Lupe Jenkins from BP and Kent Gurley from international design firm exp., were invited to present at the 16th Annual Lean Construction Institute (LCI) Congress in San Francisco. The team used its recent experience from working on BP’s new Emergency Services Building to illustrate key benefits of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) to a crowd that included some of the industry’s leading design and construction professionals.

Stringent design guidelines and tight construction controls for BP’s new Emergency Services Building made this an ideal project for IPD. Designed to protect occupants from overpressure and toxic gas exposure in a damaging event, the Emergency Services Building represents the second of several new structures in BP’s master plan development for the Whiting, IN refinery-the sixth largest refinery in the country.

Steve Crowley, Construction Manager and Chicago Market Leader for Graycor Construction Company described the project as an example of “true IPD,” made possible by the strong partnership with owner BP and design firm exp., along with the nine Trade Partners (subcontractors with a shared interest in the overall profitability and success of the project) that worked together to complete this $22 million project in only ten months.

According to the team, fruitful collaboration between designers and Trade Partners beginning very early on in the project was a key component to the success of this project. Crowley described how collaboration among participants during the design phase and throughout the entire project helped the team to avoid many expensive constructability issues and conflicts that may have otherwise occurred. Ultimately, this collaboration helped the team to achieve and even surpass many of the project goals, and served as an important case study demonstrating the high value IPD can bring to a project.

Compared to a similar design-bid-build project completed two years prior, all Key Performance Indicators “improved dramatically,” says Crowley. Zero RFIs, zero punch list items, zero injuries, fewer changes and a two-month savings in scheduling were just a few of the many benefits of using this delivery method over traditional design-bid-build or other negotiated delivery systems.

BP’s Lupe Jenkins summed up the team’s feelings about this project saying, “The IPD process was so successful that we are hoping to continue to use the delivery method on the balance of our north campus projects.