2011 Partnered Project of the Year - Sapphire, Ruby, and Diamond Levels
The Partnered Projects of the Year Awards recognize teams who distinguish themselves by implementing IPI’s best practices for an integrated partnering program and exemplify high-trust working relationships on their projects. Winning teams will demonstrate commitment to the elements of the integrated partnering program, achieve excellent results and deliver an outstanding project. Judging factors include success in applying IPI's best practices and the principals of partnering; project results achieved; inclusion of all stakeholders and project participants in the process; problems overcome; lessons learned; and evidence of a culture change. The application form and evaluation use a points-based system with teams eligible to receive awards at one of three levels: Sapphire, Ruby, and Diamond.
DIAMOND AWARDS
I-238 Widening & Rehabilitation
Owner: Caltrans
Owner: Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC – formerly ACTIA)
Prime: Flatiron
Designer: Parsons Brinkerhoff
Facilitator: Pinnacle Leadership Group, Inc.
The I-238 Widening and Rehabilitation started in 2006 and finished in early 2010. According to the Management Team, Partnering provided the “skeleton”, from which the project naturally progressed successfully. In other words, Partnering provided a methodology for all of the parties on the project to observe problems as challenges to be faced as a team and allowed them to take a project that was 6 months behind schedule by 2007 and complete it four months early in 2010. The project team maintained camaraderie with monthly barbecues, frequent JHA meetings and they were able to overcome several key engineering and scheduling issues by completing regularly scheduled surveys and remaining focused on the goal of completing a high quality project on budget and on time.
Important challenges overcome included a significant overhaul to the work schedule due to initial delays, accommodations of the United Pacific Rail Road and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) bridge construction requirements, creativity in dealing with unanticipated height clearance issues for construction above BART tracks, and accelerating the rubber asphalt schedule as to avoid the rainy season in 2009/2010. Because of the early delays the team developed an accelerated schedule so as to minimize the impacts on California drivers. In fact I-238 successfully provided a traffic alternative during two Bay Bridge Shutdowns during the life of the project. And, perhaps most impressively, in spite of the significant acceleration in timeframes, Flatiron maintained a zero safety or time-loss claim record throughout 2009. The IPI is proud to honor the I-238 Widening and Rehabilitation Team with its 2011 Partnered Project of the Year – Diamond Award.
I-680 Southbound Express Lane Project
Owner: Caltrans
Prime: Bay Cities Paving & Grading, Inc.
Facilitator: Ventura Consulting Group
The I-680 Express Lane (Phase I) is an impressive project. It is the first electronic toll road of its kind in California. The Project Management team was able to overcome design issues, staging conflicts and weather delays through the use of Collaborative Partnering. This project utilized monthly anonymous partnering surveys along with sincere dedication to a well-established informal dispute resolution ladder. This meant that most challenges were solved in the field by foremen and no disputes escalated above the Project Manager and Resident Engineer level. The management team described Partnering as a method for reacting to conflicts in a way that avoids finger-pointing and orients all sides of a dispute to look at the problem, rather than each other.
To overcome the delays, the project team created a CRIP that involved the creation of a soil nail wall, rather than the planned excavation of an entire hillside. Over a one month period, engineers from Caltrans, Bay Cities, and Viking Construction, developed a soil nail wall that ultimately saved the project two months and $3.5 million. This CRIP enabled the Project team to reach ACTC’s goals of opening the Fas Trak lane earlier than initially scheduled. The I-680 Express Lane was an innovative and safely conducted Partnered Project and the IPI is pleased to award it with a 2011 Partnered Project of the Year - Diamond Award.
SAPHIRE AWARD
Walnut Creek Library
Owner: City of Walnut Creek
Prime: West Bay Builders, Inc.
Designer: Group 4 Architecture, Research + Planning
CM: Gilbane Building Company
Facilitator: M. Silver & Company, Inc.
The Walnut Creek Library is a beautiful addition to downtown Walnut Creek that has truly achieved its theme by becoming “A Place for Everyone”! The Project Team and the Facilitator from M. Silver & Company, Inc. used monthly partnering surveys at multiple levels of leadership to test levels of communication in the project, the strength of problem response, levels of cooperation and differences between teams. In addition, the Partnering team designed a well-thought out informal dispute resolution ladder, which meant that the vast majority of project issues were settled at the lowest levels by project “Specialists” and the Project Leaders. Only four disputes rose to the Oversight Committee level and a single issue rose to the Executive Management level. This project faced many challenges including financial limitations, design changes to mechanical systems, an exterior envelope change, a redesign of the main lobby and alterations to the metal framework on the building and through effective Partnering maintained zero claims!
The Walnut Creek Library was a multi-year community project that involved 85 separate organizations and the Management team delivered an attractive and effective building with plenty of parking and maintained positive contractor relationships throughout the process. The IPI is excited to honor the Walnut Creek Library with the 2011 Partnered Project of the Year – Sapphire Award.
The Chairman’s Award recognizes the outstanding contributions of an individual on behalf of IPI and its mission to develop high trust relationships and partnering organizational cultures. Winners will have provided exceptional leadership and service to IPI and its members and will model the collaborative behavior at the core of IPI’s mission. This recipient of this honor will be announced at the awards ceremony..
