Onboard 78% of trades (by cost volume) on a large project in Conceptual Design? Is that even possible? Wouldn’t the owner have all kinds of questions about how to ensure competitive pricing if the subs are already bought out? 

Yes, super-early sub onboarding is possible, as evidenced by a large hospital project being built by Layton Construction that had 78% of the trades bought out by Conceptual Design and 90% bought out by Design Development. And, yes, the owner most definitely had questions about competitive pricing, but Layton was able to make the case for super-early trade buyout by using the right methodology and construction technology tools to lock down system decisions and their costs.

In a just-released case study, Join details how Layton (a part of STO Building Group, or STOBG) combined Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Target Value Design (TVD) methodology with the Join collaborative project delivery platform to plan and ultimately to build a new replacement hospital in a part of Montana within a small construction market. 

“At Conceptual Design, we onboarded all the major trades–including mechanical, electrical, glass, drywall, elevator, pneumatic tube, steel,” says Director of IPD and Design Build Michael Blasingim. “We had the curtainwall and the metal subcontractor and their manufacturer in the Big Room with us,” which allowed early design assumptions to be quickly vetted with the subscontractors, their vendors, and in some cases, even the manufacturer. In doing so, Layton effectively integrated their entire supply chain to harness the vast knowledge and superior expertise of these individuals and lean into the project’s goals.

At the end of Design Development, Blasingim continues, Layton had 90% of the job under contract, allowing the team to reach a GMP at the DD level, not the Construction Document level. “Because of this early cost certainty, the Board was able to get early project funding,” he says.

Did the Owner have questions about fair pricing in the light of this very early onboarding? They absolutely did, says Blasingim. Read the Layton case study here to find out how Layton addressed the Owner’s concerns about competitive pricing, as well as how the team met the project’s target budget and created a TVD onboarding playbook for other STOBG teams.