While normally owner and contractor teams work separately with various levels of possible collaboration, in some instances considering a fully integrated owner / main contractor team is deemed more favourable. However, this solution is fraught with specific risks that need to be considered adequately. In our new White Paper 2021-05 ‘How To Setup An Integrated Owner / Main Contractor Team When It Is Unavoidable’ we investigate what are the instances that would justify such a setup and what are the specific risks and issues that need to be addressed.

Fully integrated teams respond to the following criteria:

• Full colocation of the teams in the same project office
• While there is a contract with the main contractor with a specific scope, the project organisation chart mixes owner and main contractor staff without specific scopes identified for one organisation
• Owner and main contractor use the same information systems for document control, project control, procurement etc. in a fully integrated and collaborative manner (there is no duplication of systems and document transmittal).

Such an integrated setup is quite rare because the collaborative nature of project delivery will then tend to invalidate most liabilities that can be imposed on the main contractor as to its delivery performance.

The White Paper explains what are the benefits and drawbacks from such a setup for both parties. In any case, in the situation of an integrated team, there are some minimum steps that need to be taken by the owner to protect itself in particular with regard to the main contractor’s performance and possible future claims.

Integrated team setups between owner and main contractor are often attractive but are fraught with risks. They should be reserved to special situations where it proves to be unavoidable. The main issue is that it removes accountability of the main contractor as to the performance of its project scope. Some minimum measures must be taken by the owner to remain in a reasonable position in the event of claims or major issues during project execution. The most important part is to maintain trust at the governance level to ensure that there is a proper alignment of interest and objective between the owner and the main contractor.

Read our new White Paper 2021-05 ‘How To Setup An Integrated Owner / Main Contractor Team When It Is Unavoidable’ to better understand how to manage these situations.

If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: https://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2021-05_Integrated_Owner_Contractor_teams_v0.pdf