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FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. — The design-bid-build delivery (D-B-B) method may still rule the design industry, but it is quickly losing favor. In the March 14 issue of The Zweig Letter (TZL), the weekly management publication from ZweigWhite, several design-industry leaders indicated that the traditional delivery method will be supplanted by approaches that favor collaboration and integration.

“Design-bid-build has always been problematic in that the successful low bidder is usually the firm that made the biggest mistake,” said Geoffrey Butler, president and CEO of Butler, Rosenbury & Partners, a multidiscipline firm in Springfield, Mo. “Then, after they get the job, they spend the rest of the time trying to cover their mistake and to protect their margins. This creates an adversarial relationship with the architect and owner.”

According to ZweigWhite’s 2010 Project Management Survey, 43 percent of all projects are delivered through D-B-B. But design/build, an increasingly popular delivery method, already accounts for 27 percent of projects, according to the survey. The Design-Build Institute of America also estimates that design/build now accounts for 45 percent of nonresidential construction — same as D-B-B — in the United States.

Several leaders told TZL they believe that more collaborative methods, including integrated project delivery, will eventually become the mainstream.

Said Cyrus Izzo, co-president at SH Group in New York, “The integrated project delivery system is definitely going to impact the future of our industry, and we will see it utilized in conjunction with the public/private partnership model.”

Janice Stevenor Dale, president of JSDA, an interior design firm in Pasadena, Calif., also favors more collaborative methods.

“Design-bid-build has never been the way if teams wish to work collaboratively and in a positive work environment where team members have mutual respect for one another,” she said. “Negotiating with the right general contractor to add him/her to the team early in the process is the far better method and represents best practices for all non-governmental projects.”

All is not lost for D-B-B, though, and many still consider it a dependable a project delivery method.

“I still believe in the design-bid-build process for most projects,” Ramesh Gunda, president of Gunda Corp., Houston, told TZL. “However, there is no universal solution for delivering projects.

For more on The Zweig Letter and to see subscription details, please visit www.zweigwhite.com.