The IPD agreement — a three-party contract between Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, Suffolk Construction and architecture firm TRO Jung|Brannen — requires all risk and reward on the project be shared with all project stakeholders, including mechanical/plumbing/controls, electrical and site work contractors.

“IPD is an extension of lean construction, as it formalizes the collaboration from the beginning in the contract,” said Suffolk Construction’s Josh DiGloria, senior project manager for the Cancer Center.

Construction on the $34.5 million project begins this spring, with completion scheduled for September 2013. Boston, Mass.-based Suffolk Construction is the construction manager and TRO Jung|Brannen is the architecture firm, with Pamela Mace as the lead architect and project manager.

The 47,000-square-foot facility will provide extensive radiation and medical oncology programs and state-of-the-art treatment technologies. Part of Lawrence & Memorial Hospital’s master facility plan, the Cancer Center’s design incorporates plenty of natural light and will seek LEED Silver certification.

Lawrence & Memorial is a not-for-profit, general, acute care, private hospital licensed for 280 beds and providing patient care to medical, surgical, pediatric, rehab, psychiatric and obstetrical patients. It operates satellite facilities in various areas throughout southeastern Connecticut and manages eight physician practices.

Innovative Process

The facility is Suffolk’s first project with Lawrence & Memorial and while Suffolk has completed projects using the principles of IPD, this is its first true formal IPD contract.

The hospital wanted to move away from the traditional design-bid-build process where, after years of design work, bids may come in higher than anticipated and the general contractor may encounter gaps in design that need to be changed, explained DiGloria.

“Lawrence & Memorial was looking for a way to solve both of those problems,” he said. “How do you bring the contractor in early so the contractor is responsible to help prevent all those gaps in the design and really be a teammate to solve them during the design process?”

Lean construction techniques foster early collaboration among the various project team members and enable the general contractor and subcontractors to work more closely together to build sections of an entire building in stages, increasing efficiency and accountability.

To this end, the hospital launched the design process with a “Three P” event — production, preparation and process — that brought together about sixty people including staff, patients, design teams, materials management, physicians and others.

Participants discussed issues such as how material enters and leaves the building, patient movement and work flow. Moveable mockups were utilized and estimators attended to address the cost of the ideas.

“From that three-day event, the hospital executives felt that we really shortened the design process by six months,” said DiGloria. “It was really a positive event to be a part of.”

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