The Impediments to the Adoption of the Design and Build Project Procurement Strategy in the Saudi Construction Industry

Abstract: In the fast moving world, the timely completion of construction projects within a stipulated budgetwill be of the highest priority. The Saudi construction industry is being increasingly challenged to provide forfaster, more economical projects and better construction results. Whilst the benefits of procuring projects alongthe Design and Build (D&B) contracting have been realized in many industries and in many parts of the world,the Saudi construction industry has been slow to accept the D&B project delivery option. This option has notbeen adopted on a grand scale and its application is still limited. The traditional design, bid, build (D.B.B) projectdelivery option still dominates the local construction industry. On a close examination, there appear to beimpediments preventing the adoption of D&B contracting within the Saudi construction industry. Toinvestigate this problem, a mixed methodology approach is employed and direct interviews with keyindustry stakeholders were conducted. The questionnaire survey involved 63 key participants representingconsulting and contracting firms. This paper defines the impediments to the adoption of D&B option and proposes practicalrecommendations to overcome them. The nature of these impediments, which include cultural factors, lack of knowledgeabout D&B option, a scarcity of medium-size D&B firms, and the nature of current government contracts, are defined.Recommendations to improve the performance and productivity utilizing D&B are presented, including a practicalsix phases guiding model to be consulted by D&B clients. This paper is inspired by the PhD work of one of the authors.