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Business
& Labor
Top 100 D-B and Top 100 CM Firms
(enr.com
- 6/17/02 issue)
By Gary
J. Tulacz with Debra K. Rubin
Over the past decade, the construction
industry has seen a dramatic evolution in project delivery.
As both public and private owners pushed to get more value
for their money, contractors, design firms and construction
management firms moved to meet these demands. The result has
been the gradual mainstreaming of what used to be called "alternate"
project delivery. Now, construction management and design-build
are firmly entrenched in the construction vocabulary.
But even as CM and design-build continue to increase their
presence in the market, they have reached a level of maturity
where they are subject to the broader market trends. The numbers
for ENR's Top 100 Design-Build Firms reflect this. Despite
the increasing acceptance of design-build among owners, particularly
in the public sector, revenue for the Top 100 Design-Build
Firms fell 8.0% in 2001, to $47.86 billion, from $52.01 billion
in 2000. This is a reflection of a general fall-off in the
international market. In the U.S., revenue for the Top 100
grew modestly from $36.34 billion in 2000 to $36.49 billion
in 2001.
The ENR Top 100 CM-for-Fee Firms experienced a similar pattern.
The Top 100 CM-for-Fee Firms saw their revenue decline 0.8%
in 2001, to $5.60 billion from $5.65 billion in 2000. As with
the design-build firms, the markets abroad were responsible
for the drop, as international revenue declined 12.0%, to
$1.45 billion, in 2001. Agency CM revenue rose 3.6% domestically
in 2001, to $4.15 billion. It was the "pure" agency
CM firms that led the way among the Top 100, increasing their
revenue by 23.3% last year over 2000.
The real winners in 2001 were the Top 100 CM-at-Risk Firms,
as owners increasingly sought to transfer risk. This group
took in $50.69 billion in revenue in 2001, up 10.8% from $45.74
billion in 2000. Following the industry pattern, international
CM-at-risk revenue for the Top 100 fell in 2001 by 15.6%,
to $2.86 billion. But domestic revenue continued its double-digit
growth, rising 12.8% in 2001, to $47.83 billion.
Experienced CM and design-build firms have long complained
that anyone with a board and a bucket of paint can hang out
a shingle proclaiming that they are a CM or design-build firm.
But their respective national organizations are placing increasing
emphasis on providing objective standards for owners to use
to judge the experience and abilities of construction firms.
The Construction Management Association of America, McLean,
Va., has responded by expanding its certification program,
says Bruce D'Agostino, CMAA's executive director. "The
problem is that anyone with a pickup truck can call himself
a construction manager," he says. So CMAA is placing
an increasing emphasis on its certification program to distinguish
the wheat from the chaff in CM.
While CMAA's certification program has existed for 10 years,
"it only became fully active a few years ago," says
Blake V. Peck, executive vice president of McDonough Bolyard
Peck, and president of CMAA. He anticipates 200 certified
CM execs by the end of June. The process, which can take from
three to six months after application, requires a practitioner
to have 48 months of management experience on a project, says
Roger Woodhull, vice president of DMJM/Holmes & Narver.
"Having four years in responsible charge is tough and
different from other certifications," he says. He says
the Project Management Institute has no such requirement for
its certification.
CMAA hopes that the certification will grow as a contracting
incentive, perhaps even to a requirement. Peck says that General
Services Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers had
included CM certification as a prerequisite in recent procurements.
But these were eventually pulled after bidders complained
that the current low numbers of certified managers was a competitive
disadvantage. "We hope to hit 1,000 certified CMs in
a few years," says Peck. "We want to make it a discriminator
that forces you to remember good professional practice."
But he admits the profession still "needs critical mass.
We still spend a lot of effort having to verify our experience,"
he says.
Design-build firms also are concerned about how to demonstrate
their level of professionalism in the industry. "We've
been doing integrated design-build for the past 50 years and
yet we still have to work hard to distinguish ourselves from
the competition," says Scott Ransom, president of Marshall
Erdman & Associates.
To help answer such concerns, Washington, D.C.-based Design-Build
Institute of America recently unveiled its own certification
program. "Owners had complained that they have no way
to determine the qualifications of firms in design-build,"
says Jeffrey Beard, DBIA's CEO. The group will begin its certification
program with its first exams in October. "Just to get
to the exam, you will have to demonstrate your experience,
provide references and take a series of courses," he
says. "We came to the conclusion that if you don't self-regulate,
someone will try to do it for you."
CLICK HERE FOR
2002 TOP 100 DESIGN-BUILD FIRMS LIST
CLICK HERE FOR
TOP 100 DESIGN-BUILD FIRMS
CLICK HERE FOR
TOP 100 CM-FOR-FEE FIRMS
CLICK HERE FOR
TOP 100 CM-AT-RISK FIRMS
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