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Who would have thought that a city owned Hospital in Flint Michigan would have been the first Owner in Michigan and one of the first in the United States to choose this revolutionary construction delivery method for its new Paul F. Reinhart Emergency Trauma Center expansion and renovation in March 2014.

Most construction projects are delivered by first selecting an Architect and Engineer and then developing plans and specifications for the upcoming project.  General Contractors/Constriction Managers then bid the project based on those plans/specs.  While this delivery method is by far the most prevalent in construction today, it also has proven to provide less than satisfactory customer satisfaction in the end product mainly because owners aren’t comfortable understanding what they are buying from 2D Construction drawings and specifications.  Hurley knew that this project was extremely critical to improve their ability to serve patients and provide the highest quality of adult and pediatric trauma care in the region as the areas only Level 1 Trauma Center and one of the leading Pediatric ED’s in the State. 

IPD uses a team based approach to design and construction delivery with the focus on the highest level of collaboration and leverage of each team member’s experience at the right time during the process.  Dee Cramer was part of Granger Construction’s team that was awarded and delivered this project.  Dee Cramer participated with Granger, HDR as the architect/engineer as well as other key subs to provide different options of locations of the ED and various cost proposals which were guaranteed to not exceed $30 Million.    Once the location and program was established, design meetings involving different stakeholders from Hurley participated in team sessions to establish criteria for the flow of the space and the specific mechanical and electrical requirements.  Building Information Modeling (BIM) was used to draw the design on computers in 3D before construction began.  Dee Cramer led the computerized clash detection of the 3D Model to insure there were no interferences which increase cost and rework during construction.  The 3D Model allowed for Hurley employees to visually see what was being designed before any material was ordered or construction began.  It allowed Hurley to choose the right size of each of the functional areas to maximize efficiency and provide the absolute best state of the art patient care. 

The project was delivered under budget and ahead of schedule which is almost unheard of in major construction projects today.  Most importantly, the staff at Hurley was excited to be involved in the collaborative design process and was extremely happy in the end product that was delivered.   Dee Cramer was privileged to be a part of the team that helped deliver this project.  Since the Hurley project was delivered, Dee Cramer has successfully participated in 4 more IPD projects in Michigan.