A related DesignNode article (C03.01) discusses Paul Tilley’s research in Australia, that showed that design fees had dropped about 25% over a 15-year period, and that documentation quality suffered as a result. This article provides an overview of the second focus of the research, which was to determine if construction was affected by this drop in design fees.

 Impact of design and documentation deficiencies

Construction process efficiency is affected by the occurrence of non-desirable elements of construction, such as rework, variations (change orders), cost overruns, extensions of time, program delays, contractual disputes and requests for information…