Implementation of Constructability Reviews for Highway Construction Projects in KDOT: Best Practices and Key Lessons

Many state departments of transportation (DOTs), including Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), are continually facing challenges of increasing technical complexities, regulatory restrictions, and pressures to deliver quality products on time and within budget. These challenges create a schedule-driven environment during the project development process that may lead to errors, omissions, and constructability problems. To overcome such challenges, state DOTs often seek input from industry representatives to identify constructability issues and improve the project development process across different phases, including environmental, design, construction, and maintenance. The intent of constructability reviews is to identify ambiguous specifications, refine project design, increase project construction efficiency, and potentially reduce disputes, cost overruns, and delays. It is important to note that there is a difference between a constructability review and a plans review. A plans review is a traditional industry term that applies to design quality control and quality assurance (QC/QA) reviews of the design plans and other project-design documents during pre-construction. A plans review typically involves checklists that address format, compliance, consistency, calculations and data, and other aspects of the plans. A constructability review focuses on the optimum use of construction knowledge and experience in planning, design, procurement, and field operations to achieve the overall project objective. An effective constructability review offers several key benefits, including reduced cost, shorter schedules, improved quality, better control risk, fewer claims, and fewer change orders. However, there is a depletion of valuable construction knowledge among DOT personnel. In fact, many state DOTs, including KDOT, lacks staff with experience and knowledge of project constructability. To address this essential need, the proposed research will identify and evaluate effective practices for KDOT to conduct constructability reviews and evaluate the long-term value of constructability and industry input.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $65820
• Contract Numbers:

  K-TRAN: KU-24-4

  RE-0882-01

  C2231

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Kansas Department of Transportation

  Eisenhower State Office Building
  700 SW Harrison Street
  Topeka, KS  United States  66603-3754
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Kansas Center for Research, Incorporated

  2291 Irving Hill Drive, Campus West
  Lawrence, KS  United States  66045
• Principal Investigators:

  Tran, Dan

• Start Date: 20230901
• Expected Completion Date: 20250831
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Best practices; Construction management; Knowledge management; Project delivery; Quality control
• Identifier Terms: Kansas Department of Transportation
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Construction; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01894700
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Kansas Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: K-TRAN: KU-24-4, RE-0882-01, C2231
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Sep 26 2023 5:28PM