The Grand Valley Construction Association (GCVA) is among a group of national and provincial associations to engage the Ryerson Institute for Infrastructure Innovation in a study about the impact of pre-project investments and their relation to the quality of construction documents as well as project delivery efficiencies.

“The goal of the study,” says the project website, “is to establish solid empirical evidence on the relationship between project owners’ upfront investment in the pre-project stage and the quality of design documents along with key project performance indicators (e.g., efficiency of bidding, number and extent of change orders, cost overruns, and schedule delays) in the whole project lifecycle.”

The group hopes to produce results that will create a framework for change in public-infrastructure project-delivery policies. It aims to do so through three components: a nationwide survey of contractors to collect data and opinions about upfront investments and the quality of design documents, factual data from sample projects, and in-person interviews to collect best practices and lessons learned.

The online questionnaire focuses on objective project data. Respondents are asked to provide their feedback based on their experience on the most recently completed project in which they participated. The survey will also collect data that reflect the level of upfront investment by project owners, the quality of design documents, bidding efficiency, and construction project efficiency will be collected.

In an effort to capture as complete a picture as possible, the survey organizers are asking professionals representing project clients, as well as architects, engineers, general contractors and subcontractors to participate in the survey. The survey is expected to take 15 minutes to complete, and will be open until June 30.

Other organizations promoting the survey include the Canadian Construction Association, the Ontario Association of Architects, the Ontario General Contractors Association, the Consulting Engineers of Ontario, the Construction & Design Alliance of Ontario, Revay & Associates, the National Trade Contractors Council of Canada, and Mitacs, a national research funding agency that supports applied research and industry-academia collaboration.