Challenges and opportunities in adopting early contractor involvement (ECI): client’s perception

The emerging project delivery methods increasingly encourage collaboration between the client, designer and contractor to develop longer-term relationship between project parties. In Australia development of Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) was an endeavour to involve the contractor at the early stage of design and planning of a project. While ECI promises benefits to the project outcomes, clients should have a good understanding about this delivery system to make sensible decision as to whether adopt it for a project. Despite the growing use of ECI by public sectors in Australia, there has been limited research that investigated the characteristics of ECI from the client’s views. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges in adoption of ECI in Australian through the public client’s perspective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 construction professionals who held senior leadership roles for their departments with several decades of experience in the establishment and delivery of collaborative contracts for complex projects and programmes. The study results show cultural barrier, demonstrating value for money, change in relationship protocol, and inadequacy of contractor remuneration for early stage engagement are the challenges that are most experienced in ECI projects. It further shows that there is inconsistency in the use of ECI within the public sector clients as a result of the ambiguity in the definition of ECI. This study also finds a number of opportunities for clients when ECI is adopted, the chief amongst which are enhancement in constructability, improving working relationship, greater certainty in price and scope, and innovation.