Influence of offshore outsourced structural design processes on construction operations

This manuscript reports the findings of a research endeavor that has characterized the process to deliver detailed workshop and erection design documents for steel structures when outsourced to offshore design service providers, and has assessed the influence of these design processes on construction operations. The study has considered all aspects (organizational, transactional, and resource-based) of the structural design process among the key participants, i.e. owner, contractor, designer, and manufacturer. However, only the findings at the interface between design and construction are presented in this manuscript due to space constraints. An exploratory case study methodology was undertaken and ethnographic data from US client and Indian vendor companies was collected. As part of this ethnographic data collection, interview data comprising 23,000 words was coded to identify the constructs that characterize offshore outsourced structural design processes. Several shortcomings currently characterize these design processes. For instance, the inefficient use of design technologies penalizes the communication of design information between the involved participants. These inefficiencies frequently result in undetected clashes between the structural members and facility/building components (such as building services) that need to be identified and resolved at the job site at the expense of increased construction costs and extended completion times. In addition, the inefficient exchange of design information among participants result in excessive and time consuming design revisions that frequently extend design and construction schedules. To this date, past research efforts have investigated primary (architectural) offshore outsourced design processes but have, for the most part, omitted offshore outsourced structural design processes.