What is Early Construction Involvement?

Early Construction Involvement, usually shortened to ECI, means the people who will build a project have a say in the design while it is still being drawn. Their input arrives at set points in the design programme, before the drawings are complete.

On a conventional project that often does not happen. Design and construction sit in separate contracts, and the builder is appointed once the documents are finished and a price is needed.

What goes wrong without it

When a builder first sees a design at tender, every buildability problem is found late. A detail that cannot be built as drawn, a sequence that does not suit the site, or a material with a long lead time each turns into a variation, a redesign or a delay.

The fix is only part of the cost. The rest is the weeks spent working out whose problem it is, which is the accountability gap described in [what design and construct delivery actually means](/blog/design-and-construct-single-accountability).

What ECI changes

We require construction input at critical points of the design programme. Bringing that knowledge in early lets value engineering happen in real time, while a change is still simple to make, and it designs out the risk of rework later.

The questions asked at each point are practical. Can this be built in the sequence we have planned? Can the module carry this detail through transport? Does the base structure suit this ground? Is there a simpler way to reach the same outcome without giving up the design?

Where it sits in the design stages

Our design runs in eight stages, set out in [the eight design stages explained](/blog/the-eight-design-stages-explained). Construction input comes in as the draft design develops and again before the design is finalised, so the package that goes to submission has already been tested by the people who will build it.

Design is never given up to make construction easier. ECI exists to find the way to build the design, and it only changes the design where the change keeps the idea intact.

Why it matters more in modular

In Hybrid Volumetric Modular, design, the factory and the site run in parallel. That turns construction input into something close to continuous, with no single early checkpoint.

The reason is cost. Once fabrication starts, a change costs far more than it does on paper, because a wall that moves after the frame is built means rework in the factory and possibly on site as well. That exposure is set out in [changing a design after fabrication starts](/blog/changing-a-design-after-fabrication-starts).

So the decisions that would be left late on a conventional job, such as service routes, connection points and the split between factory and site work, are made early and then held.

It also means the factory and the site work from the same set of decisions. When the base structure is built to receive a module, the connection points, levels and service positions have to match exactly, and that only happens when they were agreed while the design was still open.

What it means for a client

The buildability questions are answered before the design is signed off, so there are fewer surprises once work starts. The price rests on a design the builder has already checked, and the programme does not need to carry an allowance for redesign during construction.

It also means one business answers for both the design and the build. When the same team draws the building and makes it, construction input does not have to cross a contract to be heard.

MADEmodular / MADEbetter.

How we deliver. Discuss a project.