February 12, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICAGO - Everyone is talking about collaboration these days, but is everyone on your project team defining it the same way?

The American Institute of Steel Construction and AIA Contract Documents have just released the second part of a document intended to provide guidance for three common strategies: informal involvement, design assist, and delegated design. Part II focuses on the implementation of design assist in the fabricated structural steel industry.

"Great teams drive great projects--and great teams rely on clear communication," said Dave Steel Company, Inc. VP of Special Projects Babette Freund, who chairs AISC's Code of Standard Practice Committee. "This paper aims to help project teams use design assist strategies to meet a defined project schedule and budget while minimizing the costs and disruptions that might arise from team misalignments."

Design Assist: Collaborative Design Approach Guidelines for the Fabricated Structural Steel Industry describes the roles and responsibilities of various project participants and provides general guidelines about applying those strategies to fabricated structural steel projects.

This paper addresses Design Assist and Delegated Connection Design as applied to the fabricated structural steel industry. This paper was written by the American Institute of Steel Construction with significant contribution from the AISC Code of Standard Practice Committee and a review by AIA Contract Documents. Members of the AIA Contract Documents (ACD) content development team reviewed Part II for general conformance with the principles set forth in Part I of this paper, which addressed three common collaboration strategies--Informal Involvement, Design Assist, and Delegated Design--that are common in various parts of the construction industry.