To trust or not to trust: is trust a prerequisite for solving design quality problems?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Illustration of the research design and conceptual LDM framework.

Table 1. Connections of the research methods and data sources to components of the LDM framework and related research questions.

Connection to LDM Framework	RQ	Data sources	Types of analyses
Trust	RQ1	8 Interviews, trust; Trust index metrics	Descriptive analysis; Content analysis
Solving design quality problems	RQ1	8 Interviews, Revision data, RFI Resolution  time; Meeting memo data	Descriptive analysis; Content analysis
Collaboration	RQ1	8 Interviews, collaboration; Collaboration index metrics	Descriptive analysis; Content analysis
Communication	RQ1-2	8 Interviews, communication; Communication index metrics	Descriptive analysis; Content analysis
Information flow	RQ2	Revision data, RFI-WIP, RFI Resolving time	Content analysis

Table 2. Overview of the interview arrangements for sites A–G.

Interview number	Number of informants	Site A	Site B	Site C	Site D	Site E	Site F	Site G	Role
1	1			X					Contractor’s design manager
2	1	X							Contractor’s design manager
3	2	X^A	X^B	X^A	X^B	X^A	X^B	X^B	Head of structural design, person A (X^A), Head of Structural design, person B (X^B)
4	1					X	X		Owner’s design manager
5	1				X			X	Owner’s design manager
6	1		X						Owner’s design manager
7	1	X							Owner’s design manager
8	1			X					Owner’s design manager

Table 3. Clustering of site data based on trends in contractors’ trust.

Metric	Variable dependency	Low trending cluster			Stable	High trending cluster		“Special case”
		Site A	Site B	Site F	Site D	Site E	Site G	Site C
Project characteristics
Facility purpose	Independent	Under-ground public spaces, technical rooms	Under-ground public spaces, technical rooms	Under-ground public spaces, technical rooms	Under-ground public spaces, technical rooms	Under-ground public spaces, technical rooms	Under-ground technical spaces, tunnels, no public spaces	Under-ground maintenance spaces, no public spaces
Design responsibility, basic design	Independent	Owner	Owner	Owner	Owner	Owner	Owner	Contractor
Design responsibility, detail design	Independent	Contractor	Contractor	Contractor	Contractor	Contractor	Contractor	Contractor
Trust trend
Trust trend – all (mean)	Independent	Slightly decreasing (84)	Decreasing (81)	Slightly decreasing (81)	Stable (81)	Increasing (71)	Slightly increasing (87)	Increasing (68)
		−	− −	−	0	+ +	+	+ +
Trust trend – owner – site (mean)	Independent	Slightly increasing (90)	Slightly decreasing (84)	Slightly increasing (89)	Stable (91)	Increasing (79)	Slightly decreasing (89)	Increasing (68)
		+	−	+	0	+ +	−	+ +
Trust trend – contractor – site (mean)	Independent	Decreasing (81)	Decreasing (81)	Decreasing (76)	Stable (80)	Increasing (65)	Increasing (88)	Increasing (72)
		− −	− −	− −	0	+ +	+ +	+ +
Trust trend – design team (mean)	Independent	Stable (87)	NA	NA	NA	Slightly decreasing (79)	Stable (90)	(72) one measurement
		0	NA	NA	NA	−	0	NA
Collaboration trend
Collaboration trend – all (mean)	Independent	Slightly decreasing (82)	Slightly decreasing (79)	Slightly decreasing (78)	Stable (82)	Stable (70)	Slightly increasing (86)	Slightly increasing (65)
		−	−	−	0	0	+	+
Collaboration – owner – site (mean)	Independent	Increasing (86)	Decreasing (78)	Slightly decreasing (88)	Stable (91)	Increasing (81)	Slightly decreasing (89)	Slightly increasing (68)
		+ +	− −	−	0	+ +	−	+
Collaboration trend – Contractor – site (mean)	Independent	Decreasing (79)	Slightly increasing (81)	Decreasing (69)	Stable (78)	Increasing (64)	Increasing (88)	Increasing (65)
		− −	+	− −	0	+ +	+ +	+ +
Collaboration trend – design team (mean)	Independent	Stable (84)	NA	NA	NA	Decreasing (76)	Slightly decreasing (83)	(53) one measurement
		0	NA	NA	NA	+ +	−	NA
Communication trend
Communication trend – all (mean)	Independent	Slightly increasing (78)	Slightly increasing (75)	Slightly increasing (75)	Increasing (71)	Slightly increasing (69)	Increasing (80)	Increasing (59)
		+	+	+	+ +	+	+ +	+ +
Communication trend – owner – site (mean)	Independent	Increasing (81)	Increasing (75)	Increasing (90)	Increasing (78)	Slightly increasing (84)	Stable (84)	Slightly increasing (63)
		+ +	+ +	+ +	+ +	+	0	+
Communication trend – contractor – site (mean)	Independent	Decreasing (75)	Slightly decreasing (74)	Stable (64)	Increasing (67)	Increasing (64)	Increasing (81)	Increasing (53)
		− −	−	0	+ +	+ +	+ +	+ +
Communication trend – design team (mean)	Independent	Slightly increasing (79)	NA	NA	NA	Decreasing (65)	Slightly decreasing (77)	(42) one measurement
		+	NA	NA	NA	− −	−	NA
LDM tools used
Big room	Independent	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used
Scrum in implementation design phase	Independent	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Not used
Scrum in the construction phase	Independent	Not used	Partially used	Partially used	Partially used	Partially used	Partially used	Not used
LPS in implementation design phase	Independent	Used	Used	Not used	Used	Not used	Not used	Not used
LPS in construction phase	Independent	Not used	Not used	Not used	Not used	Not used	Not used	Not used
BIM	Independent	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Partially used	Not used
Collaborative weekly meetings	Independent	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Used	Not used
Indicators of information flow and design quality problems
RFI resolution time	Dependent	Stable	Stable	Stable	Fluctuating	Stable	Fluctuating	Stable
RFI resolution time – mean (months)	Dependent	1.17	1.05	1.17	1.36	1.11	1.18	1.00^a
RFI resolution time – standard deviation	Dependent	0.37	0.21	0.42	0.85	0.31	0.55	0.00^a
RFI WIP (trend)	Dependent	Increasing	Increasing	Increasing	Increasing	Increasing	Stable	Decreasing
Total amount of design quality problems in meeting memo’s	Dependent	306	498	382	347	387	268	158
Total amount of revisions/number of drawings (%)	Dependent	577/352 (163.9%)	873/840 (103,9%).	411/536 (76.7%)	350/402 (87.1%)	595/573 (103.8%)	542/461 (117.6%)	303/548 (55.3%)

^aNo more than 1-month old RFI’s in the design meeting memo’s.

Figure 2. Project participants’ opinions on the performance by each cluster.

Table 4. Illustrative extracts from exploratory interviews that provide positive and negative examples of each LDM category; the number of extracts are also presented by each site.

LDM theme	Polarity	Site	Number of mentions	Illustrative extract from interviews
Communication	Positive	A	3	“And then, if there is some bigger separate design issue, we will then organise either face to face meeting or then just with Skype”.
		B	6
		C	1
		D	3
		E	4
		F	3
		G	2
	Negative	A	7	“It’s two different things, weather I receive the information or do I keep up. I’m receiving the information rather well, but the problem is almost the sheer volume of information, so that at this moment, the daily emails are between 70 to 100 and genuinely keeping up with it all is way too much”.
		B	5
		C	5
		D	8
		E	3
		F	4
		G	3
Collaboration	Positive	A	6	“It’s feasibility. In, both Site D and Site G have had a lot of meetings where, and they are mainly structural but also architectural, we also had designer, contractor and owner present and possibly even subcontractor who is going to do the work. And then we would all run this through, that in what way would it be best to actually do”.
		B	4
		C	1
		D	9
		E	2
		F	1
		G	4
	Negative	A	2	“They [contractor] started way too unprepared, without single own design discipline or own… if we talk about structural design, in there, we’ve given them opportunities to relatively freely communicate with designer and owners designer, so pretty easily they go like ’where can I find this and that drawing?’. It’s been somewhat soft and lazy how they familiarised to those drawings”.
		B	1
		C	4
		D	3
		E	5
		F	2
		G	0
Trust	Positive	A	4	“Quite reliable, [structural engineers promise’s], like they all don’t happen or not meeting schedule, but specially this project manager of structural design has kept everything under control”.
		B	2
		C	0
		D	3
		E	1
		F	1
		G	1
	Negative	A	1	“Perhaps then if I reflect on the fact that, I was not around form the early beginning of design, but what I have gathered it [trust] is not so good, and that collaboration hasn’t been working and promises haven’t been kept and schedules haven’t been met, so it would require actions to it to improve”.
		B	3
		C	1
		D	0
		E	2
		F	1
		G	0
Design management problems	Positive	A	1	“And the contractor proposed that could they be like slab on grade, … And now when we will do them with slab on grade, we can do the work anytime and the amount of groundwork is much less than predicted and that the proposed solution is much more feasible”.
		B	0
		C	2
		D	5
		E	0
		F	1
		G	1
	Negative	A	11	“We might have, like those material errors that they aren’t suitable for their purpose. And then… what did we fix last? Perhaps just these measure errors”.
		B	5
		C	8
		D	19
		E	8
		F	7
		G	9

Data availability statement

Data are available from the authors upon request.