Partnering: Meeting the Challenges of the Future

In the early 1970’s the business environment for engineering and construction changed sharply. Faced with ever-increasing inflation, oil embargoes, and other economic factors, the industry was forced to develop new strategies to handle these challenges. The industry is again faced with new challenges and must respond with new and innovative strategies. New technologies, hostile takeovers, foreign competition, profit pressures, changing regulations, and high investment risks are forcing the industry to shift away from traditional approaches and seek new ways of doing business; seek new ways to lower costs and differentiate themselves to gain competitive advantage; break from old patterns and prepare for change.

The concept of partnering is one approach to conducting business that confronts the economic and technological challenges facing the industry in the 1990s. This approach focuses on making the goals of the owner, contractor, designer, and supplier better understood and easier to manage. Partnering is a type of contractual agreement that outlines mutually attainable goals, satisfies long-term needs, and assigns risk among all the parties involved.

The Construction Industry Institute established a Task Force on Partnering to evaluate the feasibility of this method of doing business. This publication is an interim progress report of the task force, prepared for the 1989 Annual CII Meeting in San Diego, California. The information presented is based on the preliminary findings of the task force and should not be construed as the final recommendations. The task force plans to complete its work and issue a final report and recommendations by mid-1990.