Hybrid Collaborative Delivery Team (HCDT)

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Hybrid Collaborative Delivery Team (HCDT), part of Mecklenburg County Code Enforcement, provides an alternative delivery option for plan review and Inspections. The HCDT is especially for customers using collaborative delivery methods, an emerging trend in construction, in conjunction with Building Information Modeling (BIM), which uses computer modeling to create 3-D plans. The HCDT process brings all parties in the construction process together – owner, designer, contractor and code official – in a dynamic, collaborative and transparent environment from the project’s inception until grand opening. For county staff, the emphasis is on customer service, timeliness and accuracy. The same team of code officials conduct preliminary meetings, plan reviews and field inspections and guide the customer through all regulatory issues, thereby ensuring consistency and stronger relationships with the customer throughout the project. The traditional model for construction in Mecklenburg County involves handoff to different code officials between trades or phases of the project. The HCDT’s focus on collaborative delivery allows cutting edge customers with an interest in collaborative delivery to try it in our community with minimal friction. In fact, project teams have reported considerable savings in time and money when using this process, as they had to deal with fewer permits and early detection of errors saved costly rework. To the best of our knowledge, Mecklenburg County is the first code enforcement agency in the nation to offer a permitting and inspections process just for customer using BIM with collaborative delivery. The upshot is that advance builders have more desirable options for building here, and because of the increased efficiency of this process, the welfare and safety of Mecklenburg County’s citizens is better protected – simply put, BIM and collaborative delivery helps find code safety violations before they occur…and that’s not only more efficient for our customers, but it’s better for our citizens.