Mr. David O'Brien:

The two stage process is widely used. It is known typically as early contractor involvement and is widely used in infrastructure projects internationally. It is a development out of design and build, which is a form of contract that transfers a significant degree of risk to the contractor. It has had its problems and this process has evolved out of that approach. The benefits are that it gets the contractor involved in the design and risk evaluation of the project at the earliest point possible to try to uncover and work through issues that may arise on the job.