Collaborating with a Permitting Agency to Deliver a Healthcare Project: Case Study of the Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley (SMCCV)

This paper presents a case study of the Sutter Medical Center project in Castro Valley, California (SMCCV). This project’s commercial terms are established in an Integrated Form of Agreement (IFOA). This project stands out in several ways. One is the way in which the team used visualization tools to create transparency and to establish a common goal for the team. Another one is how the integrated team worked hand-in-hand with representatives of the state permitting agency to develop strategies and work methods to implement the Phased Plan Review (PPR) process. PPR is one option the team and the agency could pursue in unison to result in permitting for construction of this healthcare facility. This paper details the project delivery’s operating system the team put in place in order to obtain increased certainty in the project’s design, permitting, and construction phases. It includes examples regarding the actions team participants took to achieve this objective and relates these actions to lean principles they reinforced throughout their application.