To minimize the waste of duplicate effort, the team, including the owner,

determined that the best course would be for the consulting engineers to
switch to design software that was more compatible with what the
subcontractors were using before any substantial work began on the
project. Items were adjusted horizontally to make them all fit into the
space, and the structural engineers were able to adjust the size and
weight of the beam to get some of the depth back after they understood
the overall impact. Level 3 Constructability:Level 4 Fabrication and
Installation: Integrates substantially more stakeholders into the process
from the early design stage to provide input and review, test the
constructibility, and determine the best materials and methods for design
and construction, in accordance with the project’s budget, schedule and
quality. The real opportunity for the owner is not just in the automation
of drawing production, which is how a majority of teams use BIM now, but
in the reduction of risk during construction and the identification of
opportunities for increased prefabrication that can result in significant
project savings. Based on the lessons we’ve learned, we recommend the
following to maximize the value of BIM:The best example we have seen to
date is trade detailers working through conflicts based on a formal or
informal agreement that whichever trade can move their component most
easily will do that in the virtual model and ultimately in physical
space. Due to the complexity of the project and the customer’s overall
goals, DPR created a virtual model during preconstruction to coordinate
systems and increase the ability for prefabrication on the project. The
more specific and detailed the answer to the “Why” question, the greater
the likelihood of achieving the cost and time savings. To gain the most
value, we recommend that, whenever possible, the trade or contractor
responsible for doing the bulk of the physical construction work should
create the BIM in collaboration with the design team. Shortly after the
project participants assembled in early 2008 to lay the groundwork for
virtual model creation, DPR discovered that the mechanical, electrical
and plumbing subcontractors were planning to use modeling software—CAD-
Duct, CAD-Pipe and CAD-Mech—that would not seamlessly interoperate with
the Designer of Record’s software. The team has already seen a huge
impact due to this early involvement of builders in the process:Using BIM
to coordinate labor, materials and installations works best if every
element that can potentially cause an issue in the field is included in
the virtual model. The virtual model details the physical and functional
characteristics of the building, such as the structure’s geometry,
spatial relationships, geographic information, and the quantities and
properties of components. Using BIM to its full potential would enable
project participants to:Challenging the project team to answer the
question “Why are we using BIM?” will enable the team to decide how the
virtual model should be built. The project team, from the very beginning,
agreed to use a BIM-enabled Project Delivery (IPD) or Lean Project
Delivery approach and established that they wanted to use BIM to
coordinate the installation of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire
protection systems. Based on DPR Construction’s more than a decade worth
of experience in VDC, we have identified the following lessons to help
move the industry forward and to assist architects, engineers,
contractors and owners in maximizing the rewards of adopting and
integrating BIM into their business. For instance, if the project team
wants to estimate the quantities of concrete needed by each pour sequence
for a slab, the virtual model must include the construction joints in the
slab. Time and again, we have experienced that the earlier the
architects, engineers and builders all come together for the BIM process,
the bigger the upside for a project. As the software continues to improve
and teams change their work processes to a more collaborative, integrated
approach, we will experience a breakthrough in facility development—
reaching the practical application of BIM and the Plateau of Productivity
to deliver greater value. Given the amount of data generated by a project
that uses BIM and the sometimes far-flung locales of team participants,
it is extremely important to determine how a virtual model—or models—will
be accessed, managed, shared and updated over wide area networks and the
Internet. In addition, no matter how small one of the team members
perceives a change to be, the snowball effect of that change on the rest
of the team can be massive. Usually, the general answer to the “Why”
question is to minimize the overall costs and the time it takes to
construct a project. The software applications various project
participants use and the degree to which the software can communicate and
operate—or interoperate—with one another plays a big role in maximizing
the benefits of BIM. You are reducing the “latency” on the project by
bringing together people who ask the questions and who have the answers
in the same room. This needs to change; to borrow a phrase from Warren
Buffett, “all participants should have skin in the game” to incentivize
them to collaborate deeply for the success of the project. Once the
technology moves beyond the hype, users will continue to experiment and
begin to understand the best application of the technology—the “Slope of
Enlightenment. Measuring productivity on a project that used BIM and
comparing it to what the industry has seen up to now adds more and richer
detail to the discussion of cost and time savings. For example, DPR is
part of the design, engineering and construction team that Sutter Health
assembled under its own relational contract, the “Integrated Form of
Agreement (IFOA),” to design and construct the Sutter Medical Center
Castro Valley replacement hospital. For large-scale healthcare projects,
this approach will also help the team avoid the need to submit, rework
and resubmit to review agencies, such as the Office of Statewide Health
Planning and Development (OSPHD) in California, eliminating deferred
approvals. All of those characteristics can be analyzed, manipulated and
corrected digitally before being used to facilitate the construction,
fabrication, procurement and other activities necessary to convert the
virtual model into the real thing. The key is to test and select the
software applications that will best fulfill the virtual modeling goals
set for the project. Yet, the virtual model that results is not set up,
or lacks the detail needed, to take full advantage of the potential cost
and time savings downstream, such as scheduling, automated fabrication
and model-based estimating. In our view, that’s a step in the right
direction but only gets us a fraction of the way up the path to the
“Plateau of Productivity. The facility management team reports that
information is much easier to find compared to the traditional two-
dimensional drawings that normally get sent to an owner after the project
is completed. To support a more collaborative approach to design and
construction and realize the greatest benefits of BIM, the traditional
compensation and contract structures need to change. This caused the fire
protection system piping, ductwork, medical gas piping and electrical
conduit racks to be relocated and all the systems in the area to be
modeled a second time. BIM, which is often used interchangeably with
Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), is the process of creating and
managing a dynamic, three-dimensional, computer-generated model for the
design, construction and operation of a building or project. Extensive
download times for models, which average 20 to 30 megabytes, and the
inability to access shared drives remotely were some of the issues that
helped create the foundation for process improvement. In our experience,
bringing together the right people to collaborate on creating a virtual
model in the first place makes setting the goals—in other words,
answering the “Why” question—easier. ” In this scenario, if the project
team later tries to use that virtual model to determine, for example,
what steel components can be prefabricated, the contractor in most cases
will be unable to do so. The upshot is that if BIM is not used
collaboratively during design the phase, the project will only receive
partial benefits from the use of BIM. The same can be said of calculating
just how many components were prefabricated and the number of
construction changes that were generated on a project that used BIM
compared to a similar project that did not. Level 4 Fabrication and
Installation: Level 5 Total Cost of Ownership: Takes input from
facilities managers and end users and includes information that will be
useful for ongoing maintenance of the building in the model. Or, if the
project team wants to estimate the amount of drywall needed, then
details, including stud spacing and backing, must be incorporated in the
model. When BIM/VDC first emerged in the commercial construction industry
in the 1990s, the consensus was it would revolutionize the architecture,
engineering and construction (AEC) industry. The amount and urgency of
the work determines the duration of the session. ”
Eventually, users begin to realize practical benefits from the
technology, leading to wide acceptance and adoption, the final phase
dubbed the “Plateau of Productivity. Level of detail also allows for very
detailed 4D sequencing of the building process, 3D as-built models, and
the ability to pull accurate quantity trends directly from the models. To
move beyond the hype of BIM technology and settling for “low hanging
fruit” of visualizing design intent and seeing conflicts, we must
continue to develop and build upon best practices for deploying BIM on
projects. That means project participants, such as construction
superintendents and subcontractor foremen, who normally don’t see the
drawings of a project until a few weeks before they begin work on it,
should to be involved in the BIM process. This also means that owners can
expect to spend more at the onset of a project; although, the overall
budget for the project should not increase. The IFOA outlines the use of
an integrated Lean project delivery approach to designing and
constructing the project. More modest, yet nonetheless impressive, return
rates for BIM can be found in McGraw-Hill’s “SmartMarket Report on
Building Information Modeling: Transforming Design and Construction to
Achieve Greater Industry Productivity” (released in 2008):Although the
reported benefits are achievable, they also require a profound shift in
the way projects are delivered. These items, however, must be modeled if
a team wants to use BIM to coordinate the mechanical, electrical,
plumbing and fire protection system installations or estimate the
quantities of materials needed for a project. Two DPR superintendents,
who are in charge of overseeing construction, have been working alongside
the architects from very early in the design process on the Castro Valley
project. What’s more, Sutter Health, the owner of the Mountain View
campus, has an accurate virtual model of the complex, which its facility
management team has been using for two years. Now, with the project more
than a year into the modeling process, DPR is still working with the team
to successfully integrate model-based cost estimating. for new
construction and an overall impact to the tune of $15.8 billion to the
construction industry. Level 1 Visualization: Level 2 Coordination:
Models created by design teams that include
mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP) systems at a higher level done
during the coordination phase to reduce requests for information (RFIs)
and changes in the field during construction, as well as site logistics.
It also calls for all 11 participating companies to share risk and reward
to promote making the best decisions for the project as a whole. ” (Think
about the birth and evolution of Amazon, eBay and Google following the
trigger of Internet technology.)The potential benefits of adopting BIM
are staggering. One approach to minimize interoperability issues is to
map the workflow required to deliver an entire project, looking for
opportunities to eliminate unnecessary steps and hand-offs. The rapid
adoption of BIM technology bears some resemblance to the heady days of
the dot-com boom. Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, a lot of people
believed that simply creating an online business by adding an “e-” or
“.com” to their company’s name and drawing as much traffic as possible to
their website would eventually produce vast riches. Some are even
sounding the warning that those who fail to jump aboard the BIM bandwagon
will be quickly left in the dust. The use of laser scanning allows
discrepancies between the field and BIM to be resolved much earlier,
preventing future issues and rework. In a project that has very limited
interstitial space, such as Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley, we had
to incorporate the exact modeling for the supports, patient lifts and
radiology. However, until BIM-enabled design, construction, and operation
and maintenance of buildings becomes second nature, tracking and
assessing results are crucial to substantiate the true benefits of BIM.
For the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay project, the team modeled a
higher level of detail, including all studs, hangers, miscellaneous steel
and connections to exterior skin systems. The laser scan image showing
work completed in the field (left) and the model (right) are compared.
Unless the process for project delivery is fundamentally changed and
unnecessary steps eliminated, added costs, delays, and the potential for
errors will still exist. That’s a staggering number, which is why it is
crucial to identify what software the architect, engineer, contractor and
subcontractors plan to use before sitting down to create a virtual model.
Using BIM to its full potential during construction to eliminate mis-
coordination, as well as identify components that can be prefabricated,
is where the most time and money can be saved. While co-locating has
proven to be highly beneficial, it is the co-creation of the model that
is vital. Currently being used on the Sutter Castro Valley project, this
collaboration system allows project participants to manage and share
virtual models, geospatial content, project data and documents. The
result: The team estimated that it saved nearly $9 million and six months
compared to what would likely have been achieved with a conventional CM-
at-risk approach. This owner also wanted an estimating system put in
place to track the ongoing cost of the project. Level 4 BIM results in
the creation of a model that incorporates such fine details as seismic
and gravity hangers, metal framing systems, and detailed models of
components like rebar. For example, DPR joined a project as the general
contractor after the project’s design team had already used BIM to create
a virtual model. Level 1 Visualization: A tool primarily used to
communicate design intent and help owners evaluate alternative designs at
the beginning of a project and visualize an end product. BIM helped save
an estimated $9 million and shaved six months from the schedule compared
to a traditional CM-at-risk approach on the Camino Medical Group Mountain
View campus. The more details included in the model, the better.
Individuals, responding to a survey of what they thought about co-
location on this project, reported that actually knowing who is making a
request helps them prioritize their work to provide the information.
However, had the virtual model been required from the outset, a
substantial amount of time, money and effort could have been saved. Based
on Back Check comments from OSHPD, California’s health care planning and
development review agency, the structural engineers on the Castro Valley
project made what normally would be considered a minor change. DPR is
using laser scanning technology in the field to check work in progress
against the model. Ultimately, the AEC industry needs to look at the
interoperability issue beyond just a project or set of projects. The
typical “big-batch” detailed design phase does not lend itself to the
fast-track nature of virtual building. ” During this phase, a “frenzy of
publicity” typically leads to “over-enthusiasm” and “unrealistic
expectations” for the new technology. Using BIM works best if every
element that can potentially cause an issue in the field is included in
the virtual model. However, it may or may not be necessary depending upon
the amount and urgency of the work. For example, on another large-scale
healthcare project, DPR came on board about a year after the design team
had already started creating the virtual model.