You want a building. Maybe it’s a hospital, maybe it’s an industrial facility, maybe it’s a school. But you want it and you want each and every dollar to go into enhancing your dream, promoting your brand, giving you the fulfillment of reaching your dreams without ballooning costs or sleepless nights. You want to know that the design team that you have commissioned will be able to give you accurate estimates of costs. God knows it’s cheaper to change plans early in a process rather than later in the process. No doubt this is what you want and if you want to see that to fruition, you need to have a conversation with your construction representative to ask them how they plan to integrate construction information management into their design and building process to maximize the value of your investment. At the end of the day, you can stomach a high price tag or a longer construction process as long as you know it early and as long as you know it’s accurate. This allows you to make promises to your stakeholders and partners in a business environment that rarely simplifies…except in the case of VDC.

After the building has been built, you’ll have a 3D model of the building or the campus that will help you with the inevitable renovations and maintenance issues that you’ll face. It’s one thing to have some garbage redline drawings from a contractor, it’s another to have a 3D model that has been designed properly the first time that the contractors have installed accurately after your design review.

Does it cost money? Yes. Does it cost more money to just let it fly. Yes. This is an investment in meeting the goals that you and your organization have set for yourselves and getting it done in a predictable fashion.

You know what the owner wants and you have great plans for your designs but you want to be agile and adaptive to the needs of the owner. The owner is constantly changing their plans based on external factors, stakeholder input, and every now and then… an overly influential individual that has more say and less experience than desired. BIM and VDC comes to the rescue. The software platforms and information flow cycles can be constructed in working groups so that when you have to make a change, it can be communicated immediately. Not just in 3D but in formats that your construction team can use to provide rapid feedback regarding cost impact and schedule impact. And if you spend all of that effort, you want to ensure that your construction administration budgets remain low and that the quality of your design is something that you’d be proud to put in your portfolio.

Much like the architect, you are subject to the whims of the owner. As the building concept and layout changes over time, you need to be prepared to respond rapidly with updated analyses, load calculations , and cost estimates. At the end of they day our goal is to deliver the maximum comfort and performance possible with the dollars allotted by the owner. This adaptability and accuracy help to maximize your reputation as a skilled designer. You deliver more bang for the buck.

The architect and engineer are trying to get the building designed to satisfy the needs of the owner and the end-user and to meet permit but you’re going to be on the hook for getting the building built - on time and on budget. As the design process is underway, you want to be tied into the source files of the design team to keep up with cost-calculation and to point out areas of the design that could be improved due to practical circumstances. The closer you are to the source of the data and the more adaptive you are to change the better off you will be when it comes down to execution in the field.

As the project move from the design phase to the execution phase, you’re going to want to incorporate the 3D designs of the actual installers to make sure that the fabrication level details are captured. This is going to help your team to avoid delays in the field and to have seamless execution. You can plan phasing and installation sequencing to make sure the flow of materials and labor on site is done in a way that will meet your objectives.

When it’s all said and done, you can deliver the building back to the owner for long term maintenance of the building.

A tape measure, a pencil, and a sheet of paper are really great. They really are. But a laser on a tripod that shoots millions of points per minute is way better. If you ever get yourself into a situation where the existing topography of a site or the complex details of a mechanical room need to be communicated, there is nothing better than a laser scan. This can really come in handy when you have an existing facility that can suffer painful losses every minute that it is out of commission. If you can have a scanner come in to capture the reality, a designer to come up with a solution, and a shop prefabricate the new systems, the downtime of your facilty can be reduced by an order of magnitude and preserve the critical interests of your operation.

Now let’s say that you’ve identified a key cost drain on your project is the error in the location of underground stub-ups or overhead hangers. When MEP designers draw their systems, they have the ability to nail the placement of these items to 1/256” precision. Now that might seem like overkill, but it translates to laser field layout accuracy of 1/16” at the end of the day. This layout procedure reduces rework costs and if hanger inserts are placed prior to a slab pour, the exposure to silica dust is mostly eliminated since you can just run all-thread in to the predefined locations. This will increase your MEP install time and accuracy. Ultimately field layout saves money, saves time, and it protects the health of the field crew.

If you’re trying to layout curved walls or get concrete forms set while trying to beat the weather or get home on time. Laser field layout can help you to get the job done right the first time without having to pick up the phone for the dreaded “you messed it up” call. The paper designs of the architect and engineer can be digitized and key layout points can be added to help you maximize the linear feet per day that you can install without having to come back for rework.

Sheet metal, plumbing and piping, electric and technology, and sprinkler contractors are no stranger to BIM and VDC. It has nearly become a universal requirement to engage in a cross-trade coordination process to evaluate the constructability of a building before labor or material resources are committed in the field. The contractors that excel in this realm are able bid and win higher-profile projects and are able to complete them without blowing their budget based on unforeseen problems. You can commit internally to prefabricated systems so that you can reduce labor time spent in the field because it’s being used more efficiently in the shop.

The limits of BIM and VDC in the MEPTF world have yet to be discovered as teams push the limits every day to see how to meet the needs of a demanding construction world.

Most cost estimators are still performing takeoffs from a PDF. We’ve seen instances where contractors simply won’t bid on a job because the GC or CM didn’t give the contractor enough time to perform a takeoff from PDFs. What sense does that make? Why wouldn’t an owner want as many bids to pick and choose from and why wouldn’t a contractor want to put as many accurate bids out as possible. It simply MAKES NO SENSE. The time it takes to perform an estimate can be reduced greatly by use of BIM to improve the competitiveness of the contractor and to get the most accurate cost possible based on the real components being modeled in the design phase.

This is one of the most underutilized areas in the industry and we’re here to help make the transition for the benefit of everyone.

Finally, when you budget the cost of VDC and BIM modeling, it isn’t an added cost to the project, it’s a cost saver and should bring down your total estimate due to labor, material, and safety savings.

You don’t want more headaches, you want less headaches and you want to do what you do best - build buildings and install systems. BIM and VDC typically includes a cross-trade coordination process in order to sort out the installation issues before they become a problem in the field.

You can work alongside a detailer to prepare equipment rooms for installation and to critique installation issues before material arrives on site. Once you’ve given the ok on the design, you can order prefabricated spool pieces and deliver work plans to your crew that will result in fewer work stoppages and overall peace of mind.