BIM: The team captain every construction project never knew they needed

BIM is empowering all team members on construction projects, providing accurate, real-time data, enabling better collaboration and eliminating bottlenecks and errors

Teamwork is the backbone of every construction project. Tracking team members’ work and holding members accountable throughout a construction project is a multifaceted and granular task, especially across trades. Generally speaking, the bigger the project, the more individual steps needing to be tracked and the more complex the teams are that are involved.

And as the old saying goes, “a team is only as strong as its weakest player”. In the case of BIM and construction, the weakest player is the one with the outdated model, or no model at all.

Historically, tracking work progress has been a manual and tedious process, with team members scattered around offices and construction sites. Industry professionals trained and educated before the digital age would print out 2D sheets and physically walk through the construction site. After making the changes on paper, the leaders must go back and communicate these changes and hope they get passed up and down the line accurately and then implemented properly on site.

Today, construction technology and BIM software acts as the team captain that every project never knew they needed.

Three of the most notable ways BIM is being used to lift up and empower all on-site team members:

1. Giving universal access to accurate, real-time models.
2. Fostering better project collaboration across teams earlier in the project lifecycle.
3. Eliminating bottlenecks and human errors cause by data silos.

What good are models if they are outdated?

The moment a feature is physically constructed on a project is the moment that reworking that aspect becomes more expensive to change. As time goes on and more pieces are piled on to the project, the total cost to rework a single mistake or issue compounds over time. Because of this, models – and model accuracy – are of the most importance just before the physical build.

Previously, the workflows of sharing updates via more traditional methods created a time gap of information sharing that, in most cases, could be hours. This leads to more reworks that are not the fault of the field team but simply due to the time gap from when a change is decided to when the details get into the hands of the person constructing it on site. This time gap impacts project deadlines, revenue and team morale.

By leveraging BIM tools like Revizto, teams are able to update information in real time and instantly publish those changes while notifying all teams impacted. Revizto allows team members, regardless of technical skill, the ability to view the most updated real-time models, on site and in their hand. With the model in their hand, users can make better decisions and have more confidence in their work.

A team of teams and fostering cross-trade collaboration

As previously mentioned, construction projects give the concept of “team project” a new meaning. In essence, construction projects are really a team of teams working together. While each team has their own set of models, data, tasks, timelines and budgets – they all have the same goal of completing the project on time and under budget.

But how do you get all of these individual teams, who are often from different firms and get involved in various stages of the project, on the same page? Using BIM via an Integrated Collaboration Platform enables these teams to all work individually, but together. When an MEP makes a change and it impacts a mason, they can instantly be notified but using a centralised model. They can communicate directly on an issue and save the conversation back to if needed. This empowers all stakeholders, regardless of their BIM knowledge, to not only have access to the models and data, but also take a proactive approach to collaboration from day one on the project. Someone can step in at any phase and easily see why something was done and who was involved.

“With Revizto, we can connect both the design team and build teams from top to bottom and quickly. In real-time we can bring an issue from the field to Revizto, to the design team, back to the build team in a matter of hours instead of days. That is a huge savings across the board.” – Aaron Bortz – BIM manager, CT Wilson.

Bye-bye bottlenecks and human errors

In essence, when you combine real-time model access with better collaboration, you can be more proactive in identifying issues and clashes before the physical build out. By creating a culture of cross-trade collaboration and a centralised, real-time model, teams see a tremendous decrease in bottlenecks, human error and rework.

Wise Construction is one of the most respected and acclaimed mid-sized construction companies in the US. Its continuous innovation with technology, hands-on approach and high level of client service has led to more than 90% of its projects coming from repeat customers.

The Wise VDC Team, led by Marc Seaver (MEP-VDC Manager), recently completed retrofitting a 62,000 square/foot biotech/pharmaceutical lab in New England over a span of 30 weeks and 50,000 man-hours. Marc is responsible for ensuring the proper implementation of the MEP Designs in conjunction with the Architectural Designs within the existing space and existing conditions. To successfully complete these types of projects, the Virtual Coordination effort needed to allow for 100% visibility to all stakeholders – especially when the goal was 100% prefabrication for all subcontractors, and at times there were over 100 heads per day.

“Revizto regularly reduces man hours on site, saving time with on site clash resolution. Development of architectural and MEP features are easily accomplished in Revizto prior to issuance of construction Documents.” – Marc Seaver, MEP-VDC manager.

Conclusion

Getting new technology, particularly BIM technology, integrated across teams with real buy-in, can be an uphill battle. Revizto makes models easily accessible through their cloud-based platform that can be used without internet connection by syncing changes made offline to the model once teams are back online. With the user-friendly interface, construction team members of all technical skill levels can organise and collaborate around real-time models and relevant data from a centralised location.

Original article.