Empowering Design-Build Workflows
Austin is a design-build company serving aviation, aerospace, defense, food, and life sciences industries. Part of Kajima Corporation, it's a Top 250 Global Contractor offering comprehensive global market solutions.
- Location
USA
- Methodology
Design-build
- Industries
Aviation, Aerospace
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How The Austin Company Adopts and Adapts Revizto for a Collaboration Transformation
The Austin Company (Austin) struggled with remote field access to data and disconnected project information, which made it difficult to establish clear accountability and visibility across their design-build projects. Several years ago, the firm introduced Revizto to its workflows, initially as a design-focused platform to streamline 2D sheet and 3D model reviews. Over the years, the technology has become an integral part of the firm’s design and construction processes, enabling teams to quickly access models, centralize data, enhance accountability, streamline processes and improve coordination. Further, the platform's flexibility has allowed Austin to onboard external members of the project team such as subcontractors. Even owners are starting to take advantage of the solution.
Revizto is a breath of fresh air in terms of ease of use and the way it centralizes project data.
Rethinking Data Visibility and Remote Field Accessibility
As a design-build firm, Austin relies extensively on BIM and 3D models across its design, preconstruction and construction workflows. These tools are an integral part of how the organization operates and delivers projects, relying on these models for tasks that range from generating renderings and performing takeoffs to tracking field installations.
One of the major hurdles in this workflow had been the ability to access and navigate 3D models on mobile devices in the field. Brian Zuzik, Director of Virtual Design & Construction at Austin, says, “Our projects are oftentimes remote with limited connectivity, which provides obvious challenges to most internet-based solutions that rely solely on a strong connection. With Revizto’s ability to access projects offline, this challenge becomes obsolete. Regardless of whether we are working on a project in a remote desert or in a cornfield, we are able to be as efficient as if we were in the office.
Deploying traditional software packages to field teams was also a challenge. Large packages had to be installed via a VPN, or laptops were oftentimes shipped to the office, and then in turn shipped back to the site to ensure that the installs were completed—a tedious, time consuming practice.
Searching for an answer, Zuzik deployed Revizto to his team as a way to improve field access to models and streamline construction-related workflows like clash detection and coordination. With it, field teams would receive an email link they could use to quickly download the software and view models on mobile devices like iPads and phones.
According to Zuzik, Revizto is easy to navigate and manage project data. Other solutions separate models, sheets and issues making it very difficult to keep everyone in the office and in the field on the same page and making broad adoption a challenge.
A long-term career field person is more likely used to working with 2D sheets, which is very easy to do in Revizto. The flexibility of Revizto allows people with different levels of technical expertise to contribute to the project. They can choose to work in the format they are most comfortable with (e.g., 2D sheets) while removing the intimidation of working with models. We’re able to onboard and engage a wider range of team members.
The broad acceptance of Revizto in the field also opened doors for Zuzik to expand its use across the design-build workflow from proposals to design, engineering, preconstruction and construction. Today, it’s a central hub for project data, models, sheets and issues.
Zuzik recalls a conversation with a new estimator who needed more information. In this case, she needed to do a detailed steel takeoff on a massive project. He pulled up the Revizto model, built a search set and exported the information to Excel—all in a few minutes. It’s an effort that he believes would have taken the estimator weeks to do with other tools.
The ease of use, without creating barriers for less tech-savvy users, has been an important factor in driving broader adoption and participation across Austin’s design-build projects.
Zuzik continues, “Because we are a fully integrated design-build firm, we have an inherent ability to leverage data. Revizto allows us to keep our design team in the loop when it comes to anything that's happening in the field. It’s also given me and my VDC team more time to focus on providing value, whether it's training or implementation. We're not spending hours and hours just doing manual type efforts.”
Fueling Evolution with Purpose-Built Features
Issue Tracking
One of the primary tools that Austin relies on is Revizto’s Issue Tracker, a tool that allows the firm’s design-build teams to assign issues to specific subcontractors or team members, creating more accountability and facilitating better coordination.
The Issue Tracker has helped bridge the gap between the design and construction teams, allowing designers to be more involved in addressing field issues, better understand project performance and identify areas of improvement. It’s helped streamline coordination meetings, allowing us to focus on only the most critical issues.
Stamps
The Stamps tool helps formalize the documentation and tracking of important project information, whether it's field changes, lessons learned, or quality control items. This helps improve coordination, accountability, and overall visibility into the project for the various teams involved.
As part of their QA/QC process, Austin is using the Stamps feature to track and document quality-related items that need to be addressed, and if necessary leveraged as a lesson learned. Austin also provides Revizto licenses to subcontractors to foster improved collaboration and data analytics between teams. Subcontractors will often edit the design team's models based on routing preferences, constructability and accessibility etc., in some cases, in ways that vary from original design intent. In the past, it has been difficult to capture those kinds of details before they get installed.
With Stamps, the subcontractor simply marks the location that’s been suggested to be edited in the model, which then notifies the design team that a change has been requested. It’s really helped formalize the process of managing field changes and ensures the design team is aware of any deviations and are then able to ensure that the proposed changes are aligned with original performance of that system.
By using Stamps, Austin can also provide project executives and other stakeholders with a visual representation of the status and progress of the work. As a result, some owners are asking to evaluate the technology. On a recent project, Zuzik provided the owner a Revizto license so they could "take a spin around" the 3D model. He believes it’s the beginning of a new opportunity for owner coordination and visibility.
One of the most unique ways that Austin is using Stamps is to support continuous improvement. Project teams use Stamps to track issues or areas for improvement that can be referenced and applied to future projects.
Rooms
Revizto’s Rooms tool allows users to quickly navigate to specific areas or rooms within the 3D model with just a few clicks. It’s a capability that Austin project teams find particularly useful for those who rely on mobile devices or those with limited familiarity with a project.
Zuzik explained, “People are used to pinching and zooming. In the field, that can be challenging when dealing with dust, wind, rain and other weather factors. The ability to use the Rooms tool to quickly jump with one click of a button to a spot is a huge time savings.”
He has also found the tool invaluable in meetings with stakeholders. During a session, the owner or stakeholder might ask to see a specific room. Tools like Rooms offer a great way to navigate a model with ease.
Task Scheduler
One of the newest tools, and one that Brian had requested from Revizto's development team, is the task Scheduler, a tool purpose-built to automate the maintenance and distribution of the latest project information and improve data integrity across design-build workflows.
Zuzik shared, “Typically, our BIM coordinators would have to manually push updated models. Now with the Scheduler we can automatically update and publish the latest 3D models, ensuring everyone has access to the most current project information. It’s a great timesaver.”
The Partnership Imperative
The broad use of Revizto across project teams in the office and the field has prompted Austin to further integrate the technology into its larger technology stack, reshaping its strategy and investments.
For instance, Zuzik is now integrating Revizto with Power BI for construction progress tracking reporting and analytics and with point cloud capture vendors to better incorporate laser scans and 3D data. The team is also in the process of replacing its current cloud-based collaboration platform with Revizto for QA/QC workflows.
Austin is a consulting, design, engineering, and construction company specializing in design-build. The company provides services to a broad spectrum of industries including aviation, aerospace and defense, as well as food and beverage and life sciences. The Austin Company operates as a subsidiary of Kajima USA Group and is a proud member of the Kajima Corporation family of companies worldwide - a Top 250 Global Contractor as recognized by Engineering News Record. With the resources of Kajima organization, Austin continues to expand the breadth and depth of their solutions for the global market.
