Quantifying the ROI of BIM coordination
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With over 100 years of construction experience, EDiS Company is well aware of the importance of evolving with the times, particularly when it comes to technology advancements.
The general contractor headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, provides a wide range of services including design-build, interiors and pre-engineered solutions. Additionally, they have also offered BIM services for modeling, coordination and fabrication, as well as virtual design and construction (VDC) for more than a decade. But in today’s demanding, time-shortened schedules, relying solely on BIM practices is not enough to meet customer needs for productivity and efficiency.
The Magic Touch
The challenge for this forward-thinking contractor was to streamline its technology-enabled workflows. BIM provided the visual capabilities, coordinating large project teams including subcontractors, but still required considerable time to bring data together.
Chris Donahue, director of VDC BIM Services at EDiS, says, “As the construction manager on many jobs, we check models for clashes and constructability of every element before it goes out to bid. All of these potential issues are then resolved through coordination and some redesign, which ideally minimizes change orders in the field. But we were struggling with bringing data together and growing our VDC team in tandem.”
Five years ago, EDiS introduced Revizto, an Integrated Collaboration Platform that streamlines AECO workflows and communication with all stakeholders in a unified environment throughout the project lifecycle. He continued, “It was like this magic touch on our jobs. Workflows started going smoother, the schedule shortened and we were able to prove the value of utilizing BIM.”
One project in particular demonstrated the value of that connection.
A Library of Value
Building a bridge between BIM capabilities and the larger project team was best demonstrated on EDiS’s recent $20 million Kennett Library project in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
As a guaranteed maximum price contract, the construction of the project could not exceed $21.1 million. In this case, the Integrated Collaboration Platform shortened building design review, coordination and construction.
Donahue said, “Pre-BIM, we estimated that it took around three to four months to coordinate a $20 million job amongst the entire team including subcontractors. With BIM and Revizto, we coordinated this job in a month and a half.”
Further, he noted that change order rates dropped drastically because of the coordination process. “Construction went even smoother. Trades could visualize and resolve issues themselves in Revizto. Our change order rate reduced to a record low .02%,” Donahue added.
On this project, EDiS identified errors during pre-construction that saved $220,000. Additional value engineering saved $556,000 and an estimated $6 million in labor costs. The total savings from the Kennett Library was calculated to be $1.6 million across the design and construction process.
“That’s the magic of Revizto,” said Donahue. “With Revizto, we can quickly look at contract drawings and our models. It allows us to find the errors, come together, group it, and come up with this scenario where we’re saving money. It’s a process that used to take weeks and now we do it in an hour.”
Cross-Project Advantage
Over the past five years, EDiS has used Revizto on 42 projects, about $1.8 billion of work. The average change order rate has decreased from 5.5% to under 1% through improved transparency and issue resolution—across all of these projects.
EDiS has continued to build on its BIM workflow, most recently with the addition of iPads equipped with the Revizto App for field staff, which enabled the EDiS construction team to use BIM on the job.
For the entire EDiS team, the transition to BIM has been one of continuous evolution. Donahue added, “Every day, our focus is on how we increase the knowledge of team members so everyone has their arms around the BIM initiative. Revizto is helping with that. We’re at 48% adoption across the firm, and with every job, that percentage increases.”
Donahue concluded, “We firmly believe that for us to touch a job, we can automatically put 10% back into our customer’s budget because of our BIM workflow. Collaborative technologies help us deliver projects faster and under budget through more efficient coordination workflows.”
To hear the comprehensive explanation of time and cost savings gained from using Revizto, watch the full on-demand webinar: Unveiling the Revizto Impact: How EDiS Breaks Down the Platform’s ROI.
