Integrate. Build

Digital Coordination Compresses Timelines

Online availability of live 24/7 job site cameras, construction documents, specifications, submittals, schedules and action item lists are a baseline expectation from our clients. Time lapsed review is often requested at the end but requires additional online storage. Most clients want access to a 3D model they can navigate and view for subject matter experts to provide input. Models help staffs who do not review plan drawings understand what the project will look like at the end.

The culmination of the technology driven execution approach is to shorten total project time. 20 years ago we would send three sets of printed drawings for review. Printing took a day and shipping took two days. We might fly down for a page turn after the client had a week to review. Another week would follow before fragmented feedback.

Now we use teams to look at live models and go to detail views in interactive review sessions that get real feedback in a day. We can make changes and complete a second review with high quality feedback in less time than the original process. More complicated projects achieve greater time savings.

Project sight lines can be rendered in 20 minutes and overlaid on an internet street view to help build the clients view of what done will look like and streamline planning commission reviews.

3D clash detection has helped streamline execution but can be limited by the weakest link in the model. Contractors that fail to model their work fully bear contractual accountability for undetected clashes. This drives accuracy and LOD350 modeling. We now define LOD 200, 300, 350 and contractually hold team members accountable. Scan updates every two weeks measure progress against the model, identify deviations and manage changes to determine if they will cause unforeseen conflicts or are an acceptable revision.

Models Strengthen Project Alignment

Simple items like Procore document sharing of design criteria and action items lists are often overlooked for their importance to coordinate across all stages and levels of a project.

Laser Scanning of existing conditions and registering that data into the Revit Modeling. Leveraging Navisworks or Procore 3D model sharing for client interface and clash detection. MS Teams for live interactive design reviews for client touch points or page turn reviews.  Importing Creo or Inventor models helps feed quality information into the Revit model to ensure dimensional accuracy with working clearances and user interface visualizations.

“Plan for the end goal of what done will look like in the owners’ eyes.”

Revit time lapse models are impactful but not every project invests fully in that level of technology. We also use 3D fly through as well as Twin motion animations of workflow and process flow in a space or assembly line.  Seeing how people and equipment move through complicated industrial spaces can inform the client of things they didn’t even consider and drive design revisions early in the process when its least cost and impact.

Utilities Need Active Management

We use our modeling to feed into engineering sizing software so that we can push long lead procurement to address schedules.

We are pushing to use open communications like Modbus TCP/IP, EtherCAT or BACNet to open the controls and feedback for energy facilities management and operations.

Feedforward daily operation scheduling can allow us to pre-charge tower water sumps, chilled water reservoirs when we know we are dealing with design day temperature conditions.

Feedback from energy rates tracking can also encourage off hours  Ice Storage or advancing pre-heating to manage demand charges or diversify assets that need to be brought online as a measured approach.

This pays dividends when we discover unforeseen capacity in piping/air systems that was lost to the previous reactionary worst case reactionary design that has been practiced for the past 50 years. 

When businesses manage their energy utilities as a resource to be scheduled and managed and they have dashboards to monitor performance it allows them to affect the bottom line. 

Headlines are everywhere about the enormous power/water consumption of projects and the cost or pushback politically that brings.  Managing those peaks and valleys with battery storage and active management to address business schedules is something that businesses would never have viewed as cost effective or worthwhile until recently. The real time feedback and the ability to implement a sophisticated strategy require design features that no project would have paid for 30 years ago.  Simple things like a large hot sump or cold sump were always cut because those were operating costs and management only tracked capital expenditures. This was partially correct; energy availability and cost were not a constraint years ago.

Owners Define What Done Means

Plan for the end goal of what done will look like in the owners’ eyes.

Documentation and accountability are paramount. Too many hyped newsletters and glossy leave behind claim one in a million performance or cost metrics that are cherry picked.  We need documentation and purchase orders that hold accountable to performance specification through commissioning.  We lead projects from concept to acceptance and that continuity of supervision and care allow us to measure outcomes and not quite after shop drawings.  Data feedback rates through to efficiency performance in real world projects are what clients are paying for.

No client wants to buy design drawings and specifications. That is a step in their overall goal of a complete and functioning project delivering on the design criteria. Leading a project with the owners true goal to be making good on the project charter and not allow one step in that chain to become overemphasized.  All parts and players in the project are important, they are just at different stages of the project life cycle and the upfront side seems to get more facetime.  We live the project and don’t leave until it’s done as judged by the client.  

Lead Times Shape Priorities

Schedules are significantly impacted by the bubble of energy projects. Switchgear, controls and generation are bottlenecks along with general construction materials like building steel and roofing.  The technology push is driving time out of every aspect of projects to try an compensate currently where first to market seems to be the number one from project management triangle of scope, schedule and budget.

Years ago budget was #1, and I think when lead times on the materials and equipment come back to what they were pre-COVID, the technology will be pushed to be more cost effective to align more on budget since we won’t have year long lead times driving the critical path.