Digitally connecting on-site engineers, Detroit-based Rossetti Architects and other designers located across the country was necessary to kick off the highly technical job. McFadden has taken on that role, syncing designers, contractors, the owner and the city. Using up to eight different software providers, Barton Malow has created everything from specialized iPad apps to a system that provides real-time updates of PDFs. "It pays off with staff focused on how to build the project versus them asking, ‘How do I get information?'," he says. "The whole process is improved."

For example, purchase requests once required sending an overnight package and at least two weeks to await a response, with no way to track the process. Now, by using a PDF-management tool such as Bluebeam Studio, any member of the project team can open a PDF, comment or view its process, all in real time. "Don't ever send me an email with a PDF attachment," McFadden says about the process. “Open a studio session."

Moser says it goes well beyond the PDF commenting and iPads, though. The level of BIM detail, based on the new software, being provided to the subs is “atypical” and “absolutely necessary to complete on time," he says. With the detail showing the intricacies of each prefabricated component, there is a more realistic expectation of the finished build, he says.

Without the luxury of ripping out and building new, Moser says “surgical dismantling” of the old steel has the project team planning for grandstand removal even as they build new.

As with any push toward a new way of doing things, there have been challenges along the way, with some team members not overly comfortable with the technology. "Once they see the detail and accuracy and go into the model first and get the issue resolved quickly, the confidence is there," says Moser, who estimates the use of technology likely has reduced the need for two to three staff positions.

Apart from making the building process easier, the technology spreads to on-site work and the project’s afterlife. Each workers’ helmet and ID badge contains a RFI chip that allows Barton Malow to “take roll call for 1,000 vendors,” giving them everything they need to know about an individual employee's medical needs or, say, how many workers from a certain Florida county are on the job on any given day.

Chitwood says being able to pull data on subcontractors proves to be an unexpected but very helpful tool when he travels around the area for speaking engagements.

With 60 million pounds of concrete and 40,000 pieces of steel, each component Barton Malow constructs contains a bar code. McFadden says that while the process improves, for example, tracking materials across the site, it also will help the owner down the line as each bar code ties to maintenance material.

With the project stretching from 2013 to 2016, McFadden said the team had to ensure the technology remained flexible, from software to hardware. In all, Moser adds, Barton Malow has turned integrated project delivery into integrated project data.