Any sports fan can name players who, in one magnificent game or season, put their teams on their backs and carried them to victory. For many years, an analogous phenomenon has been played out in the construction industry. Very capable MEP contractors were often asked to assume the prime responsibility for a project by spearheading the traditional spatial coordination process, carrying less experienced and less competent project members through project completion. In this role of ad-hoc project coordinator, those MEP contractors saved many projects and spared the owners a great deal of expense and risk.
Even so, the traditional methods and tools of spatial coordination that those MEP champions used could not dramatically reduce the volume of change orders and courtroom litigation that was historically part of the game. For the owner, design changes, construction schedule conflicts, and poor field conditions generated change-order submittals that often led to budget overages. In the last six years, however, as Building Information Modeling (BIM) has begun to find its place in U.S. commercial construction, owners seeking to limit their financial exposure and risk began requiring contractors to use this new construction tool. Even earlier than that, our most visionary MEP contractors saw and began tapping many of these same benefits from engaging in BIM processes. They wanted to win by building more efficiently, rather than making a case in the courtroom.