Sutter Health’s Digby Christian is dead serious about delivering the $320-million replacement for Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley on time and on budget in 2013. But he also is not kidding, and sees no contradiction, when he refers to the 223,500-sq-ft job as a living laboratory. In its most ambitious experiment yet, Sutter is going beyond building information modeling’s low hanging fruit—clash detection—and exploring BIM-based estimating, automated code checking and direct digital-model exchange for detailing, coordination, automated fabrication and scheduling. The nonprofit hospital owner wants to prove it is possible to reduce waste and risk while delivering a better facility,
One lesson learned from the Walsh Group’s construction- management assignment on a 650,000-sq-ft hospital in Elgin, Ill.—a project Walsh took over as mass excavation and steel procurement were under way—is that a lack of team experience with building information modeling should not be an inhibiting factor on a complex construction project. image: Walsh Construction Photo: Walsh Construction In some areas ducts hung below plumbing because pipe lead times were less. Related Links: Digging into 3D Modeling Unearths Many Worms Leading-Edge Collaboration Hurt By Lots of Software Workarounds 3D Modeling Spurs Architect To Reorganize Divisions of Labor Leading Off With a
At a time when companies struggle to reduce “optional” expenses like conferences and travel, one organization of determined visionaries still attracts strong participation as it drives efforts to bring efficiency-enhancing technologies to the workplace. FIATECH, an industry consortium heavy in the capital facilities sector but drawing increasing interest from other areas of construction, fielded a strong turnout of technology leaders at its annual conference in Las Vegas on April 6-9. Attendance was down about 17% from previous records, but those who came despite the recession said now is the time to integrate improvements to position their companies for the next
Building information modeling has come a long way recently, but it is still far from being business as usual. That, and lack of BIM software interoperability, were about the only two subjects of general agreement regarding BIM among the 60 attendees of a recent “eConstruction” roundtable, in Phoenix. As recently as two years ago, there were no model BIM contracts and most designers did not have staff trained on BIM, said John Cross, a vice president of the American Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago, which cohosted the March 31 session with the American College of Construction Lawyers. Work-flow efficiency is
Two software vendors, CMiC and Vico Software, are forming a partnership to develop integration between their offerings for “enterprise resource planning” and building information modeling. The effort, if completed, would result in a framework for design and construction users of BIM tools to integrate BIM data with business functions, such as procurement and contract management, throughout the construction cycle between all operational departments of a firm, say the vendors. The goal is a product that will allow BIM information to flow seamlessly across an entire organization, not simply within an organization’s specific project. This would eliminate the need for re-entering
Saint Patrick’s Day brought a boatload of new “green” bulding energy-performance analysis tools, including a trio of emmigrant products with long resumes, to U.S. architects, consultants and engineers. In announcements on March 17, both Bentley Systems, Exton, Pa., and Autodesk Inc., San Raphael, Calif., introduced significant and quite different tools to a practice both companies expect will grow rapidly. “I think there is huge demand,” says Huw W. Roberts, Bentley’s global marketing director. “All design firms are integrating this kind of design analysis and addressing these issues. The demand for this will be 100%.” “It is becoming a bigger part
Tekla Corp. may lack the global recognition of its fellow Finn Nokia, but in the 3D-modeling software world it is every bit as familiar. Having cut its teeth in steel fabrication, the Espoo-based firm spread into engineering design and now offers modeling to construction managers. Related Links: Software Firms See User Needs Driving New Development Digital-Modeling-Standard Effort ‘SOS’ Tekla’s launch of worksite-management software began 18 months ago in Finland, where Tiina Koppinen was an early user. “It is a very important step to take modeling to the site,” says Koppinen, a project manager helping develop building information modeling at Skanska
The National Building Information Model Standard project committee is in dire need of volunteers to help it develop open building-information-model standards to foster interoperability among products of different software vendors. The buildingSMART alliance of the National Institute of Building Sciences, which is organizing the effort, is intent on delivering NBIMS at no cost to users. Related Links: Software Firms See User Needs Driving New Development Forty Years of Grassroots Development That is not an easy thing to do. Much of the standard will be published in the form of information-delivery manuals. Progress in developing the manuals is based on the
One future vision for virtual design and construction tools is for a "highly automated and seamlessly integrated environment" across all phases and processes of a project’s life cycle. The vision belongs to the FIATECH Consortium, which is devoted to opening up digital standards production to the world by developing the tool to achieve interoperability for interoperability standards. Related Links: FirmStretchesWorksharing to BIM Modeling Pathfinders Impatient To Have A Much Fuller Digital Toolbox Digital Box FIATECH wants a digital world in which all data is available to "whomever needs it, whenever it’s needed and wherever it’s needed," says Ric Jackson, director
When it comes to collaborative virtual design and construction, designers and contractors agree that the fractured, adversarial traditions of the construction industry and limits on digital technology are the two monsters blocking a building information modeling utopia, or "cheruBIM," a world in which projects are built faster, better, for less money, with less strife and fewer claims. As far as technology, interoperability deficits stand out as the biggest obstacle to cheruBIM, preventing team member-users from sharing digital applications from different software vendors. Slide Show GRAPHIC: Fiatech The roadmap outlines technology-enabled information paths for the entire life cycle of a capital
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