Currently according to a recent ENR survey 55% of construction companies surveyed are now using BIM and VDC. They cite two main reasons for the increasing use which are:
- 5% decrease in requests for information (RFI’s)
- 5% decrease in overall construction cost and waste
Recently a Chief Estimator at a large national construction manager said to me, “The fidelity of a model grows on the team over time.” While he was pointing out that everyone involved with the use of 3D models needs to assure themselves that the quality of the data is good enough to be useful to the construction planning process he also began to talk about how that then becomes the catalyst for deeper and continued use of 3D models.
Basically once planners and estimators working on projects become familiar with 3D models and learn how to check them for accuracy they can then leverage them for incredible time savings. One workflow frequently done is 2D takeoff which he estimated takes about 75% of an estimator’s time when using 2D drawings. This time can be reduced to approximately 15% when using a model and if you allocate an additional 30% of the same time to quality assure it then you are still ahead by a whopping 30%. Furthermore you can quickly assess changes in future versions of the design saving perhaps 90% of the time that a traditional approach would take by using automated model change analysis.
Note: for those of you with a subscription here is the URL to the ENR article
http://www.enr.com/articles/39935-new-survey-reveals-how-gcs-cms-and-subs-engage-with-bim
Don Henrich is an accomplished technology veteran in both the MCAD and the AEC industries. As Chief Operating Officer of Assemble he is responsible for strategic vision, sales, marketing, customer support, partners, and field operations. Don and his wife Noel have three children, reside in Marblehead, MA and spend as much time as possible sailing on Massachusetts Bay.
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