1. 22  ENR  December 16/23, 2013 enr.com
Technology
Collaboration Tools LeapedinUsein2013,
ButIt’sStill Early for BIMMobilityonJobsites
I
f one technology trend in a sea of buzz-
words dominated the construction
landscape in 2013, it would have to be
information mobility, industry experts
say—and with good reason.
The foundations of major mobility
growth are in place: robust 4G networks
to ferry project data around a jobsite, the
advance of cloud computing networks to
store and process data in the field, and the
ubiquity of smarter mobile devices on
jobsites these days. Using web-friendly
software to manage their project docu-
ments in the field, contractors are count-
ing real productivity gains on jobsites, and
it’s improving their bottom lines.
But how much collaboration do these
tools enable? And which contractors are
achieving similar productivity gains by
working with 3D or building information
models on jobsites?
The answers, according to experts,
practitioners and recent research, depend
on the complexity of the project and the
size of the firm. Mobility tools are grow-
ing, but use of 3D models in the field are
still proving their worth to owners. That’s
creating opportunities for some contrac-
tors to specialize in BIM mobility.
“What we’re hearing from project
executives is that 3D model coordination
on jobsites has increased accuracy and
reduced risk” on projects, says Tyler Goss,
director of construction services at
engineering consulting firm Case, which
specializes in BIM implementation in
construction.
During his three-year tenure with
Turner Construction as a BIM manager,
Goss worked with a team of managers
that established a BIM training program
to help the firm’s different divisions get
used to tools that work with 3D models.
“We called it Milestone BIM,” Goss
said during a presentation at Autodesk
University, the software firm’s annual user
conference that was held in Las Vegas in
early December. Project complexity drove
the adoption, such as on the World Trade
Center Tower 2 project, from 2010 to
2011. Although it has no tenants, Tower
2 is essentially a 400,000-sq-ft physical
plant for the rest of the World Trade Cen-
ter campus. The $250-million, design-
bid-build project was very complex, with
five different design teams, for example.
Clash detection and model accuracy were
critical needs, he added.
The Turner team put together a “big
room” with six different trades that four
designers were coordinating 40 hours a
week. They averaged twice-daily uploads
of the model updates and daily clash anal-
ysis of the project, Goss said.
The project team used Autodesk’s
Navisworks software to create construc-
tion plans based on the building’s design
model. But it proved challenging every
step of the way. One area alone in the
building’s basement had 3,100 raw clashes
for the BIM manager to resolve. “It was
giving him nervous fits,” Goss added.
Ultimately, the Turner team came up with
a metric to measure its return on invest-
ment in the tools, which cost about
$13,000 overall. They called it the “meet-
ing equivalent rate,” or MER. They
calculated it by taking the number of
clashes resolved, dividing it by the
number of clashes over the number of
meetings.
“So we knew that, in a given meeting,
regardless of process, we were coordinat-
ing 11,121 square feet per meeting,”
added Goss. The team was able to do a
reverse-phase schedule to figure out how
long a coordination would take as they
scoped out work on roughly 300,000 sq
ft. “Model consolidation is labor-
intensive and can take BIM engineers
away from their core-value proposition,”
adds Goss, “You end up being a file man-
ager and not a project manager.”
4D and Beyond
“The problem with BIM is that we’re try-
ing to shove this 2D workflow that’s been
around for hundreds of years into this
[new model],” said David Epps, director
of BIM at Holder Construction, during a
presentation at the Autodesk event.
“Everything we do is about the build-
ing model and dumping a lot of informa-
tion in it. That’s what architects do, which
is why those models are not as useful to
us” as contractors, Epps said. “[Architects]
are not building a model to build by—
productivity
Early For Mobility
McGraw Hill Construction’s
Insights group surveyed
subscribers in 2013 about the benefits
of information mobility tools
81%
GCs have seen better collaboration
with mobility tools since 2011
31%
Specialty contractors use fewer
blueprints instead of mobile tools,
but report higher ROI on jobs
20%
GCs report lower costs and higher
ROI with information mobility
Contractors are increasingly embracing ways to develop construction plans against 3D models

2. enr.com December 16/23, 2013  ENR  23
imagecourtesyofHolderConstruction
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they’re building a model to design,” he
explained. Epps and the 20-plus BIM
managers at Holder Construction are
working with the architects’ models to
create 3D construction plans that inform
all stakeholders in a project.
The group uses a variety of software:
Autodesk’s BIM 360 field tools; its Navis-
works project-review software, to create
construction models; and Bluebeam
software that enables collaboration in
real-time using 3D models in PDF
format. Epps also uses Synchro Software
to load scheduling data to the model and
create 4D models construction plans.
“Construction simulation is a great
way to communicate to everyone on the
team,” Epps said, especially with superin-
tendents planning complex jobs. Using
the Synchro time-line features, for
example, “all they have to do is move
things around and change [schedule]
predecessors, successors and durations
and then click play, and they see a com-
pletely different iteration” of the job plan.
“We’re finding that supers are loving
this,” Epps added.
Still Early in BIM Mobility
Although 3D and 4D simulations are
gaining on jobsites, many experts say their
use is still not widespread.
According to a survey by McGraw Hill
Construction Analytics (which, like ENR,
is owned by McGraw Hill Financial), con-
tractors and specialty contractors are not
using BIM mobility all that much. By far,
the dominant use of information-mobility
tools is to share project documents and
improve access to documents on jobsites.
“The ability to access 3D models and
to use mobile devices to conduct author-
ing and analysis on these models
is still quite limited both in terms
of the capability of the devices to
handle that amount of data and
in terms of training of workers
on-site to take advantage of these
tools,” according to the MHC survey of
over 1,000 contractors.
“With the shift to cloud computing
that the data suggests will occur soon, the
industry will find data even more acces-
sible,” the survey noted.
No question, BIM collaboration is
getting stronger as software and tools
advance, noted Matt Harris, a senior vice
president of strategy and corporate
business development at Viewpoint Soft-
ware, which recently acquired U.K.-based
project-management software firm
4Projects. “What the U.S. market is most
ripe for at this very moment is collabora-
tion around documents,” Harris adds.
Collaboration with the entire supply
chain on a 3D model is only just begin-
ning and has a ways to go before wide-
spread adoption. For BIM collaboration,
the ROI use cases aren’t necessarily
proven, Harris adds.
Although a government mandate is the
market driver for BIM adoption in
the U.K. (see story, p. 20), there is no
equivalent directive in the U.S.
Many owners still ask for hard
copies of project documents for
hand-over, adds Leigh Jasper,
CEO of Aconex, a provider of
project-management software
over the web. But on the flip
side, the more construction teams access
BIM models on jobsites and go beyond
punch-listing, daily reports and commis-
sioning, the more owners are expecting
handover documents—and more—in 3D.
Jasper now sees about two-thirds of proj-
ects using 3D models. “A year ago, that
was less than 50% of our customers.”
Adds Harris, “BIM mobility is causing
a fundamental convergence of these
worlds, and it’s gonna rock all of our
boats.” n
By Erin Joyce
Layout Plans
Holder Construction
works with Autodesk
Navisworks and other
modeling tools to create
3D plans for site layout
and logistics planning.
This example is one part
of a model designed to
plan the work layout
around height require-
ments for crane logistics
in an area with a lot of
foot traffic.