BIM Goes BIG
Southwest Firms Increasingly Turn to BIM

By Tony Illia

Southwest firms are increasingly turning to building information modeling for their fast-track construction projects, and it's helping them meet tight schedules and reduce risk on projects involving complex systems.

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In the past few years, building information modeling has exploded in popularity in fast-growing states like Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, which have over $17 billion in combined construction underway, according to McGraw-Hill Construction.

The Phoenix office of McCarthy Building Cos., for example, is using BIM for 40% of its projects and looks to grow that volume in the future.

"Over the next couple of years, BIM will become the standard operation for all of our projects," says Robert H. "Bo" Calbert, McCarthy's Southwest Region Division president. "It increases the certainty of reduced claims as well as making the schedule. It mitigates risk on a project."

Through three and four-dimensional, computer-assisted-drawing, BIM produces virtual models with essential information for engineering, architectural and construction components. It provides detailed plans for intricate mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire, structural and other systems and helps with staging, fabrication, placement, and scheduling.

BIM can be useful in troubleshooting problems before they arise because clashes can be found and fixed during design, rather than at the jobsite.

BIM helped McCarthy meet an aggressive 19-month construction schedule for the new $189 million, 360,000-sq-ft Banner Gateway Medical Center in Gilbert. The 60-acre campus at U.S. Highway 60 and Higley Road, developed by Phoenix-based Banner Health, consists of a five-story, 165-bed tower, three-level diagnostic and treatment building, helipad and a medical office building.

The project finished in June on time and on budget, and marks McCarthy's biggest BIM undertaking thus far in Arizona, Calbert says. BIM helped ensure that systems were carefully coordinated, greatly reducing architect requests for information.

"Hospitals have heavy mechanical and electrical systems that are typically more complicated," Calbert says. "BIM ensures that we can make an aggressive schedule. It really helps validate the schedule and project sequencing."

Contractors previously used 2D drawings, overlaid on a light table, and eyeballed potential problems. BIM, by contrast, enables the design contracting team to view and work-out conflicts in 3D, which allows for offsite fabrication and system bundling.

BIM also identifies space for installation, which means subcontractors can show up onsite and work quickly with few hiccups.

"Subcontractors previously would get out to the field and were unable to fabricate systems due to poor drawings," says Gary L. Aller, director of the Alliance for Construction Excellence at Arizona State University's Del E. Webb School of Construction in Tempe. "A lot of contract language stipulated that subcontracts had to assume total liability, so they began drawing in 3D to protect themselves."

University Mechanical & Engineering Contractors, for instance, fabricated ductwork and piping for the Banner Gateway Medical Center in advance. BIM enabled the Tempe-based firm to forgo much of the traditional field measuring and other onsite work. It enables major fabrication in a controlled setting as opposed to an outdoor construction site exposed to the elements.

"BIM results in a minimum 15% time savings," Calbert says. "It certainly eliminates project delays, claims and change orders. We detected 600 conflicts at Banner with BIM, 25% of which would have resulted in an RFI to the designer."

SmithGroup Inc., which similarly uses BIM in the Phoenix area, looks to increasingly use it for everything in the future. The architecture firm's current BIM projects include the 63,000-sq-ft science building at Mesa Community College and the 67,400-sq-ft Sundt Construction headquarters in Tempe.

"BIM makes sense from a coordination standpoint when there are many elements and team members," says Eric D. Watson, an architect with SmithGroup. "The parametrics reduce the need for double checking and referencing. It also creates a better set of drawings with less redesign and a cleaner schedule."

The 3D images are popular with owners who often use them as part of a marketing and public relations plan. The lifelike pictures give clients a realistic building view in context for a better sense of scale and dimension, Aller says. BIM, more significantly, saves money, he adds.

"Owners have said that 80% of their time is spent chasing stuff that should have been down right in the first place," Aller says. "The BIM process allows them to hire the architect, contractor, subs and consultants at the same time to work through design together. BIM provides the medium needed for them to talk to one another."

BIM plans can additionally be used as maintenance diagrams upon completion, creating added project value. It has led owners such as the city of Phoenix to start requesting projects in BIM. The city is even sponsoring its first "All Arizona BIM Conference" on Aug. 16-17.

"[ASU] is moving into that technology and everyone is asking questions about it," says Michael L. Medici, president of SmithGroup's Phoenix office. The city of Phoenix is mandating it, and we have several clients requesting it."

Although BIM hasn't become as widely used in neighboring New Mexico, companies recognize that it's the wave of the future.

"We are just getting to BIM right now," says Bill Weis, a principal with Dekker/Perich/Sabatini in Albuquerque. "We haven't seen owners requesting it yet. The system is still in its infancy, but this is something we are going to have to go through."

The 150-person architecture firm's office has created a committee to learn more about the BIM process, which can be a costly, time-intensive investment. "BIM can cost $5,300 per station plus subscriptions and other software, so it's not cheap," Weis says. "But it's where the industry is heading."

In Nevada, "The adoption of BIM is going to exponentially increase over the next few years," says David Shields, director of the construction management program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The biggest hurdle is people understanding it. Until [BIM] becomes clear and well defined, there is a fear that people won't spend the time to figure what it is and what it does.

Contractors are often reluctant to integrate any new technology unless they see an immediate payoff."

Useful Sources

For information on the All-Arizona BIM Conference, visit www.azbim.net

To read more about the Banner Gateway Medical Center, see Southwest Contractor's February 2007 edition or see the story on our website at http://www.southwest.construction.com/features/archive/0702_feature1.asp