TPM

Building Information Modeling is Game-Changer for NC Construction Industry

An accurate system that minimizes risk is how proponents characterize it. Expensive and cumbersome, skeptics counter.

Regardless, there’s general agreement among those connected to North Carolina’s construction industry that Building Information Modeling, or BIM, is a tool to reckon with.

Three-dimensional modeling of construction projects is what BIM offers. It can show details about a structure and help owners, architects, engineers, general contractors and subcontractors understand how they work together or, in some cases, clash.

Demolition and waste management professional Gary Olnowich hasn’t used BIM yet, but has been around people who like it. Olnowich is vice president of the Linda Construction Company of Charlotte, which is involved with the Queen City’s 32-story Bank of America tower and the 52-level Duke Energy structure.

“It’s going to take the participation of everybody to make it work,” he says, “which sounds like the hard part.” 

Last fall, Linda Construction worked on a federal stimulus job at Fort Bragg and didn’t encounter BIM, but that experience may be an exception. 

The director of professional services for the US General Services Administration Region IV, which includes the Tar Heel state, says his agency requires architects, engineers and construction people to use BIM on all new, major projects. A GSA project coming soon to Charlotte is a new federal courthouse, designed and constructed completely with BIM.

“Using BIM coordinates all the systems, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and architectural,” says Brian Kimsey from his GSA office in Atlanta. “Anecdotally, we think
we’ve reduced errors and omissions and resulting change orders by 90 percent. That’s a pretty radical improvement.” 

Contractors like BIM, and have accepted it faster than architects, Kimsey says, because it improves coordination and eliminates re-work in the field. For architects, the benefits are less obvious, he thinks, and it’s more a matter of using BIM to avoid competitive disadvantage.

Not so fast, say a couple of Greensboro construction professionals.

BIM is popular on construction manager at-risk projects that generally involve larger contractors, says Ron Kiser, vice president of Brooks General Contractors in the Gate
City. He acknowledges that federal contracts often specify BIM.

But in the hard bid market, where his smaller firm tends to operate, “you rarely see it.” That’s because of budgetary concerns and tight time frames, he believes.

“I trust BIM to be accurate in the private sector,” Kiser says. “In the end, it’s going to give the client a better product. It takes a while for everybody to adapt. When they do,
it’s going to be a great product.”

Not adapting yet is Jody Efird, the principal at Efird Sutphin Pearce & Associates, P.A., in Greensboro. Her boutique architecture firm concentrates on schools, medical
office buildings and, lately, church work.

Efird is aware that the American Institute of Architects has studied BIM’s legal and copyright issues.

“BIM is very expensive,” Efird says. “And it is so cumbersome.”

Hit by unemployment of 25 percent or more, many architecture operations have put buying programs and computers on the back burner, she thinks.

Meanwhile, her company and its consultants are using a computer-assisted design tool called AutoCAD and her firm is considering an upgrade for it.

“From a contracting point of view, BIM may be working great, but to what extent does that translate into a design savings?” she asks.

With an answer is Michael Sproles, division manager of TPM in Charlotte. It’s a Greenville, SC, firm that sells BIM software and trains people to use it.

“BIM has the potential to eliminate or reduce inefficiencies in designing and constructing a project,” Sproles says. “In any project, there’s a lot of time, material and effort
wasted on mistakes, errors that just weren’t caught before they got out in the field. BIM allows us to help reduce that impact through coordination, making sure that mechanical piece of equipment is not in the way of structural steel work.”

Acceptance of BIM has jumped, Sproles says. The drivers are large contractors and project owners. “We’re seeing a lot of Department of Defense projects specify BIM as well as universities and other institutional customers,” he says.

Younger people seem to accept BIM faster because they grew up with 3-D and video games, Sproles speculates, while the older generation shies away.

“Young guys who might be great in the technology don’t have the experience of how to put a building together,” he says. “You need to have the older, experienced crowd, as well, because they understand how this stuff is actually going together.”

Chiming in is Paul Zytnik, a TPM account executive who sells Revit software to facilitate BIM use. “It seems the ones that have been most successful in architecture are
the project architects that have both characteristics – knowledge of technology and the practical know-how about building,” Zytnik says.

Joe Sferrazza, BIM specialist with Lake Architectural, Charlotte, says one example of BIM’s momentum is the rise in membership of Charlotte’s Revit User Group. “In the last year and a half, membership has grown to well over 300 members, he adds.

“Charlotte’s Revit User Group is an excellent resource for AEC professionals interested in BIM, he explains. “You can get unbiased answers to your questions from actual
users, not just someone trying to sell you a piece of software.” Lake Architectural has been using BIM software since 2004.

“BIM files create several other investments beyond the scope of 3-D software, one of which is a more robust information technology infrastructure,” says Zane Sharpe, who manages NextPlans, a subsidiary of Winston-Salem-based Sharpe Images. “Facilitating the communication and exchange of this information is what we’re built for.”

NextPlans’ web-based system manages construction documents from schematic design to project closeout, Sharpe adds.

With significantly larger electronic files that BIM entails, NextPlans helps all involved transfer information back and forth.

Marveling at BIM and its capabilities is Ned McNaughton, an attorney at Charlotte’s McNaughton & Associates, which focuses on construction law.

"BIM is a wonderful tool from an engineering and construction point of view,” McNaughton says. “I think it’s really going to improve construction and decrease defective
construction.”

Currently, some harbor inflated expectations for BIM, McNaughton believes, based on 3-D modeling they’ve seen in Hollywood offerings such as “The Matrix.”

Though he hasn’t been involved in lawsuits involving BIM, McNaughton anticipates he will. He sees two BIM problems in need of solution.

“The first one is just figuring out who’s responsible for the design and who owns it,” he says. “BIM is a cooperative system where everybody puts in their design,” he explains. This includes the trades such as HVAC, plumbing and electrical.

“But somebody needs to be responsible for the accuracy of that information and keeping it up to date,” he says. Who is that? “Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out. The logical place is whoever is in charge of the design element. Usually the architect.”

The second problem involves making what is built match what is drawn. If an HVAC firm installs ductwork in an unspecified spot, that usually results in adjustments in
the field.

BIM is different. “When you have a BIM system,” McNaughton says, “you have to up fit with the computer model. It can have a ripple effect on the entire project. There’s a higher administrative cost.”

When something does go wrong, finger-pointing is based on who knew what and when, the attorney says. With dynamic, multi-sourced 3-D modeling, that’s going to be
harder and more expensive to ascertain.

The federal Spearin Doctrine and its North Carolina sister “implied warranty of plans and specifications” will eventually factor in, McNaughton speculates. Both essentially
hold that the contractor has a reasonable expectation that if a structure is built to specification, it will work. But if the contractor, subs and others participate in the design,
that “just following orders” defense is harder to mount.

Matters such as that generally get hashed out in the courtroom.

“BIM is going to be a lot prettier 10 or 20 years from now,” McNaughton says.

ELLISON CLARY– The Charlotte/Triangle/Triad Construction News