Markuu Allison from the AIA gave a very insightful talk on the paradigm shifting impact that IPD will have the production of a new building , or the retrofit of an exising, and as he pointed out, ‘Change is not optional”. This has to occur if we want to produce the kind of efficiency required to stop wasting as much as 50% of the money that goes into the average construction project.

He noted that severe fragmentation exists within the industry with 1.2 million AEC firms in the US alone. Architectural firms with more than 50 employees account for only 2% of the population. Approximately 30% of construction projects come in either over budget or beyond the schedule. And worst of all buildings are the primary source of greenhouse gases.

He stressed that IPD is both a philosophy and a delivery method. At a minimum he described it as a single contract that the owner, designer and contractor all sign agreeing to share the risks and rewards depending on the outcomes. This kind of agreement changes everything.

Today only 2% of the projects are using IPD. 34% are using BIM. He sees a faster adoption rate for IPD.

More in the next blog.

On to my 2nd choice, which I have to say was worth the cost of the trip. The session was titled, “BIM Best Practices: Winning Solutions from the Leaders”, and that was the right billing. The presenters were given 12 minutes. Two of the most sophisticated used a video with no text – very slick. But in nearly all cases the depth of understanding and expertise was evident. These were the pros at the use of 3D modeling and BIM for compressing project schedules and reducing costly mistakes in the field. This is not your mother’s 2D AEC project, it was high powered innovation on display.

From the use of tablet PCs for building commissioning, creating virtual prototypes, spatial coordination, constructability review, environmental performance modeling, laser scanning, integrated design bid build, lean operation and lean design, supply chain management – the list goes on and on. BIM was the common thread, but there were a lot of variations. The companies presenting included HDR, Turner, Ghafari, SOM, and Gilbane, among others.

At the end there was an open discussion on how best to capture project case studies like these so that others might learn and adopt some of the best practices. A consensus was not reached, but the buildingSMART alliance and other organizations are going to be working on making this valuable information more readily available.

This was a real eye opener for me, and a confirmation that it really is about 3D for AEC. This is the core driver – 3D modeling. As one speaker noted, if you are not at least doing clash detection than you should not even be a player. But once again most of the projects being discussed were in the hundreds of millions of dollars of contract value. The trick is to push this level of sophistication down to the under $10 million projects.

That will take some time, but the very encouraging news is that even though it takes a long list of software products to cover all of the bases, the revolution is underway.

In preparing for the interview I spent some time on the buildingSMART alliance website. First of all this is a very technology focused organization with a vision and mission statement  that on paper sounds like it is interested in many of the same issues as this blog. It says that the bSa was  created to “spread technical… support for digital technology in the real property industry”. Reading a little further it is stated that BIM is the technology of choice for unifying the industry. Many of the leading preexisting NIBS programs led to the creation of the bSa.

As noted previously, there is no shortage of organizations out there with similar ideas, but from what I am reading the bSa seems to be focused on the really important issues that I think will lead to significant change. They are certainly a group that you should pay attention to and support. If anyone has been directly involved with this group I would appreciate your thoughts.

More after the interview.

The free (we like that) extension provides for all of the design intelligence created in Autodesk Civil 3D to be transferred and available to the Trimble Business Center-HCE suite, which is then linked to Trimble’s machine control hardware. This is not just a simple data transfer, it is the kind of sophisticated 3D data interoperability that the industry deserves and that insures that the investment made during the design phase will not have to be duplicated. This should also produce much less chance for errors. Kudos to all those involved.

The other item that caught my eye in the press release was the reference to Autodesk Civil 3D being the “BIM solution for civil engineers”.. On the one hand I understand what the marketing group is attempting to do with this, on the other as a civil engineer, and I have a feeling the architects would agree, this is not a good idea. Civil 3D does not create information models in the same sense as Revit, for instance. There is enough confusion concerning BIM, we don’t need marketing spin to add to it.

That’s not the case for Randy Nolan, Editor of Machine Control Online. I recently connected with Randy and we agreed that although there could be some competitive issues down the road, that it was more important to focus on growing the overall pie.

In his most  recent column Randy starts out by confirming a recent position of mine – most design firms are still producing 2D paper drawings as their deliverable, or in some cases 2D CAD files. At present it appears to be an extra step in the workflow to have the 3D digital terrain model (DTM) created for the project, which I assume has to include all of the grades for the various materials – from the subgrade to the finished surface. I hope the CAD vendors are listening.

The disappointing, but expected news is that once the DTM is created there are no standards for transferring the data between the office and the earth moving equipment – ouch. I will leave the subject of standards for another time, but suffice it to say this can lead to lost productivity and in the worst case errors in the field.

A little more research on Randy’s site reveals that the introduction of machine control technology is producing a number of firms that specialize in data preparation and training. One of these is Harken-Reider, based in Front Royal, VA. They actually see the need for a “Construction Site Data Manager” position, someone who is responsible for insuring that the data is correct and available in the right format, at the right time.

The equipment manufacturers, such as Trimble and Topcon have important roles to play in this technology adoption process. This to me is “low hanging fruit” in terms of the AEC industry working together to make the adoption of this technology a much simpler and less painful process. This has to be on the 3D for AEC agenda.

Listening and watching Carl Bass and Jeff Kowalski  talk about the future of CAD and the AEC industry can be really inspiring. It is critically important for a company to have a vision of the future and to encourage its customers to join them in making this happen. From Autodesk’s point of view I think they believe that the issue is not about moving from 2D to 3D, but from 3D to model-based design, or integrative design, or digital prototyping – there are a number of exciting, new concepts that are being promoted.

For those early adopter, risk taking firms there is no doubt that this can lead to establishing early competitive advantage, and to exciting, main stage project results. These firms need to be applauded for their willingness to innovate, and demonstrate that the new technology can lead to greater productivity and profitability.

What I wonder about is the percentages. From what I hear and see the average AEC firm has still not completed the transition from 2D to 3D, and some percentage has not even started. I would love to know what those percentages are. My gut tells me that the vast majority of firms are not able to leverage concepts like integrative design.

So being a civil engineer, my first reaction is to think about building a bridge  – something that will get us from here to there. Here is the traditional 2D world, with drawings and specs and there is a 3D model-based, digital world with intelligence built into the models. I am not sure that any of the CAD firms have provided the average customer with that technology bridge, and in particular the integration and interoperability that is needed to make it a bridge that most firms are eager to use.

That to me is the real challenge and opportunity.

I received a press notice from FM:Systems inviting me to stop by their booth next week at EcoBuild in Washington, DC. They are in the integrated workplace management systems (IWMS) and computer aided facilities management (CAFM) business.

A quick, but important aside – while we are the subject of acronyms, particularly in this context, I want to bring up the issue of AEC vs. AECO, with the “O” standing for operations. For whatever reason you choose, and there is no shortage, there is a major disconnect  within our industry between the day a project is completed, and the following years of its service life. Operating buildings currently account for one-third of the energy usage worldwide. This is where the leverage is.

The refusal of the owner/operators, in general,  to demand the continuity of information throughout the entire lifecycle of a project has got to be addressed. This is one of the core problems facing our industry, and it has an effect on the smallest component to the overall sustainability of the planet. This has got to change, and it is something that we all need to be a part of.

Back on topic – I checked in with a friend of mine who has been in the CAFM game for at least the past 10 years. He now works for Manhattan Software, one of the leaders in this space. I asked him about 3D. His comment was that some change might be afoot, but that in general FMer’s were generally happy with 2D. His concern with going to 3D is the issue of file sizes. Manhattan prefers to work in a very lightweight environment. 3D files are typically too large.

However, he did provide a link to Penobscot Bay Media, a GIS company based in Camden, Maine, with offices in NYC, DC and London. They have developed a robotic 3D environmental monitoring system, which they call In-Vision EnviroMetrics. Using lidar to obtain the interior dimensions of the building, while providing precise location the robot is also capable of sampling the temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as well as volatile organic carbons. The surveys are done relatively quickly, with an extremely high level of detail and at a very affordable price.

This information can be used to measure the performance of the building’s heating and cooling systems, which can lead to significant cost savings over the life of the project.

http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=event_au_virtual

In the meantime I came across a compelling blog post from Jeff Waters. Jeff works for Space Claim. Both are proponents of something called “Direct Modeling”. I urge you read the post to get the full development of his position, but the bottom line is that today’s leading CAD engines are really difficult to learn how to use, and that for many conceptual design applications they are at best like vice grips – they are the wrong tool for every design job. However, he believes that a sea change is about to take place in the industry.

This brings to mind about 2 years of business development work that I did on something called land planning. This is the conceptual design process where most, if not all real estate development projects should start, especially if we want to embed sustainability in the project from the outset . The challenge for land planners today is the lack of a conceptual digital design platform that is integrated with a 3D engineering design engine. There are a number of other issues, but that is #1.

Jeff points out that in fact this is the case across many disciplines where design engineers, who in most cases are still not proficient with CAD, and even if they were it’s the wrong approach. He points out through his reference to SketchUp that what is needed at the early stages of design is a free form environment not constrained by orthogonal, precise drafting rules and paradigms. In fact what is needed is a sketching environment. That is what makes Sketch Up so important and useful.

Jeff points out that Autodesk is working on a direct modeling project that he referred to as Fusion. A quick look on the  Autodesk Labs site reveals that this is connected to Autodesk Inventor. I will try to find out more about this for a future post.

In an earlier blog I came up with the following list of important 3D technology buckets:

1. Laser scanning
2. Modeling
3. BIM
4. 3D/4D/5D
5. Virtual Construction
6. Machine Control
7. Virtualization (for Operations and Maintenance)

I commented that I thought these would be important drivers of change in the next decade.

What I am struggling with is how to organize the effort of reporting on this change, and how to make this blog a catalyst for faster and more beneficial change. Should the focus be on technology or on the process/workflow? I think I am leaning toward focusing on the process.

Technology is constantly changing. I just had a 1 hour presentation on something called FLASH LIDAR. Instead of scanning point by point, with FLASH you flood the field of view with thousands of points in a tenth of a second. The result, in real time is a 3D image of the scene. No scanning, no post processing, you have a real time 3D image, just like you would from a 2D still camera. It is mind boggling.

So instead of starting with technology, I propose to organize my thinking around:

1. Planning
2. Survey
3. Modeling
4. Design
5. Simulation
6. Visualization
7. Construction
8. Operations and Maintenance

I actually think of these as a continuum, with the cycle repeating itself once the facility requires an update. These are the time tested phases of a project that are not going to change with the next hot technology. The challenge is to integrate and leverage 3D technologies into these process workflows such that we increase productivity, while building projects that are more energy efficient and user friendly.

It’s a worthy goal.