Implementing 5D BIM effectively requires a change of process.  Suddenly processes which used to be regarded more art than science are assigned to scientific formulae.  People are threatened by change.  There are some people who see the change as opportunity to get ahead and do their work better. However, most of the people are afraid of the change. The following discussion concentrates on schedulers and planners.  I will discuss estimators, superintendents, subcontractors and Owners in future blog posts.

Schedulers and Planners

Durations are no longer based on "experience" from previous projects but are calculations based on quantities, productivity rates, and crew sizes.  Schedulers are forced to reveal that they do not have these rates.  In fact, it turns out in many cases that durations never assumed any crew sizes.  Resources were considered to be "the subcontractor's problem."  Using the project estimate as the basis of the schedule is a totally alien concept to many.  Location-based schedule analysis reveals the weakness of any CPM schedule.  Schedulers often take this as a criticism of their scheduling skill, although they are just using an inferior scheduling methodology.

Transparency of location-based management is scary to schedulers who see the schedule mainly as a tool to show delays and as a tool for Owner reporting.  Schedulers often fear that being transparent about assumptions will backfire if the assumptions are wrong (and the author of the assumption is painfully clear!).  They also rely heavily on superintendents who often do not provide crew size assumptions, because it is not part of the existing process.  Schedules have spent years or decades becoming proficient with CPM, so it is understandable that a new way of working which challenges everything they have learned is very difficult to implement.

The schedulers' resistance typically manifests itself as running a parallel CPM schedule, persuading the superintendents into using the CPM schedule as the basis of buy-out and reporting to the Owner using the CPM schedule.  If there is a parallel CPM scheduling team, many benefits of location-based management are lost.  It is common that organizations which evaluate location-based management ask the scheduler for an expert view of the technical solution.  The resistance manifests right from the beginning because the planners will test whether the software works using the traditional process.  Most of the identified "shortcomings" will arise from methodological differences between CPM and location-based management, especially the need for planning continuous work.

The only way to overcome the resistance of schedulers is to convert them, or to replace them with people who are able to understand the new production principles.  Schedule analysis based on model-based quantities is a good way to start this.  First, quantities are estimated from the 3D model by location.  The location breakdown structure of the CPM schedule is replicated in the model.  The granularity of the quantity takeoff is selected so that each production task will have at least one quantity item.  The logic of the CPM schedule is exactly replicated in a location-based schedule.  The durations are adjusted to match by changing crew sizes (quantities come from the model and productivity rates from industry standard sources).  The end result is a schedule which is resource-loaded and an exact copy of the CPM schedule.  Next, an optimized schedule is created with the same data.  Comparison of the two will in almost all cases reveal that the same total duration can be achieved with less resources and more continuous production or duration can be compressed using the same resources.  This comparison is typically enough to convince most schedulers.

If they still resist, pressure from the management who see the same results is typically enough to force a change.  Sometimes the scheduler will go back to the CPM schedule and try to fix it, but it is easy to demonstrate that the problems just shift from one part of the schedule to another.  However, there is nothing wrong with the scheduler himself.  CPM as a scheduling method is failing to deliver results, not the scheduler.  This fact needs to be communicated clearly also to other team members - otherwise the scheduler will resist even harder.  Conversion rate with this method is around 80%.

For another opinion on the necessity of change in today's commercial construction industry, please see my colleague, Mark Sawyer's blog, on what you can do to lead the BIM charge in your organization.

To learn more about location-based management systems and flowline theory for scheduling, please continue reading through the Fit and Finnish Blog.  Your team can also view the BIM 401 webinar on model-based scheduling.  Vico scheduling solutions are a unique location-based construction management system.  They incorporate locations, model-based construction-caliber quantities, and productivity rates yielding clear, accurate and feasible yet significantly compressed schedules.

We also offer a step-by-step guide to our 5D virtual construction workflow with video tutorials. These videos are just 2-5 minutes in length, but illustrate how to use a particular piece of functionality. You can access the video library index and view just what you need, or download the complete set of training videos. We have training levels for Estimators, Schedulers, Supers, and anyone who does CM Reporting.