Trust and cooperation, shared risk and shared reward, these were the discussion topics as the AGC BIMForum met in La Quinta to move IPD forward.
"Along the Path to IPD" we heard many great examples of projects with positive outcomes:
Chris Allen from the Weitz Company and Wayne Muir from Structural Consultants led off the event with a unique perspective. They outlined two projects in which the structural design firm participated in the modeling for the RFP and CD phase and then continued to use the model to help coordinate the mechanical and architectural models. Look for this as a Fridays with Vico webinar soon! It was fantastic to hear that collaboration on such difficult mountain structures started as early as the RFP.
Another great case study came from John Tocci (a McGraw-Hill Top 25 Newsmaker of 2008) describing the Autodesk AEC Headquarters project. At the last meeting we saw the embed work that Laura Handler did with architect Kling|Stubbins,so the presentation already had a great base. This time Mr. Tocci gave a high level summary of the contractual issues, bonus structure, and more examples of designers, contractors, and subs working together for the desired aesthetic. For more details, please follow the postings in Ms. Handler's blog.
Over in the Software Forum, we had an interesting discussion with the software vendors. Vico, Beck, Tekla, Autodesk, Bentley, and Solibri all shared their product roadmaps relating to interoperability, change management, and modeling methodologies. For a quick rundown of Vico's response to these topics, please check out Marcel Broekmaat's blog from the conference.
It seemed to be everywhere: MPS. The Model Progression Specification returned from Falls Church with two unique sessions. In the second session, Jim Bedrick from Webcor, and David Goodenow from HKS, discussed how they utilize the MPS on their projects. Mr. Bedrick recently explained Webcor's stance in a Fridays with Vico webinar. View the archived file here or read his AECBytes article on the topic.
Finally, we got to see the results of McGraw-Hill's latest BIM SmartMarket Report. The findings are incredible: more and more GCs are taking on the responsibility of introducing BIM to a project. And of the ones measuring BIM ROI, the results are staggering. And as Davis Chauviere remarked from the audience, (loosely paraphrased here), the more you do BIM, the more you simply expect great results.
Steve Jones from McGraw-Hill will be broadcasting a Fridays with Vico webinar on February 13th with the same presentation from the event, so please register to see the findings from this report.
From Vico's perspective, it was another fantastic event. There were so many new faces in the crowd which led to a broader discussion of how to keep encouraging new adoption and exploration of BIM while increasing the complexity of case studies to 4D and 5D.
We hope to bridge that gap with the introduction of Vico Office, our BIM-neutral platform where multiple file formats (Revit, Tekla, ArchiCAD) can be published. Once in the Vico environment, users can quickly generate construction quantities which, in turn, drive model-based estimating and model-based scheduling. We were happy to demonstrate the new software at our table and meet so many new attendees!
If you weren't able to attend the BIMForum, we encourage you to sign up early for the next one: May 28-29 in Dallas.
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