Vico Office 4D Manager

Dynamically-Driven 4D Simulation of the Project Schedule

Vico Office 4D Manager™ completes the Vico 5D Workflow in the Vico Office environment by providing tools for defining and playing 4D simulations. Vico Office 4D simulations can be used for communicating and analyzing the schedule that was designed with Vico Office Schedule Planner. Simulations are derived dynamically from model, takeoff, cost and schedule information without requiring "publish" or "update" operations.

Using Vico Office 4D Manager is intuitive and straightforward. Users map scheduled tasks to 4D Groups, each with a color and defined behavior and the simulation is ready to go. To tune the simulated schedule to various target audience users can define multiple 4D Group Sets with different level of granularity.

With the Vico Office integrated solution 4D simulation is always up-to-date and changes to quantities, cost items and scheduled tasks are immediately reflected in the simulation.
 

So how do GCs implement the scheduling movie into their firm's best practices?

There are at least four uses for the scheduling movies produced with 4D Manager:

1.) Convince the Owner that your firm understands this project inside and out. One way to stand out against the competitors with your presentation is to explain to the Owner that your schedule was scientifically derived from the model geometry. Construction-caliber quantities were extracted from the model geometry, organized into location systems, and divided by crew productivity rates to achieve the durations. To make your point, show two simulations – a typical schedule and your optimal schedule side by side. The Owner will want to know how much each schedule costs and the difference in time is frequently a 10% improvement. You’re going to be the one who can explain that because the Vico Office solution integrates the 3D model with the 4D schedule and the 5D estimate. Your firm will have the cost- and resource-loaded schedules available to discuss.

2.) Communicate the project to the Subs before asking for their bids. Nothing makes a Sub’s consider price more carefully than knowing that there won’t be stops and starts on a job. It is so hard to de-mobilize a crew and pull them all back together to finish a task just because of poor planning with equipment or materials. One of the goals of Vico Office Scheduling Solutions is to produce a work space for Subs that is free and clear of disruptions. This means that the crew can work at their optimal pace, have plenty of room to do their jobs well, and do them safely. When the Subs see that you are asking for their productivity rates in exchange for having them work continuously, you’ll also see prices go down. Let’s face it: if you both know the quantities and you both know the productivity rates, it is pretty easy to compare mark ups on the bids you receive.

3.) Communicate to the Subs in the trailer. They say that a picture is worth a hundred words. Well, a movie must be worth one thousand. With the Vico Office Scheduling Solution, it is very easy to customize the scheduling movie to the trades. This way you can communicate to each trade on-site where they need to be each day/week/month and what they need to accomplish. This is useful not only to streamline teams, but also keep them safe. No one is wandering around the site – everyone knows their work zone.

4.) Review progress and solve issues together. At Vico, we believe there are two components to every schedule: developing the best schedule in terms of resources and budget and then managing to that schedule on-site. Here’s where the “controlling” component comes into play. Every week as Supers and PEs walk the site, they simply mark down the percent completes in each location. The Vico Office Scheduling Solution calculates the actual progress on-site and compares it to the original baseline schedule. Visually, the teams can see what would happen if no actions were taken…what would happen if additional crews were added or removed. So very easily, the teams can solve problems before they ever occur. These look-ahead schedules and actual vs baseline comparisons are a huge step forward for keeping schedules on track.

Keep BIM efficiencies through the build phase with Vico Office Scheduling!