How Swinerton Builders Deliver Virtual Design and Construction

This week's Guest Blogger is Dan Gonzales, the Corporate Manager of Virtual Design and Construction at Swinerton Builders.  Our congratulations to Dan and his team - Swinerton Builders was just named the #1 Green Contractor in California by California Construction Magazine.

 

 

Q: When did Swinerton first become involved with BIM and what BIM capabilities does your firm have in house?

A: Five to six years ago we started doing 3D modeling using ArchiCAD.  We trained our estimators to do the modeling because at that time it was harder to do modeling and took longer.  We felt that by starting in preconstruction we'd have something available to us.  Three and a half years ago I came on board Swinerton and my first task really was to help coordinate the modeling effort with the Graphisoft team (who then became the Vico team).    

 

Today we've trained about fifteen people in the company to do modeling and we're doing the majority of it... Although on major projects (for example, Washington Hospital and Four Seasons Hotel project in Denver) we've used the Vico Construction Services, as well.  So we're pretty familiar with that but we're bringing much more of it in house.  In the past 3 ½ years we've done over 160 projects that range anywhere from a proposal to a full BIM coordination project.  We've modeled internally about 47,000,000 sq. feet and those 160 projects have a construction value of over $9,000,000,000.  So we've gotten a considerable amount of modeling done.

 

Q: What are some of the benefits you've experienced with Virtual Construction on the projects?

  

A:  I really think that what we're getting with Virtual Construction is better communication among the team members, design teams, and owners.  The thing I always talk about is everyone is looking at the same elephant.  And we're able to discuss problems, get to issues quicker, and as a result, get better answers and decisions by the owners because they truly understand what the issue is.  I think that there is a collaborative effort that happens among teams.  Watching our superintendents, for example, look at a model and then go out and talk to our sub trades in terms of being able to communicate what needs to be done in the next week makes things a lot clearer for everyone.  So I think communication and collaboration are the key benefits.

 

Obviously, I think that there are advantages that we get in being able to do continuous estimating so that we can actually see where the projects change over time. What was the issue or element that took something over budget if we're doing target costing? These are all real benefits to us.

  

Q: What are some of the benefits you are able to extend to owners when BIM is in the contract?

A:  What we're beginning to explore internally is something that we're pretty excited about which is the idea of XD modeling.  (Or being able to do analysis of the model.)  Doing energy analysis for example or doing daylighting studies, etc.  We're really big right now in solar and one of our major areas of development in the future is going to be developing solar projects.  So we're finding that being able to model those and figure out daylight hitting the panels, etc., is extremely valuable.

 

The other area that we're really excited about is that we have a recent project under construction right now with NASA.  And NASA is building what is going to be the most energy efficient building in the country right now at their Moffett Field Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA.  We're part of the team there that's not only building it, but we're working with Berkeley Labs to actually sensor the building so that we'll be able to analyze not only the predictive side of it using energy plus, but we're going to then turn energy plus around and actually be able to monitor the building and see if it's working as it's designed to perform.  And so we're pretty excited about that... We're sort of saying that construction has finally entered rocket science and I think it's going to be a fun project that we're working on!  

 

I think we'll be offering many more services as well. Some people ask "well, who owns the model?"  I don't think that's the question, I think the question is "who manages the model?" and I think we'll be able to have longer term relationships with some of our clients.  So as we do future projects the work between construction and facilities management becomes more seamless.

  

Q: What advice would you give to owners who are looking to include BIM on their next project?

A:  Well, I think we're at a point where you can't go any day now without people sort of saying they're doing BIM.  I think the real thing now is to begin setting metrics.  If a builder can't say "here are the direct benefits that we're getting in time and cost"... for example, we've done metrics on savings of RFI change orders. We now know that on a major project like a hotel that by avoiding a change order we're saving $17,000 because that's the average cost.  We did some metrics where we found on ten major projects the average cost of the change order is $17,000.

 

On the Ritz-Carlton project we found over 450 change orders that we were able to avoid through the model.  So, if you do the math, that's about $6.7 million that we saved.  To learn more about this project, and three other Swinerton projects, please review the Swinerton Builders' Lessons Learned along the Path to 5D BIM Webinar.

 

The other savings that we're finding that we have metrics on is in terms of coordination efforts. We now know that we have saved over $185,000 on that same project just in reduced meeting time, travel and not printing all the paperwork we used to print in the coordination effort.  Our average coordination meeting has gone from 5 hours down to 1 ½ hours.  And very often with our sub trades we use GoToMeeting so people don't even go to the trailer anymore.  So everyone stays in their office and coordinates virtually which has tremendous cost savings and is a much greener way of doing it by not having all those carbon emissions by driving around or flying to sites for meetings.

  

Q:  Any closing thoughts?

A:  I really think that for those owners that are anxious to start this the thing to do is to be able to just start on a project and really look and assess what you see as the risk in the project and then model to that and resolve that issue.  And learn by experience... That's sort of what we did... As I said, we have 160 projects or so under our belt now and we really have the ability to do that but we started with one.  And I think that's what owners need to understand is that they got to get involved with this stuff.  And you've got to do it by either having Vico Construction Services do it for you and shadow them or start out really small and do a portion of the project but you've got to get started.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn more about Swinerton Builders' virtual design and construction group from their website, or hop over to the archived Fridays with Vico webinar, Swinerton Builders' Path to 5D BIM.  To see what's possible for GCs to offer Owners in terms of VD&C services, please read The 5D BIM Checklist.