Get on the BIM Path

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Every executive in your firm is responsible for winning new business. They are on the hook for bringing revenue into the company. One of the most important things you have to do to win new business is to differentiate yourself to Owners. We have worked with many GCs and CMs all around the world and every company tells us that they ARE different; but everyone’s PowerPoint presentation is similar: good people, relevant project experience, BIM, Green, and a good reputation.

Vico offers you the chance to be truly different. We will partner with you to create business development presentations that include 2D document management, 3D clash detection and coordination, 4D scheduling, 5D estimating, and on-site production control. Our Team joins Your Team to help win the business and then help you carry out the entire project with all the BIM items your customer has agreed to. You learn by doing and develop your own 5D-VDC Black Belt personnel in the process.

We like to say that moving to 5D BIM requires three steps:

Everyone wants to help you with BIM today, but BIM is not just learning about models, it includes Cost Planning and Flowline Scheduling and many other new skills that you need to learn. But you will be on each new BIM project for the next one to two years and thus you’ll be involved in some pretty serious (and perhaps contentious) discussions with the design team and owner about constructability, budgets, and schedules. Using Vico’s VDC process you can present choices based on data, not assumptions or hunches and thousands of sheets of drawings. You can bring highly-visual data and models into the conference room to help with cost, constructability, as well as schedule.

Communication in these meetings, even prior to design, should be presented and based on visual data synchronized with cost and time. With the Vico solution you can easily reference fifteen other similar building projects and break down materials and costs per trade. What do other owners spend on the façade, substructure, and/or interiors? We can have meaningful discussions about spend and cost targets. With a model, we can turn around answers in days, not months; and have meaningful update meetings every two weeks, not every three months.  Our award-winning software provides the tools for this communication: color-coded views for the owner to see how decisions impact both budget and schedule.

We also want to make life easier for the Subs. We believe that correctly modeling the project and getting it coordinated can mean many more opportunities for off-site prefabrication.  This, in turn, leads to smoother installation with fewer stops and starts for the crews. We believe that real quantities and cost estimating data gives us very rich information with which to negotiate with Subs. And our ability to derive quantities from the model and collect productivity rates from the Subs makes it easier to produce accurate schedules that minimize labor.  The Subs’ price goes down when they see where they will be working, what needs to be accomplished, and where they are going next. And minimizing labor, of course, has a huge impact on the Subs’ prices.

So it’s understandable that to achieve all these benefits, quite a bit of process change is required. But, many of our customers are willing to take this on because if you can appeal to the Owner and to the design team, you’re going to win a lot more business.  If you can make life easier for the Subs, you’re going to get better pricing. Internal process change is difficult, but it’s well worth the heavy lifting.

We know that “going BIM” is more than spinning models for an Owner – embracing BIM means breaking down departmental silos, sharing intellectual property for the good of the project, and changing the way business is done. True 5D BIM means creating a live model that helps you deliver data-driven answers to every question that arises from project conception through completion. Not only does this differentiate your firm to Owners, but it also changes your relationship with them and with the other project stakeholders.

To learn more, please follow the path to these additional resources:

Video: 5D BIM for Dummies

Webinar: The 5D Workflow in Vico Office

Webpage: Virtual Construction in Vico Office