August 13, 2025 • 53 mins
Unlock the secrets to revolutionizing your construction projects with Building Information Modeling (BIM) in our latest episode featuring Mark Oden, CEO of BIM Design. Dive deep into the world of BIM, likened to a highly accurate version of Minecraft, where Mark shares how this intelligent 3D model-based process enhances planning, design, construction, and management of building projects. From laser scanning technology to facilities management, Mark’s insights reveal the power of BIM in preventing litigation through effective communication and documentation.
Discover how high-quality BIM models and rigorous training of union journeymen can lead to successful project execution. Mark discusses a collaborative renovation of a training center in Arizona, showcasing the importance of precision and avoiding construction clashes. We also explore the core values driving BIM Design, including quality performance, trust, and community engagement. Learn how these principles have guided the company through financial challenges and expansion, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In our engaging conversation, Mark delves into the benefits of BIM, from reducing rework and controlling costs to shortening project lifecycles and enhancing collaboration. Real-world testimonials and case studies illustrate how proactive communication with subcontractors can lead to no-cost settlements and mitigate risks. Tune in to grasp how Building Information Modeling can transform your construction projects, improve safety, reduce defects, and ultimately save time and money.
Contact the Future Construct Podcast Produced by BIM Designs, Inc!
- BIM Designs, Inc.: minority-owned, US-based, union-signatory preconstruction technology firm, offering turnkey BIM modeling, laser scanning, coordination management, and other VDC solutions to the AEC industry.
- Schedule a free consultation: sales@bimdesigns.net.
- Subscribe to our weekly blog and our Future Construct Podcast
- Suggest a podcast guest
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The CEO of BIM Design , and BIM is Building
Information Modeling.
It's an intelligent 3Dmodel-based process that gives
architects, engineering andconstruction professionals the
insight and tools to moreefficiently plan, design,
construct and manage buildingand infrastructure.
Mark, prior to being a designmark, had 10 years of experience
(00:46):
working in Silicon Valley, intech companies, in product
management, business development, mergers and acquisitions, and
in C-suite roles.
Mark leads the growth strategyand execution of the company.
His acute ability to developand implement strategic
processes that of the company.
His acute ability to developand implement strategic
processes that scale the companycapabilities drive efficiency
services delivery increasesclient satisfaction, as we all
(01:09):
know, causes claims that wedon't.
and his cross-functional team Iintroduce to you Mark Oden.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Does this work for everyone, or would you like to
use a microphone?
Does this volume work?
Yes, okay, let me know if thatchanges at any point.
Thank you so much, linda, forthe kind introduction and for
inviting me here to thisconference.
I'm really truly honored, and Ithank you to David, who will be
hosting the panel.
This is the panel for the nextsession, so thanks for that.
As Linda mentioned, this is alittle bit about me.
(01:46):
Well, first I wanted to tellyou more about what we're going
to talk about today.
We're going to be talking abouthow BIM, or Building
Information Modeling, can helpprevent litigation.
In order to explain that to you, I'm going to take on a little
journey.
A little bit about me, a littlebit about what is building
information modeling.
If that's new to you, I'llexplain that I have some ways to
relate and several differentways to relate the concept to
(02:08):
you, and then we'll talk aboutwhat has been designed what is
my company and what's thehistory of my company and what
services we offer together interms of how we probably help
prevent litigation.
How does building informationmodel in the process in general
help with litigation?
At the very end I have two casestudies real-world case studies
of where we situations we'veencountered over the last few
(02:31):
years on how we help avoidlitigation through good
communication and documentation.
I just remember the very firstconversation I had with Linda
over a year ago.
She mentioned the two majoravoidances of litigation are
communication and documentation.
I've sung that from themountaintops within my company
for the year after that Great,great education that Linda
(02:53):
offered me.
So I really appreciate her somuch for that.
So with that just a little bitabout this.
As Linda mentioned, I am theCEO of InDesigns.
Prior to that, I had 10 yearsof experience in corporate
America working for CiscoSystems, started my career as a
network engineer, moved intoproduct management, then moved
(03:14):
into business development,mergers and acquisitions and
strategy and planning.
Business development was thefinal chapter of my time at
Cisco.
But I'd like to say that Idon't have them on paper, but
through working at Cisco I gotthe equivalent of three MBAs.
It was a great company, workedhard and I learned a tremendous
amount.
Prior to Cisco, I went to theUniversity of Florida and got my
(03:37):
Master's of Electrical andComputer Science engineering
degrees and several differentminors in my undergrad.
So that's a little bit about me.
Now I'd like to introduce whatis building information modeling
?
Building information modeling,in essence, is the realization
of what you want to build inphysical space.
(04:00):
So this room that we're in,this building that we're in, is
a great building that shouldprobably was modeled in three
dimensions.
So you're taking what you wantto physically build and you're
modeling that in threedimensions, almost like you're
building a video game.
But instead of building a videogame or watching Avatar on a
big screen, you're actuallybuilding a real world
implementation down to aninfinite accurate accuracy model
(04:24):
to what you will build.
That's often called thepre-construction process.
So the process of running thatis either called BIM or the
pre-construction process.
It's an integrated structure,multidisciplinary data to
produce the digitalrepresentation of the asset
across the life cycle.
The life cycle, again, is theshift from the planning to the
construction and into operations.
(04:45):
So you might also hear aboutfacilities management.
So facilities management canleverage the 3D model.
Late post-construction 10, 20,30 years after construction they
might have a breakdown, asystemic breakdown inside of the
building and rather than tearapart the walls and figure out
where the systems and parts are,they can look at the 3D models,
superimpose that of what'sphysically there and then maybe
only cut a section of the wallout rather than a whole big
(05:06):
section of the wall out too,playing a lot less grind the
needle in the haystack.
So it enables virtualinformation to be shared by the
design team.
The design team is thearchitects, the engineers, the
civil engineers, structuralengineers, et cetera, the
detailers and other key roles inthe pre-construction process.
(05:27):
They can share the informationon that team amongst the main
contractor, the subcontractor,the general contractor and the
owner.
And then, as I mentioned, theuse of BIM goes beyond planning
and design phase into thebuilding lifecycle of
maintenance of buildings,maintenance of the building.
So I know that was maybe a newconcept for a lot of you.
(05:48):
So just to raise your hands,who has kids who can relate to
Minecraft?
Maybe they've played it, maybethey have kids that have played
Minecraft.
So building informationmodeling is a lot like Minecraft
.
In Minecraft you're trying tobuild a potentially realistic
(06:11):
implementation of the world in a3D model.
There's a little bit of anaccuracy difference between
Minecraft and buildinginformation modeling, but
besides, that there's a lot ofsimilarities.
bit of an accuracy differencebetween Minecraft and building
information modeling, but justso I know there's a lot of
similarities.
Just a little side story that Ithought I'd share with you this
summer.
Just two, three weeks ago Icompleted a summer's long road
(06:31):
show around the country we're anationwide company at this point
.
In each city I stopped forabout a week or two weeks and
stopped in cities all around thesouthern and midwest area of
the country.
I spent two weeks in SouthCarolina to meet with my head of
project controls, ashleyCalkins.
She's 10 plus years working forFord, which is one of the top
(06:55):
general contractors in thecountry, and she came in and
joined our leadership team.
I'm so honored to have that in aremote collaborative space that
we work in.
After not almost nine months ofworking together, this was the
first time I was meeting her inperson for the first time
Because it was summer.
She had her daughter and shehad two nieces that were in town
(07:16):
, I think from Wisconsin, thatwere visiting just for summer
vacation and having a lot of funwith her daughter, and the
three of them have been able tobond over the years because of
Minecraft.
So they all have their tablets,they all have their phones,
they all have their ways ofplaying and collaborating
together building Minecraft, andthe nephew his name is Baba and
(07:36):
I really were able to connectat a pretty deep level
Throughout the whole two weeks Iwas there, all the kids were
talking about Minecraft this andMinecraft that and things that
would fill, things that woulddestroy and all the stories that
came to it.
And one night after dinner Bubbapulled me aside and said I want
(07:57):
to show you, I want to show youmy craft.
And he opens up his tablet andhe goes into that world and the
parents that maybe didn't relateto this would know what I'm
talking about.
But he shows me in his game allof the different nooks and
crannies, and crevices andsecret hiding places and tops
and bottoms and levers and justeverything that kids spent hours
(08:18):
concocting.
In essence, bobo was thearchitect, he was the visionary,
he was the engineer, he was themodel in place, the design in
place, and he was the detailer.
He was the modeler.
He had actually built thecomponents to build that entire
vision onto reality.
I'm very touched by that story.
(08:39):
I'm glad I get to share thatwith you.
But that's just a maybe athrough world relatable
experience of buildinginformation.
Along the ends, we as thedetailers, we build all those
books and crannies and premisesand letters that would.
We build out a virtual space, a3D space that would be now
surrounding us.
It would be the space ceiling,space in between here, the attic
(09:01):
space, the crawl space, all ofthat.
So I hope that helps.
We also have a short video, twomore video that is a fly-through
of a building that explainsvisually, show you both the 3D
representation of the building,so it will see that in different
(09:22):
colors and you'll see black andwhite blocks which actually
look a lot like Minecraft.
And that's from a laser scan.
I'll talk about laser scanninga little bit later in the
presentation and laser scanningcan help produce litigation.
But imagine if I was going tochange the space.
This existing space would becalled tenant improvement.
So I was going to change thespace.
This is an existing space,which we call tenant
improvements.
(09:42):
I was going to constructsomething into this physical
space.
I would want to know wherethose fixtures are and how to
avoid those fixtures in realtime and down to high level
accuracy.
So to help avoid clashes thatmay happen on a job site, I
could take a piece of equipmentthat's called a laser scanner or
a reality capture, and I canscan at a medium accuracy of 30
(10:07):
million laser scans.
Think of it as a concept ofsonar.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Like dolphins, they send an audio sound and it pings
back and they know the distance.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
So laser scanning is the same visual indicators and
lasers and it does that acrossmillions and millions and
millions of points and thenthose points are all measurable
to each other.
So now I can take this wall andthat wall and the distance
between the two and I can takethe space that we're in right
now and scan it in a matter of10 minutes or less, put that now
into my virtual space and I canthen design what will future be
(10:37):
built in that to the accuracyof knowing where it is.
So we partnered with a localunion in Arizona, with the Joint
Apprenticeship Training Center.
They had recently bought abuilding that they called JATC
building 9.
They renovated that building.
They wanted to renovate thatbuilding and they asked us to
say hey, here's an existingstructure, can you scan it and
(10:57):
you then improve that structureto allow our, our apprentices,
our journeymen, to go in thereand practice?
You know, with piping practice,plumbing practice for service,
so you'll see toilets and thingsin there.
That why are there so manytoilets in one area?
That's because these are forservice.
So we'll just play that videoand do the background here.
So let's see if that looks likea good idea.
(11:37):
So from the outside, the grayarea is the laser scan, the red
area is the laser scan, the redarea is the structural steel,
the green is piping, plumbingand piping, and the red
mechanical equipment that we'reall being tested with and
equipment pumps.
So those are the example pumpsthat they might service.
This is a second level storythat they wanted to add that
didn't exist before.
It didn't look before.
(11:59):
In the building, on a sub-levelthat second level they have
toilets and sinks that areserviceable and you see the
plumbing and the piping throughthe walls.
So you just want to access allof that, whether in the draining
process and we even showsub-floors in a moment it will
navigate lower, it will showbelow the ground so you can see
(12:21):
the piping also runs below theground.
So more surface areas andmeters.
If you look closely, there area bunch of people's hollers
there.
Water heaters.
You can see.
That's all.
Plumbing is resisting equipment, every area is, and existing
equipment Every area is existingmechanical equipment.
(12:44):
That is very much a servicethat everything is used and then
outside are very large waterstorage tanks to help offset
service to the water storage.
So this whole building iscurrently in progress of being
built.
Now it's being sent to the cityand if we helped we could have
effectively donated our time.
I've loaded a box to hold thiscode and scan this model.
(13:10):
So that's just.
That's Minecraft, and React.
(13:37):
So I hope that was a reasonableexplanation of building
information, modeling andengaging.
Enough, alright, so what?
Are some of the pain points andsolutions.
Why does the industry choose touse building information
modeling?
Or, more specifically, whywould they want to use a company
like Finansat, companies likeBIM Design?
(13:58):
So one is one pain point ispoor quality BIM models for
constructability issues andvalue engineering issues related
to BIM modeling.
So anybody can model aMinecraft.
Can anybody model somethingthat's down to an eighth of an
inch accuracy?
So that's the chasm thatexisted between the two In our
(14:18):
company we've chosen to workwith union trained journeymen
and tradesmen.
To become a tradesman in a union, to become a journeyman you
must go through a five yearapprenticeship.
The apprenticeship is fiveyears of in-field work, so
working in the field and thennight school classes at night
(14:40):
and passing certain classes andcriteria and then eventually
getting local licenses.
Eventually they call it turningoff and graduating into the
journeyman.
So by the time you become ajourneyman you have touched the
equipment, you've welded, you'vecut the equipment, you've
shifted, you've fitted, you'veprobably worked in the fab shop,
you've done all sorts ofdifferent things to get to that
(15:00):
point five years later.
So you are effectively anexpert at constructing.
What we do at FIM Designs is wehire the trained journeyman.
They typically at that pointalready know, or people help
them learn, the software, whichis typically Autodesk or Autopad
and Revit, and they will takewhat they've learned in the
(15:20):
physical space and apply that inthe virtual space.
So a lot of times withcompanies outside of the design,
you might not have afully-constructed model because
the person building that modelisn't fully experienced in
building the structure thatyou've been constructing.
And then value engineeringcomes into play because as
(15:42):
you're designing that, you canthink about areas to save
materials, save space, savevents, save anything and the
more material you save on thejob site, the more safe that job
site is, because you're sendingless material there and you're
installing less.
So litigation and reducing riskis the less time you can spend
on the job site the more safe.
(16:03):
The job site is Another thingthat we've been respecting for
bailing wage regulations.
So if you think about federalwork, like a fee day in
hospitals or schools or otherareas that would require
prevailing wage on the job site.
There's also public contractsthat require auditing proof that
you are respecting theseprevailing wages.
(16:24):
We have them designed to getmore union Unions are always
prevailing wage, so there'snever an issue of working with a
union provider because it'salways been respected for
prevailing wage.
And then, absolutely predictingand predict and estimate BIM
costs.
A lot of times a package to dobuilding information modeling
will be put together at thebeginning of a bigger.
(16:46):
You know how do I build theentire building and BIM is a
portion of that overall thing,that overall bid.
So it might be a $10 millionproject and maybe a $500,000 to
$1 million BIM project.
So at the beginning of theproject clients are often
licking their finger, puttingtheir hand up, seeing which way
(17:08):
the wind is blowing and saying Ithink it's gonna be a million
dollars of BIM cost.
But I actually wanna win thisbid because they're taking the
lowest cost bid, so I'm gonnamake it $500,000.
And we're gonna see if we cancut the VIM budget short so that
we can win this project.
So we can come in and say well,let's look at the 2D plans,
let's look at what the architectwants, let's look at what the
(17:28):
engineer wants and let's giveyou a bid that will be realistic
and obtainable.
(17:49):
Because if it's truly a milliondollar project but I put
$500,000 in my bid to win it,I'm going to have problems for
the next, or the contractor thatdid that is going to have
problems for the next threeyears because they're trying to
fight to win that $500,000.
Does that make sense?
Furthermore, some pain pointswould be dynamic demand so this
is access to resources andconsistent access to labor.
(18:12):
So the labor construction weall know ebbs and flows.
Oftentimes in the winter itebbs.
Election we all know ebbs andflows, often times in the winter
the ebbs, electioneers, theebbs that go through all of this
.
It's true.
What clients want is an abilityto access that labor at a very
steady state.
They invest a lot of money tohire and train individuals and
then when those ebbs happen,they have to let those
(18:33):
individuals go and they havetraining knowledge that goes to
other companies.
Once they're let go, companiesthat have been designed can
provide to them access to thesteady state flow of labor so it
stabilizes their workforce.
We utilize domestic workersOkay, I got sidetracked there,
(18:57):
but dynamic bit of demand, notenough detailers.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
We can also help them scale their teams when they
don't have enough detailers ontheir staff.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Or maybe they don't have any detailers at all on
their staff.
Maybe they have very aggressiveschedules that they committed to
and they're realizing thatthey're understaffed for those
aggressive schedules.
So we can help them meet thatLack of experience or poor
communication with subs.
For us, we focus on embracingtechnology, so I take all those
10 years that I worked at Cisco.
Back in 2008, I was using oneof those JetSense phones where
(19:27):
you have a video phone and youpick up the handset, you dial
the phone number and you see theperson's video on it.
That evolved into telepresence,which is these big screens of
real world talking to each other, and that eventually evolved
into WebEx and Zoom, where weare in today's world.
So we try to embrace all of thetools that allow us for remote
communication and collaboration.
(19:48):
We are effectively an entirelyremote company, so it's
impossible in today's day andworld to bring all of the
members of a pre-constructiondesign team together in the same
room at the same time to workon the same project, Especially
in today's day and age.
It just doesn't exist anymore.
So we really pride ourselves inutilizing the newest and
(20:08):
greatest technology to helpcreate collaborative, cohesive
teams, and we also provideeducation, training and
consultation.
Being the experts in the field,we can then expose that
expertise out to our clients,whether that be the
subcontractors, the generalcontractors, the engineers or
the architects Also.
(20:29):
I want to thank Larry because heextended my brain today at
lunch, realizing that we canactually be expert witnesses too
when it comes to these types ofclaims, because we have the
expertise to fly the model as weshowed the video of that and
realize where theconstructability issues might be
, realize what should have beendone during that time that
(20:50):
shouldn't have made it to thefinal product, for example.
So we went that way.
So that's a little bit aboutbuilding information, modeling
the pain points.
I'd like to introduce us as acompany.
We were founded in 2016 in SanFrancisco.
We just celebrated our fiveyear anniversary.
That's a milestone for anybusiness and I'm very proud of
(21:12):
that.
I'm happy that we accomplishedthat.
I took ownership of the companypartial ownership in 2018, and
I purchased the company outrightin 2019.
This year was the first yearthat we submitted ourselves for
and we were nominated to the EAP5000 fastest growing company
list Of 5000 companies thatsubmitted.
(21:33):
Of many companies thatsubmitted, 5000 made it to the
list.
We were number 148 in thatsubmitted.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Many companies that submitted 5,000 made it to the
list.
We were number 148 in that listand number six I think five in
Arizona.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Either number five in Arizona or number six in
construction, or those arereversed.
But those two metrics are therefor the EAT 5000 list and we're
also one of the only or one ofthe few combination certified
minority owned businesses andunion companies nationwide.
So we have a few things goingfor us in our growth and I'll
(22:05):
have a chart of that in a moment.
So, as I mentioned, we areexperienced domestic engineers
and tradesmen within an evergrowing market for building
information, modeling andpre-construction virtual design.
In 2018, we had three employeesoperating in Los Angeles at the
time of 2018.
In 2019, we had at the end ofthat growth.
(22:28):
At the end of 2019, we hadnearly 40 fully remote employees
operating in 10 differentstates, across 17 different
local unions and two officeswith a headquarters in Phoenix,
arizona, and we fast forward totoday, which I reflect back on
it like a blink of an eye goingthrough it, maybe not so much at
times.
We're at nearly 70 employees in22 states nationwide, with 20
(22:54):
union locals and two moreoffices added to New England,
california and New York.
We work on nearly 100 projectsto date.
As part of operating thecompany, I believe in eight
different core values.
These core values are veryimportant to us.
I represent them every day.
(23:14):
I work with my leadership teamto represent them every day.
Who works with the managementteam?
Who works with individualcontributors to institute our
core values?
Every single day?
And every Monday we have anoperations huddle where we meet
with everybody on the operationsteam and we pick one of the
core values Other than anytopics.
We always pick one core valueto talk about that week as well.
So other core values of qualityperformance as union tradesmen.
(23:39):
The team takes pride in thework product that they produce
and so important that it is highquality so that it can be
constructed.
Trust and ethics we holdourselves to the highest
standards when it comes to trustand ethics.
We must be transparent withourselves and with clients and
if an employee ever feels thatthey've been compromised,
(23:59):
they're encouraged, they'retrained, to bring that to
management, which ultimatelycomes to me, and I work through
managing any trust and ethicsissues personally.
We are solutions driven, whichmeans we aim to solve the
problem and speaking to theneeds of the problem.
So we work within our internalteam and within our clients to
(24:20):
speak to our needs so that thesolution comes true.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
We don't just operate in silos, we don't just accept
what is we work together to tryand solve the problem.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
And innovation is a big one.
It's a very big one for me,again, coming from the
technology sector, I do considerthem designs a very big one for
me, again, coming from thetechnology sector, I do consider
them a technology firstconstruction company.
So we're constantly looking athow do we introduce innovation
and how do we better the overallenvironment for all companies.
So I actually have a head ofbusiness development and
(24:53):
innovation dedicated to how arewe changing the world?
Teamwork is another core value.
So how do we all work together?
How do we work through anybarriers?
Again, how do we address it orspeak to our needs?
Community engagement we reallyfocus on bettering our community
, as I'm bettering our soul inthe end.
(25:13):
So we have a large focus onself-care and community care.
In our company we haveownership of commitments, which
is another core value.
We're committed to helping eachother solve their needs and
we're committed to speaking toour needs and we're committed to
owning true to our commitments.
When I own true to mycommitment, that either means I
(25:33):
give you a date and time that Igive you something and I deliver
it by then, or before that dateand time, I let you know what
has come up that has blocked mefrom delivering true to that
commitment.
We know that when you'reworking with clients and many
clients that go up toconstruction staff one
commitment can lead to 10different commitments per whole
monthly dishwasher.
So we're very, very careful inhow we explain our commitments
(25:55):
to our clients.
And last but not least isdiversity and inclusion.
Diversity and inclusion is ofutmost importance to us, having
no bias against gender, age,race, ethnicity or religion, and
we believe it actually makes astronger community, a stronger
company by being as diverse aswe can.
(26:16):
Thank you for letting me sharethat One of the services that we
offer as a company.
So we offer design, build orplan spec pre-construction
processes.
Mepf is short for mechanical,electrical, plumbing and fire
protection.
So we do that, build thosetrades, we specialize in those
(26:39):
trades for building information,modeling.
We are looking at expandinginto architecture and
engineering.
So those are easy extensionsfor us now at this point and in
the growth of our firm.
But our core was MAPS.
We can also do freeconstruction consulting.
So if you look at the generalcontractor, that fullltry
construction phase we could intheory effectively run
that phase on behalf of thegeneral contractor.
(27:02):
And then laser scanning wechatted about and we shared the
video on laser scanning as aservice.
So this is a growth chart.
Over time it's split up.
It's not evenly spread overmonths, but you'll see in 2016
and 2017.
That was the original founderof Great Vision.
It was a three-person, atwo-person company up until I
(27:23):
joined in 2018.
In August of 2018, I waspresented with the opportunity
to take over a team of detailersthat were moving Phoenix
Arizona, so it was a biggercompany.
It was a construction companythat did installations.
They're Texas-based, they hadan Arizona division and, for
business reasons, they decidedto shut down the Arizona
(27:44):
division.
So inside of that division.
They had a smaller team of 20detailers which is what we do
and they had a conference notmuch different than this
conference, and they said wewould love for our detailing
team to go to a good home.
So, rather than them all goingto different companies, they
invested their time and theireffort building the team and we
had that manager and that teamgo to a good home.
(28:04):
It wasn't long after that Isold every single stock of mine
to Two Houses that I hadundergird to take on payroll for
this company for this team andit was.
I had nine weeks of payroll.
Six weeks in we had not securedenough business to maintain that
(28:25):
team, so I went into themanager's office that became our
VP of operations, has sinceleft the AUU for a time.
Our VP of operations and I saidwe have three weeks left and
this whole experiment has givenaway my entire life's work and
(28:45):
I'll have to start over.
So what can we do?
We were very fortunate to win avery large baseball stadium in
Arlington, texas that carried usfor the next nine months and
that saved the company.
So from there we continued togrow very rapidly very
(29:05):
fortuitously into the beginningof COVID.
Prior to COVID, we wereanticipating year-over-year
growth of at least doublingyear-over-year, if not more than
that.
We actually continued thatgrowth into COVID because, once
COVID struck, a lot of companiesde-risked a lot of larger
construction companies de-riskedso they actually scaled down
(29:26):
their teams, including theirdetailing teams, and they hired
firms like us to take on thatrisk.
So there was a growth spurt,but you'll see that dip in March
2021, where companies havefigured out like, hey, it's been
18 months, it's been 16 months,this is not going anywhere.
We need to figure out what ourday-to-day operations are again.
So they started to re-risk backup and we weren't pre-pick
(29:51):
forecast that.
We didn't predict it.
So we had a dip, but we'vesince corrected from that and
maintained our goal.
So, as I mentioned, we're anationwide company and we are
union based, so we work with 25different.
We work with 25 differentlocals around the country.
Those are locals that we hireout of.
So those are locals that havethe training centers that I
spoke about earlier that gothrough that, train the
(30:12):
apprentices for five years toturn in the tournament and they
turn out detailers, and so thosedetailers work remotely all
over the country through thosedifferent levels.
These are some notable projectsthat we've worked on.
We've worked on a number ofcommercial projects, primarily
in the tech sector space, so,for example, there's Google Out
that Place.
We've also worked on YouTubeand Facebook buildings, for
(30:33):
example.
We work across all industriesand spectrums.
So this is a quote from a verydear friend, a very dear partner
of ours, a business manager oflocal 469 in Arizona, aaron
Butler.
So he speaks to the value ofwhy should entities want to work
(30:59):
with union detailers?
They go through 10,000 hours oftraining and they know their
local city state constructioncodes to be able to interpret
the plans and blueprints of alldisciplines.
They have the years ofexperience actually doing it in
the field.
So he reaffirms some of mystatements I said earlier.
We have a blog.
We try to publish one a week,and so this was a quote that I
(31:23):
had participated in and I hadworked on this article Five
Reasons why you Should HireHuman Detailers.
Here's another nationwide mapof US-based projects.
You can see a large West Coastfocus.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That is where we started in the West Coast, where
we are shifting to take onprojects nationwide.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
You can see one dot there all the way to the east in
New Jersey, so we're startingto pick up in the Midwest and
East Coast.
Definitely, buildinginformation modeling is a
technology-driven process sothat actually is adopted in the
West a little bit faster thanother areas of the country.
That actually is adopted in theWest a little bit faster than
(32:04):
other areas of the country.
Another quote that I want toshare with you is from one of
our clients.
This is actually from a generalcontractor.
So we were at the time workingfor a sub and he was the general
contractor managing the entirethin process, or the
reconstruction process, and sohe had mentioned that we have a
G++ team on this project and weare collectively a well-oiled
BBC machine Now he was themanager of this entire process
(32:25):
of maybe a little biased he saidbiased or not probably the best
group assembled that he has hadthe pleasure of working with
and he thanks us and I thank himfor the opportunity of working
with them and the opportunity ofreceiving that wonderful
faculty of working with them andthe opportunity of receiving
that wonderful faculty.
So that's a lot of informationabout building.
(32:45):
Sorry, that's a lot ofinformation about their designs
and I've introduced them.
Now, why is the industry usingthem?
How do we segue this into whatyour clients you know?
Why is this interesting to themand why is this interesting to?
You.
So building information modelingdoes many things, not just
these six items here, but itavoids clashes between elements.
(33:09):
So as I'm building in betweenthe walls that I can't see here,
I might not have enough spacefor the HVAC work and the
plumbing and the pipe and theelectrical and the pipe
protection, the HVAC work andthe plumbing and the piping and
the electrical and the pipeprotection.
So as I conceptualize that asan architect, I might not see
there's not enough space.
(33:31):
But even as an engineer I cansay, hey, we want the occupancy
of this to be so many hundredsof people, so I need this much
water to run through the pipes.
Well, if the pipes are so large, they take up space.
If I put all that spacetogether, I might find that
there's actually a clash ofequipment because of either
space constraints or othersystem constraints, so you can
actually visualize those clashesand that's often called
coordination.
(33:51):
It's identifying those clashesand then working across all the
different trades to coordinate,resolving those clashes.
It allows you to capturereality accurately.
So look at reality in a 3Dsense, but in a perfect sense,
and get a perfect presentationof the building.
So imagine you had a $10million budget and you were
(34:12):
building this building thatwe're in today and you had a
vision as the owner, as thedeveloper, to build this
building and you've got a lot ofamazing things and maybe you
were detailed enough to thinkabout the exact picture, the
exact when I walk into the guestroom, I want it to be this type
of sink, and then the buildinggets built and you walk in to
that room, you physically walkinto the room as you walk into
(34:33):
the many hotel rooms, and youlook as the owner, the person
who invested a lot of money intothis building, and said I don't
like that sink.
It would cost a lot, it wouldbe doable, but it would cost a
lot to take that sink out of allof the rooms and throw it away.
(34:55):
So imagine in today's world,where we live is we can model
that and we can put on virtualreality headsets and we can walk
through that building, havingpaid for the model but not paid
for the construction.
I can now say I don't like this.
Or, as a doctor, I can say Idon't think I'm going to get my
journey around that corner andwe need to think about you know
the size of that besides thatcorner or any other any other
implications that you can thinkof.
If you can actually 3dconceptualize the model, it'll
(35:20):
improve collaboration acrossyour business.
It forces all of thosestakeholders to talk to each
other.
It forces them to think aboutwhat's going to happen on the
site before the project evenstarts.
You can understand the sequenceand the steps of the building
process, bring that value overthe years back when it comes to
scheduling and you can visualizethe elements of the building.
(35:42):
So there was a.
We have some sources here, somesurveys that were done and a
recent survey of BIM usage byconstruction professionals show
that 89% of them have used BIMon some of their projects.
That's a huge adoption of BIMin the construction space.
(36:02):
At least half of their projectsare actively using BIM 47% say
that and we're only seeing thistrend continue to increase.
We're also seeing ADCprofessionals say that.
76% of them say that it reducesrework.
Reducing rework saves time,saves money and saves on
(36:23):
potential litigation.
66% say that it improves budgetand cost controls.
If I stay within budget and Imaintain and I control my cost,
I'm also reducing litigationbecause I'm staying within the
framework of the contract and55% say that it shortens the
project lifecycle time, whichcreates an opportunity to
(36:44):
produce more, produce more worknow and in the future.
And it's been proven that thereturn on investment increase
with high-end engagement is 40%of that project.
So if you look at that $10million project and you had been
to it, you could potentiallysave 40% on it.
So if you look at that $10million project and you add BIM
to it, you could potentiallysave 40% on it.
It would be $4 million.
(37:05):
That's a huge chunk of changethat you can save by thinking
and conceptualizing everythinglike that.
So some other benefits to usingBIM would be visualizing actual
building elements in 3D,eliminating costly mistakes
during construction, replacingthousands of printed drawings so
(37:26):
you can have something visuallyrepresented and overall,
enhance construction safetymanagement.
I want to talk about that inpractice.
So I said earlier in thepresentation, if you reduce the
amount of hours, in the fieldyou're reducing the number of
accidents that could occur inyour overall improving safety.
(37:47):
So the entire BIM you know BIMis not just for the 3D
representation what we do is wecreate the IKEA set of
instructions for constructionand we take that IKEA
instruction set and we hand itover to what's called
prefabrication.
Prefabrication is a warehousewith shop tools that are in a
(38:09):
physical space, not on the jobsite, that probably have half or
less of the required people tobuy the material in bulk, run it
through machinery that cutsthat piping down to size per
spec of what we designed, withfar less human involvement human
engagement than if we weredoing that on the job site with
(38:31):
manual tools and again removesthem from the site.
So it moves a lot of the workthat could otherwise happen on
the job site to thatpre-propercation stage.
If you optimize and perfectthat pre-propercation stage,
then you ship it to the job siteand you're simply and you can
even pressure, test it andinspect it pre-installation.
(38:53):
So you're passing inspectionbefore you even got it to the
job site.
You ship it then to the jobsite and then you just in theory
attached a few bolts and nowyou've got the whole assembly
installed and you haven't spenteight hours or two weeks
assembling out the job site.
You've taken that all off thejob site and you've been
greasing and minimizing the riskof litigation.
(39:14):
So 75% of companies that haveadopted them report a positive
return on investment.
I'd like to say that I'm surethat we can help the remaining
25% see that return oninvestment.
So, talking about laserscanning, I had introduced that
concept before.
It's also known as realitycapture.
(39:36):
It's the same space, same name.
It uses lasers to measure andcreate 3D space through the
model and it's a growing segmentof the construction due to
efficiency, sophistication,portability of equipment and
again, helps reduce overallpotential litigation.
I actually have a case studythat specifically talks about
(39:56):
laser scanning.
But again, imagine you'retrying to make this physical
space change but you didn't havea real world understanding of
what was here and you shippedstuff to the job site and you
went to install it and you said,oh shoot, that's in the way.
We have to start from scratch.
Well, there's a whole coststructure to that.
Because of that, there's chainorders and somebody's got to pay
for that change somewhere alongthe way.
(40:18):
So if you can actually capturethis in reality and then plan
for what you're going to build,you're going to save a lot in
that sense.
So laser scanning contractorsreceive tremendous value on both
renovation and new projects,and it allows for modelers to
all work on that and collaborateremotely together.
(40:38):
Okay, so this is the fun partto all work on that and
collaborate remotely together.
Okay, so this is the fun part.
How can BID help reducelitigation in construction?
So a couple more data points.
Us Bureau of Labor Statisticsrates the construction industry
as the riskiest environment forwork injuries and fatalities
(40:59):
across all other industries.
Construction tops them.
I don't know if that's a goodthing or a bad thing.
In a sense I think it's a badthing.
So utilizing buildinginformation modeling,
construction companies canenhance safety management
through other ways that I'vetalked about.
You can bring labor off thefield but have that be a
pre-found shop, pre-planned,pre-produced, all of that
(41:21):
material before you install.
You can produce again the Ikeainstruction set of instructions.
So you're centralizing thethought process of that design
to an individual or group ofindividuals that all approve
that design, rather thandecentralize it to each
individual job site and letthose individual choices be made
(41:44):
at that site.
The more you can decentralizethe thought model, the more you
can de-risk that thought modelBased on research we've done.
The top four reasons forconstruction litigation include
construction defect claims,construction delay lawsuits,
water, mold and built-in damageclaims, and theme and breach of
(42:06):
contract claims.
So building informationmodeling can actually help with
each one of these items.
In terms of construction defectclaims we can.
In the design process, whetherwe have the engineer level or
the detailer level, they canlook for what is the specific
design of that component all theway up to the manufacturer so
(42:29):
they can make sure that thatpart that's going in is
appropriate for that moment intime.
So that should avoid futuredefects Construction delay
lawsuits we saw earlier in thestatistics that it improves.
I think it was 40 somethingpercent.
Said that it improved 44percent, if I remember improved
project schedules.
So hopefully it actuallyadjusts the schedule for the
(42:51):
better and avoids the lawsuitsthat good construction delays
water and mold claims would comefrom good, good plumbing design
and good plumbing installationgood installation of the IKEA
instruction set and then leanand contract breach claims would
be reduced by keeping the costdown.
(43:13):
As we talked about, there's acost reduction in the building
information model and usabilityinformation model.
There's also risks toconstruction and having a lack
of a document strategy anddocumentation strategy.
Having a lack of adocumentation strategy allows
for heavy rework or costlyrework, lost productivity for
(43:34):
hunting down documents, scheduleoverruns for blown budgets and
disputes between contractors andclients and that difficulty in
responding to litigation demands.
The good news about buildinginformation modeling is that if
you have this centralized teamthat's spread out around the
country, it forces this conceptof how do we collaborate, how do
(43:55):
we document.
So the BIP execution plan isthe starting point for that.
It lays out what's your digitalfootprint of this project and
it forces building informationmodeling and it forces a healthy
documentation strategy.
How do we work with GCs and A&Efirms?
We help visualize the ultimatevision of the architect and the
(44:15):
engineer.
We work directly with the owner, the GC and the CEL to
interpret their vision down toan each of an interactor team.
We also can lead coordination.
I talked about coordinationearlier in the pre-construction
process for general contractors.
We can work across multiplesubs and run that entire process
for all of the subs, or we canwork for one side of the energy
(44:37):
network collaboratively with theenterprise.
We can train major firms andreceives on coordination, class
detection, project management,new tools and software like
Revit.
We can run class reports forthem, we can assign classes, we
can educate on projectmanagement, fiscal
responsibility and then run coderefresher courses.
(44:59):
And we're starting a trainingline of business with them.
So here's a video.
I just got a time indicator.
Yeah, so if there's time forthis, I'll share it, but
effectively, this is ourdetailers at play.
So these are our guys that areon their computer detailing.
(45:21):
Maybe it'll be at the end of mypresentation just to kind of
transition between one segmentto another.
So case study time is.
I have two case studies.
In this particular case studywe were subcontracted by a
(45:43):
subcontractor who was contractedby the general contractor.
The general contractor had anagreement with the subcontractor
.
Subcontractors scheduledcommitments that they had to hit
to the general contractor.
Those are commitments that thatsubcontractor made without our
involvement.
That subcontractor came to usand said we would love to.
We can't do this, so we needyour help doing this.
And we said okay, for the twothings that you need, we can
(46:06):
start on time for one of them,but for the other one you won't
be able to start on time, or thetime that you've dedicated you
need to start on time.
We can start on time X plus two, let's say so.
We stated our what we couldcommit to very clearly to the
client.
The client said, okay, let's go, let's execute, let's do this
(46:28):
Over time.
There was some confusion on theproject because the general
contractor had not been informedthat there were certain delays
along this path and theywouldn't inform that of what we
could or could not get to.
When we approached this withour subcontractor, the
subcontractor did not want ushaving this conversation with
the general contractor.
They wanted to own that veryconfident, that they wanted to
(46:50):
own that relationship with thegeneral and they did not want us
to communicate anything to thegeneral.
It put us into a very difficultposition because we knew what
commitments we could make, howwe could deliver to the project,
but we weren't being enabled tocommunicate those commitments
beyond the client that we werefunding.
Ultimately, what happened,obviously, is the construction
project fell behind schedule andthe general contractor wasn't
(47:11):
getting the information theyneeded to understand the why.
They were just seeing that itwas running behind schedule.
And in order to react to thisor force that conversation
forward, the general contractorback charged the subcontractor.
There's delays, there'sconstruction delays.
That's one of the four reasonsfor litigation.
And the sub went right back tous and said well, you guys are
(47:32):
late, so we're going to backcharge you.
So again now we're in this kindof weird vortex of having told
the client what we can do, butsomehow we're getting back
charged for delivering on whatwe actually could do.
So our project manager went andcollected all of the emails
that I'd written thecorrespondent with, created a
timeline and then showed boththe sub and the general
(47:54):
contractor exactly what happenedand how it transpired.
We ended up settling a no-costsettlement, just out-of-court
settlement, to remove ourselvesfrom that project.
But it was a huge lesson to usto ensure that communication is
documented and to set anachievable timeline in this
documentation and to receive itas an alarm bell if your client
(48:15):
doesn't want you talking to thegeneral contractor to create a
two-way communication path sothat's case study one with court
litigation.
Case study two is that this isthe laser scanning case study I
referenced.
So in this case study we had abasement area, a subfloor area
(48:37):
that had a lot of equipmentmechanical equipment that
already existed.
That equipment had been laserscanned not by us, but as a
relevant had been laser scannedat the beginning part of the
project, and that should havebeen given and handed over to
the detailer and carefullymanaged and coordinated while we
designed for what we were goingto modify and improve in that
(48:58):
area.
Our contract was simply timeand materials, so let's provide
an expert over to this project,and that expert would be managed
by an overall project, notnecessarily by us as a firm A
very simple time and materialbasis project.
(49:25):
As this project unfolded, though, these laser scans and clashes
were not heavily discussed inthese normal coordination
meetings that happen at thegeneral contractor level.
So we actually had beenapplying the laser scans.
We just didn't catch everythingand everything that should have
been.
That actually created somechallenges.
The electricians went in to tryto install it and they said,
hey, there's this existing stuffin the way and we're going to
(49:48):
have to reroute it in the field.
It's going to cost a lot ofmoney and so we need to talk
about who's paying for thesecosts, because this was clearly
documented and physical herebefore.
As this escalation occurred andmoney was started you know,
figures were started to point atwho's going to pay what we
noticed that our sub verysimilar to the last story had
(50:08):
backed away, had leaned out ofthe conversation, had leaned out
of the relationship with us,and we started to dig into
where's the contractualobligation here.
Number one this is time andmaterial, so it needed to be
managed at the level of us.
Number one.
Number two in the BIM executionplan that I referenced earlier,
it clearly outlined that thegeneral contractor was
(50:31):
responsible for coordinating andcoordinating laser scans and
clashes.
So it was their responsibilityto make sure that clashes had
been detected.
Gc was not wanting to take thatresponsibility and the
subcontractor was not wanting topush that responsibility onto
the GC to protect therelationship between the sub and
the GC.
So again it was a conversationof will dev designs ultimately
(50:52):
pay for that because of thisrelationship that needed to be
protected at the GC and the sublevel.
And I noticed the subcontractorleaving out and I spoke at many
different levels up to thepresident of that subcontractor,
and ultimately we had somein-depth conversations and we
both got ourselves to lean backin and ultimately settled, based
(51:16):
on the relationship, at a nocost settlement where we, even
though contractually I think wewould have won, we did want to
avoid the cost of litigation andso we didn't pursue that and we
just took both costs out of ourstraps, so all of our costs
covered and moved on.
And that's the relationshipmanagement side.
(51:37):
And so a takeaway from this islook for the red flags and
communication breakdowns.
Maintain strong communicationand partnership focus.
Also, we learn to be proactiveand draw upon resources like the
brokers and legal communityCompanies and counsel and then
document, how others react andput them on notice in a
(51:59):
professional relationship andthen relationship oriented
manner.
So, even as our clients wereleaving out, we had to lean into
that relationship to help themfeel safe and secure that we are
still working with them towardsthe ultimate goal.
And so, just to wrap it all uptogether, if you remember, on
the first slide I let you knowthat I had educated me about the
two most important things toavoid litigation.
(52:20):
It's about documentation andcommunication.
So you see both of thoseoutlined here.
It's a case study.
I want to thank you all for somuch for your time.
Just as a summary, bim Designshelps visualize the architect's
and the engineer's originalvision and provides the visual
representation to our clientsfor their review and feedback.
We avoid critical field missesand change orders to achieve
(52:41):
clarity on project installationand through building information
modeling, each project isassisted in avoiding possible
litigation due to lack ofdocumentation, communication,
planning and visibility, and Iwant to thank you all so much
for your time.
Thank you very much.
The CEO of BIM Design , and BIM is Building
Information Modeling.
It's an intelligent 3Dmodel-based process that gives
architects, engineering andconstruction professionals the
insight and tools to moreefficiently plan, design,
construct and manage buildingand infrastructure.
Mark, prior to being a designmark, had 10 years of experience
(00:46):
working in Silicon Valley, intech companies, in product
management, business development, mergers and acquisitions, and
in C-suite roles.
Mark leads the growth strategyand execution of the company.
His acute ability to developand implement strategic
processes that of the company.
His acute ability to developand implement strategic
processes that scale the companycapabilities drive efficiency
services delivery increasesclient satisfaction, as we all
(01:09):
know, causes claims that wedon't.
and his cross-functional team Iintroduce to you Mark Oden.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Does this work for everyone, or would you like to
use a microphone?
Does this volume work?
Yes, okay, let me know if thatchanges at any point.
Thank you so much, linda, forthe kind introduction and for
inviting me here to thisconference.
I'm really truly honored, and Ithank you to David, who will be
hosting the panel.
This is the panel for the nextsession, so thanks for that.
As Linda mentioned, this is alittle bit about me.
(01:46):
Well, first I wanted to tellyou more about what we're going
to talk about today.
We're going to be talking abouthow BIM, or Building
Information Modeling, can helpprevent litigation.
In order to explain that to you, I'm going to take on a little
journey.
A little bit about me, a littlebit about what is building
information modeling.
If that's new to you, I'llexplain that I have some ways to
relate and several differentways to relate the concept to
(02:08):
you, and then we'll talk aboutwhat has been designed what is
my company and what's thehistory of my company and what
services we offer together interms of how we probably help
prevent litigation.
How does building informationmodel in the process in general
help with litigation?
At the very end I have two casestudies real-world case studies
of where we situations we'veencountered over the last few
(02:31):
years on how we help avoidlitigation through good
communication and documentation.
I just remember the very firstconversation I had with Linda
over a year ago.
She mentioned the two majoravoidances of litigation are
communication and documentation.
I've sung that from themountaintops within my company
for the year after that Great,great education that Linda
(02:53):
offered me.
So I really appreciate her somuch for that.
So with that just a little bitabout this.
As Linda mentioned, I am theCEO of InDesigns.
Prior to that, I had 10 yearsof experience in corporate
America working for CiscoSystems, started my career as a
network engineer, moved intoproduct management, then moved
(03:14):
into business development,mergers and acquisitions and
strategy and planning.
Business development was thefinal chapter of my time at
Cisco.
But I'd like to say that Idon't have them on paper, but
through working at Cisco I gotthe equivalent of three MBAs.
It was a great company, workedhard and I learned a tremendous
amount.
Prior to Cisco, I went to theUniversity of Florida and got my
(03:37):
Master's of Electrical andComputer Science engineering
degrees and several differentminors in my undergrad.
So that's a little bit about me.
Now I'd like to introduce whatis building information modeling
?
Building information modeling,in essence, is the realization
of what you want to build inphysical space.
(04:00):
So this room that we're in,this building that we're in, is
a great building that shouldprobably was modeled in three
dimensions.
So you're taking what you wantto physically build and you're
modeling that in threedimensions, almost like you're
building a video game.
But instead of building a videogame or watching Avatar on a
big screen, you're actuallybuilding a real world
implementation down to aninfinite accurate accuracy model
(04:24):
to what you will build.
That's often called thepre-construction process.
So the process of running thatis either called BIM or the
pre-construction process.
It's an integrated structure,multidisciplinary data to
produce the digitalrepresentation of the asset
across the life cycle.
The life cycle, again, is theshift from the planning to the
construction and into operations.
(04:45):
So you might also hear aboutfacilities management.
So facilities management canleverage the 3D model.
Late post-construction 10, 20,30 years after construction they
might have a breakdown, asystemic breakdown inside of the
building and rather than tearapart the walls and figure out
where the systems and parts are,they can look at the 3D models,
superimpose that of what'sphysically there and then maybe
only cut a section of the wallout rather than a whole big
(05:06):
section of the wall out too,playing a lot less grind the
needle in the haystack.
So it enables virtualinformation to be shared by the
design team.
The design team is thearchitects, the engineers, the
civil engineers, structuralengineers, et cetera, the
detailers and other key roles inthe pre-construction process.
(05:27):
They can share the informationon that team amongst the main
contractor, the subcontractor,the general contractor and the
owner.
And then, as I mentioned, theuse of BIM goes beyond planning
and design phase into thebuilding lifecycle of
maintenance of buildings,maintenance of the building.
So I know that was maybe a newconcept for a lot of you.
(05:48):
So just to raise your hands,who has kids who can relate to
Minecraft?
Maybe they've played it, maybethey have kids that have played
Minecraft.
So building informationmodeling is a lot like Minecraft
.
In Minecraft you're trying tobuild a potentially realistic
(06:11):
implementation of the world in a3D model.
There's a little bit of anaccuracy difference between
Minecraft and buildinginformation modeling, but
besides, that there's a lot ofsimilarities.
bit of an accuracy differencebetween Minecraft and building
information modeling, but justso I know there's a lot of
similarities.
Just a little side story that Ithought I'd share with you this
summer.
Just two, three weeks ago Icompleted a summer's long road
(06:31):
show around the country we're anationwide company at this point
.
In each city I stopped forabout a week or two weeks and
stopped in cities all around thesouthern and midwest area of
the country.
I spent two weeks in SouthCarolina to meet with my head of
project controls, ashleyCalkins.
She's 10 plus years working forFord, which is one of the top
(06:55):
general contractors in thecountry, and she came in and
joined our leadership team.
I'm so honored to have that in aremote collaborative space that
we work in.
After not almost nine months ofworking together, this was the
first time I was meeting her inperson for the first time
Because it was summer.
She had her daughter and shehad two nieces that were in town
(07:16):
, I think from Wisconsin, thatwere visiting just for summer
vacation and having a lot of funwith her daughter, and the
three of them have been able tobond over the years because of
Minecraft.
So they all have their tablets,they all have their phones,
they all have their ways ofplaying and collaborating
together building Minecraft, andthe nephew his name is Baba and
(07:36):
I really were able to connectat a pretty deep level
Throughout the whole two weeks Iwas there, all the kids were
talking about Minecraft this andMinecraft that and things that
would fill, things that woulddestroy and all the stories that
came to it.
And one night after dinner Bubbapulled me aside and said I want
(07:57):
to show you, I want to show youmy craft.
And he opens up his tablet andhe goes into that world and the
parents that maybe didn't relateto this would know what I'm
talking about.
But he shows me in his game allof the different nooks and
crannies, and crevices andsecret hiding places and tops
and bottoms and levers and justeverything that kids spent hours
(08:18):
concocting.
In essence, bobo was thearchitect, he was the visionary,
he was the engineer, he was themodel in place, the design in
place, and he was the detailer.
He was the modeler.
He had actually built thecomponents to build that entire
vision onto reality.
I'm very touched by that story.
(08:39):
I'm glad I get to share thatwith you.
But that's just a maybe athrough world relatable
experience of buildinginformation.
Along the ends, we as thedetailers, we build all those
books and crannies and premisesand letters that would.
We build out a virtual space, a3D space that would be now
surrounding us.
It would be the space ceiling,space in between here, the attic
(09:01):
space, the crawl space, all ofthat.
So I hope that helps.
We also have a short video, twomore video that is a fly-through
of a building that explainsvisually, show you both the 3D
representation of the building,so it will see that in different
(09:22):
colors and you'll see black andwhite blocks which actually
look a lot like Minecraft.
And that's from a laser scan.
I'll talk about laser scanninga little bit later in the
presentation and laser scanningcan help produce litigation.
But imagine if I was going tochange the space.
This existing space would becalled tenant improvement.
So I was going to change thespace.
This is an existing space,which we call tenant
improvements.
(09:42):
I was going to constructsomething into this physical
space.
I would want to know wherethose fixtures are and how to
avoid those fixtures in realtime and down to high level
accuracy.
So to help avoid clashes thatmay happen on a job site, I
could take a piece of equipmentthat's called a laser scanner or
a reality capture, and I canscan at a medium accuracy of 30
(10:07):
million laser scans.
Think of it as a concept ofsonar.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Like dolphins, they send an audio sound and it pings
back and they know the distance.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
So laser scanning is the same visual indicators and
lasers and it does that acrossmillions and millions and
millions of points and thenthose points are all measurable
to each other.
So now I can take this wall andthat wall and the distance
between the two and I can takethe space that we're in right
now and scan it in a matter of10 minutes or less, put that now
into my virtual space and I canthen design what will future be
(10:37):
built in that to the accuracyof knowing where it is.
So we partnered with a localunion in Arizona, with the Joint
Apprenticeship Training Center.
They had recently bought abuilding that they called JATC
building 9.
They renovated that building.
They wanted to renovate thatbuilding and they asked us to
say hey, here's an existingstructure, can you scan it and
(10:57):
you then improve that structureto allow our, our apprentices,
our journeymen, to go in thereand practice?
You know, with piping practice,plumbing practice for service,
so you'll see toilets and thingsin there.
That why are there so manytoilets in one area?
That's because these are forservice.
So we'll just play that videoand do the background here.
So let's see if that looks likea good idea.
(11:37):
So from the outside, the grayarea is the laser scan, the red
area is the laser scan, the redarea is the structural steel,
the green is piping, plumbingand piping, and the red
mechanical equipment that we'reall being tested with and
equipment pumps.
So those are the example pumpsthat they might service.
This is a second level storythat they wanted to add that
didn't exist before.
It didn't look before.
(11:59):
In the building, on a sub-levelthat second level they have
toilets and sinks that areserviceable and you see the
plumbing and the piping throughthe walls.
So you just want to access allof that, whether in the draining
process and we even showsub-floors in a moment it will
navigate lower, it will showbelow the ground so you can see
(12:21):
the piping also runs below theground.
So more surface areas andmeters.
If you look closely, there area bunch of people's hollers
there.
Water heaters.
You can see.
That's all.
Plumbing is resisting equipment, every area is, and existing
equipment Every area is existingmechanical equipment.
(12:44):
That is very much a servicethat everything is used and then
outside are very large waterstorage tanks to help offset
service to the water storage.
So this whole building iscurrently in progress of being
built.
Now it's being sent to the cityand if we helped we could have
effectively donated our time.
I've loaded a box to hold thiscode and scan this model.
(13:10):
So that's just.
That's Minecraft, and React.
(13:37):
So I hope that was a reasonableexplanation of building
information, modeling andengaging.
Enough, alright, so what?
Are some of the pain points andsolutions.
Why does the industry choose touse building information
modeling?
Or, more specifically, whywould they want to use a company
like Finansat, companies likeBIM Design?
(13:58):
So one is one pain point ispoor quality BIM models for
constructability issues andvalue engineering issues related
to BIM modeling.
So anybody can model aMinecraft.
Can anybody model somethingthat's down to an eighth of an
inch accuracy?
So that's the chasm thatexisted between the two In our
(14:18):
company we've chosen to workwith union trained journeymen
and tradesmen.
To become a tradesman in a union, to become a journeyman you
must go through a five yearapprenticeship.
The apprenticeship is fiveyears of in-field work, so
working in the field and thennight school classes at night
(14:40):
and passing certain classes andcriteria and then eventually
getting local licenses.
Eventually they call it turningoff and graduating into the
journeyman.
So by the time you become ajourneyman you have touched the
equipment, you've welded, you'vecut the equipment, you've
shifted, you've fitted, you'veprobably worked in the fab shop,
you've done all sorts ofdifferent things to get to that
(15:00):
point five years later.
So you are effectively anexpert at constructing.
What we do at FIM Designs is wehire the trained journeyman.
They typically at that pointalready know, or people help
them learn, the software, whichis typically Autodesk or Autopad
and Revit, and they will takewhat they've learned in the
(15:20):
physical space and apply that inthe virtual space.
So a lot of times withcompanies outside of the design,
you might not have afully-constructed model because
the person building that modelisn't fully experienced in
building the structure thatyou've been constructing.
And then value engineeringcomes into play because as
(15:42):
you're designing that, you canthink about areas to save
materials, save space, savevents, save anything and the
more material you save on thejob site, the more safe that job
site is, because you're sendingless material there and you're
installing less.
So litigation and reducing riskis the less time you can spend
on the job site the more safe.
(16:03):
The job site is Another thingthat we've been respecting for
bailing wage regulations.
So if you think about federalwork, like a fee day in
hospitals or schools or otherareas that would require
prevailing wage on the job site.
There's also public contractsthat require auditing proof that
you are respecting theseprevailing wages.
(16:24):
We have them designed to getmore union Unions are always
prevailing wage, so there'snever an issue of working with a
union provider because it'salways been respected for
prevailing wage.
And then, absolutely predictingand predict and estimate BIM
costs.
A lot of times a package to dobuilding information modeling
will be put together at thebeginning of a bigger.
(16:46):
You know how do I build theentire building and BIM is a
portion of that overall thing,that overall bid.
So it might be a $10 millionproject and maybe a $500,000 to
$1 million BIM project.
So at the beginning of theproject clients are often
licking their finger, puttingtheir hand up, seeing which way
(17:08):
the wind is blowing and saying Ithink it's gonna be a million
dollars of BIM cost.
But I actually wanna win thisbid because they're taking the
lowest cost bid, so I'm gonnamake it $500,000.
And we're gonna see if we cancut the VIM budget short so that
we can win this project.
So we can come in and say well,let's look at the 2D plans,
let's look at what the architectwants, let's look at what the
(17:28):
engineer wants and let's giveyou a bid that will be realistic
and obtainable.
(17:49):
Because if it's truly a milliondollar project but I put
$500,000 in my bid to win it,I'm going to have problems for
the next, or the contractor thatdid that is going to have
problems for the next threeyears because they're trying to
fight to win that $500,000.
Does that make sense?
Furthermore, some pain pointswould be dynamic demand so this
is access to resources andconsistent access to labor.
(18:12):
So the labor construction weall know ebbs and flows.
Oftentimes in the winter itebbs.
Election we all know ebbs andflows, often times in the winter
the ebbs, electioneers, theebbs that go through all of this
.
It's true.
What clients want is an abilityto access that labor at a very
steady state.
They invest a lot of money tohire and train individuals and
then when those ebbs happen,they have to let those
(18:33):
individuals go and they havetraining knowledge that goes to
other companies.
Once they're let go, companiesthat have been designed can
provide to them access to thesteady state flow of labor so it
stabilizes their workforce.
We utilize domestic workersOkay, I got sidetracked there,
(18:57):
but dynamic bit of demand, notenough detailers.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
We can also help them scale their teams when they
don't have enough detailers ontheir staff.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Or maybe they don't have any detailers at all on
their staff.
Maybe they have very aggressiveschedules that they committed to
and they're realizing thatthey're understaffed for those
aggressive schedules.
So we can help them meet thatLack of experience or poor
communication with subs.
For us, we focus on embracingtechnology, so I take all those
10 years that I worked at Cisco.
Back in 2008, I was using oneof those JetSense phones where
(19:27):
you have a video phone and youpick up the handset, you dial
the phone number and you see theperson's video on it.
That evolved into telepresence,which is these big screens of
real world talking to each other, and that eventually evolved
into WebEx and Zoom, where weare in today's world.
So we try to embrace all of thetools that allow us for remote
communication and collaboration.
(19:48):
We are effectively an entirelyremote company, so it's
impossible in today's day andworld to bring all of the
members of a pre-constructiondesign team together in the same
room at the same time to workon the same project, Especially
in today's day and age.
It just doesn't exist anymore.
So we really pride ourselves inutilizing the newest and
(20:08):
greatest technology to helpcreate collaborative, cohesive
teams, and we also provideeducation, training and
consultation.
Being the experts in the field,we can then expose that
expertise out to our clients,whether that be the
subcontractors, the generalcontractors, the engineers or
the architects Also.
(20:29):
I want to thank Larry because heextended my brain today at
lunch, realizing that we canactually be expert witnesses too
when it comes to these types ofclaims, because we have the
expertise to fly the model as weshowed the video of that and
realize where theconstructability issues might be
, realize what should have beendone during that time that
(20:50):
shouldn't have made it to thefinal product, for example.
So we went that way.
So that's a little bit aboutbuilding information, modeling
the pain points.
I'd like to introduce us as acompany.
We were founded in 2016 in SanFrancisco.
We just celebrated our fiveyear anniversary.
That's a milestone for anybusiness and I'm very proud of
(21:12):
that.
I'm happy that we accomplishedthat.
I took ownership of the companypartial ownership in 2018, and
I purchased the company outrightin 2019.
This year was the first yearthat we submitted ourselves for
and we were nominated to the EAP5000 fastest growing company
list Of 5000 companies thatsubmitted.
(21:33):
Of many companies thatsubmitted, 5000 made it to the
list.
We were number 148 in thatsubmitted.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Many companies that submitted 5,000 made it to the
list.
We were number 148 in that listand number six I think five in
Arizona.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Either number five in Arizona or number six in
construction, or those arereversed.
But those two metrics are therefor the EAT 5000 list and we're
also one of the only or one ofthe few combination certified
minority owned businesses andunion companies nationwide.
So we have a few things goingfor us in our growth and I'll
(22:05):
have a chart of that in a moment.
So, as I mentioned, we areexperienced domestic engineers
and tradesmen within an evergrowing market for building
information, modeling andpre-construction virtual design.
In 2018, we had three employeesoperating in Los Angeles at the
time of 2018.
In 2019, we had at the end ofthat growth.
(22:28):
At the end of 2019, we hadnearly 40 fully remote employees
operating in 10 differentstates, across 17 different
local unions and two officeswith a headquarters in Phoenix,
arizona, and we fast forward totoday, which I reflect back on
it like a blink of an eye goingthrough it, maybe not so much at
times.
We're at nearly 70 employees in22 states nationwide, with 20
(22:54):
union locals and two moreoffices added to New England,
california and New York.
We work on nearly 100 projectsto date.
As part of operating thecompany, I believe in eight
different core values.
These core values are veryimportant to us.
I represent them every day.
(23:14):
I work with my leadership teamto represent them every day.
Who works with the managementteam?
Who works with individualcontributors to institute our
core values?
Every single day?
And every Monday we have anoperations huddle where we meet
with everybody on the operationsteam and we pick one of the
core values Other than anytopics.
We always pick one core valueto talk about that week as well.
So other core values of qualityperformance as union tradesmen.
(23:39):
The team takes pride in thework product that they produce
and so important that it is highquality so that it can be
constructed.
Trust and ethics we holdourselves to the highest
standards when it comes to trustand ethics.
We must be transparent withourselves and with clients and
if an employee ever feels thatthey've been compromised,
(23:59):
they're encouraged, they'retrained, to bring that to
management, which ultimatelycomes to me, and I work through
managing any trust and ethicsissues personally.
We are solutions driven, whichmeans we aim to solve the
problem and speaking to theneeds of the problem.
So we work within our internalteam and within our clients to
(24:20):
speak to our needs so that thesolution comes true.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
We don't just operate in silos, we don't just accept
what is we work together to tryand solve the problem.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
And innovation is a big one.
It's a very big one for me,again, coming from the
technology sector, I do considerthem designs a very big one for
me, again, coming from thetechnology sector, I do consider
them a technology firstconstruction company.
So we're constantly looking athow do we introduce innovation
and how do we better the overallenvironment for all companies.
So I actually have a head ofbusiness development and
(24:53):
innovation dedicated to how arewe changing the world?
Teamwork is another core value.
So how do we all work together?
How do we work through anybarriers?
Again, how do we address it orspeak to our needs?
Community engagement we reallyfocus on bettering our community
, as I'm bettering our soul inthe end.
(25:13):
So we have a large focus onself-care and community care.
In our company we haveownership of commitments, which
is another core value.
We're committed to helping eachother solve their needs and
we're committed to speaking toour needs and we're committed to
owning true to our commitments.
When I own true to mycommitment, that either means I
(25:33):
give you a date and time that Igive you something and I deliver
it by then, or before that dateand time, I let you know what
has come up that has blocked mefrom delivering true to that
commitment.
We know that when you'reworking with clients and many
clients that go up toconstruction staff one
commitment can lead to 10different commitments per whole
monthly dishwasher.
So we're very, very careful inhow we explain our commitments
(25:55):
to our clients.
And last but not least isdiversity and inclusion.
Diversity and inclusion is ofutmost importance to us, having
no bias against gender, age,race, ethnicity or religion, and
we believe it actually makes astronger community, a stronger
company by being as diverse aswe can.
(26:16):
Thank you for letting me sharethat One of the services that we
offer as a company.
So we offer design, build orplan spec pre-construction
processes.
Mepf is short for mechanical,electrical, plumbing and fire
protection.
So we do that, build thosetrades, we specialize in those
(26:39):
trades for building information,modeling.
We are looking at expandinginto architecture and
engineering.
So those are easy extensionsfor us now at this point and in
the growth of our firm.
But our core was MAPS.
We can also do freeconstruction consulting.
So if you look at the generalcontractor, that fullltry
construction phase we could intheory effectively run
that phase on behalf of thegeneral contractor.
(27:02):
And then laser scanning wechatted about and we shared the
video on laser scanning as aservice.
So this is a growth chart.
Over time it's split up.
It's not evenly spread overmonths, but you'll see in 2016
and 2017.
That was the original founderof Great Vision.
It was a three-person, atwo-person company up until I
(27:23):
joined in 2018.
In August of 2018, I waspresented with the opportunity
to take over a team of detailersthat were moving Phoenix
Arizona, so it was a biggercompany.
It was a construction companythat did installations.
They're Texas-based, they hadan Arizona division and, for
business reasons, they decidedto shut down the Arizona
(27:44):
division.
So inside of that division.
They had a smaller team of 20detailers which is what we do
and they had a conference notmuch different than this
conference, and they said wewould love for our detailing
team to go to a good home.
So, rather than them all goingto different companies, they
invested their time and theireffort building the team and we
had that manager and that teamgo to a good home.
(28:04):
It wasn't long after that Isold every single stock of mine
to Two Houses that I hadundergird to take on payroll for
this company for this team andit was.
I had nine weeks of payroll.
Six weeks in we had not securedenough business to maintain that
(28:25):
team, so I went into themanager's office that became our
VP of operations, has sinceleft the AUU for a time.
Our VP of operations and I saidwe have three weeks left and
this whole experiment has givenaway my entire life's work and
(28:45):
I'll have to start over.
So what can we do?
We were very fortunate to win avery large baseball stadium in
Arlington, texas that carried usfor the next nine months and
that saved the company.
So from there we continued togrow very rapidly very
(29:05):
fortuitously into the beginningof COVID.
Prior to COVID, we wereanticipating year-over-year
growth of at least doublingyear-over-year, if not more than
that.
We actually continued thatgrowth into COVID because, once
COVID struck, a lot of companiesde-risked a lot of larger
construction companies de-riskedso they actually scaled down
(29:26):
their teams, including theirdetailing teams, and they hired
firms like us to take on thatrisk.
So there was a growth spurt,but you'll see that dip in March
2021, where companies havefigured out like, hey, it's been
18 months, it's been 16 months,this is not going anywhere.
We need to figure out what ourday-to-day operations are again.
So they started to re-risk backup and we weren't pre-pick
(29:51):
forecast that.
We didn't predict it.
So we had a dip, but we'vesince corrected from that and
maintained our goal.
So, as I mentioned, we're anationwide company and we are
union based, so we work with 25different.
We work with 25 differentlocals around the country.
Those are locals that we hireout of.
So those are locals that havethe training centers that I
spoke about earlier that gothrough that, train the
(30:12):
apprentices for five years toturn in the tournament and they
turn out detailers, and so thosedetailers work remotely all
over the country through thosedifferent levels.
These are some notable projectsthat we've worked on.
We've worked on a number ofcommercial projects, primarily
in the tech sector space, so,for example, there's Google Out
that Place.
We've also worked on YouTubeand Facebook buildings, for
(30:33):
example.
We work across all industriesand spectrums.
So this is a quote from a verydear friend, a very dear partner
of ours, a business manager oflocal 469 in Arizona, aaron
Butler.
So he speaks to the value ofwhy should entities want to work
(30:59):
with union detailers?
They go through 10,000 hours oftraining and they know their
local city state constructioncodes to be able to interpret
the plans and blueprints of alldisciplines.
They have the years ofexperience actually doing it in
the field.
So he reaffirms some of mystatements I said earlier.
We have a blog.
We try to publish one a week,and so this was a quote that I
(31:23):
had participated in and I hadworked on this article Five
Reasons why you Should HireHuman Detailers.
Here's another nationwide mapof US-based projects.
You can see a large West Coastfocus.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That is where we started in the West Coast, where
we are shifting to take onprojects nationwide.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
You can see one dot there all the way to the east in
New Jersey, so we're startingto pick up in the Midwest and
East Coast.
Definitely, buildinginformation modeling is a
technology-driven process sothat actually is adopted in the
West a little bit faster thanother areas of the country.
That actually is adopted in theWest a little bit faster than
(32:04):
other areas of the country.
Another quote that I want toshare with you is from one of
our clients.
This is actually from a generalcontractor.
So we were at the time workingfor a sub and he was the general
contractor managing the entirethin process, or the
reconstruction process, and sohe had mentioned that we have a
G++ team on this project and weare collectively a well-oiled
BBC machine Now he was themanager of this entire process
(32:25):
of maybe a little biased he saidbiased or not probably the best
group assembled that he has hadthe pleasure of working with
and he thanks us and I thank himfor the opportunity of working
with them and the opportunity ofreceiving that wonderful
faculty of working with them andthe opportunity of receiving
that wonderful faculty.
So that's a lot of informationabout building.
(32:45):
Sorry, that's a lot ofinformation about their designs
and I've introduced them.
Now, why is the industry usingthem?
How do we segue this into whatyour clients you know?
Why is this interesting to themand why is this interesting to?
You.
So building information modelingdoes many things, not just
these six items here, but itavoids clashes between elements.
(33:09):
So as I'm building in betweenthe walls that I can't see here,
I might not have enough spacefor the HVAC work and the
plumbing and the pipe and theelectrical and the pipe
protection, the HVAC work andthe plumbing and the piping and
the electrical and the pipeprotection.
So as I conceptualize that asan architect, I might not see
there's not enough space.
(33:31):
But even as an engineer I cansay, hey, we want the occupancy
of this to be so many hundredsof people, so I need this much
water to run through the pipes.
Well, if the pipes are so large, they take up space.
If I put all that spacetogether, I might find that
there's actually a clash ofequipment because of either
space constraints or othersystem constraints, so you can
actually visualize those clashesand that's often called
coordination.
(33:51):
It's identifying those clashesand then working across all the
different trades to coordinate,resolving those clashes.
It allows you to capturereality accurately.
So look at reality in a 3Dsense, but in a perfect sense,
and get a perfect presentationof the building.
So imagine you had a $10million budget and you were
(34:12):
building this building thatwe're in today and you had a
vision as the owner, as thedeveloper, to build this
building and you've got a lot ofamazing things and maybe you
were detailed enough to thinkabout the exact picture, the
exact when I walk into the guestroom, I want it to be this type
of sink, and then the buildinggets built and you walk in to
that room, you physically walkinto the room as you walk into
(34:33):
the many hotel rooms, and youlook as the owner, the person
who invested a lot of money intothis building, and said I don't
like that sink.
It would cost a lot, it wouldbe doable, but it would cost a
lot to take that sink out of allof the rooms and throw it away.
(34:55):
So imagine in today's world,where we live is we can model
that and we can put on virtualreality headsets and we can walk
through that building, havingpaid for the model but not paid
for the construction.
I can now say I don't like this.
Or, as a doctor, I can say Idon't think I'm going to get my
journey around that corner andwe need to think about you know
the size of that besides thatcorner or any other any other
implications that you can thinkof.
If you can actually 3dconceptualize the model, it'll
(35:20):
improve collaboration acrossyour business.
It forces all of thosestakeholders to talk to each
other.
It forces them to think aboutwhat's going to happen on the
site before the project evenstarts.
You can understand the sequenceand the steps of the building
process, bring that value overthe years back when it comes to
scheduling and you can visualizethe elements of the building.
(35:42):
So there was a.
We have some sources here, somesurveys that were done and a
recent survey of BIM usage byconstruction professionals show
that 89% of them have used BIMon some of their projects.
That's a huge adoption of BIMin the construction space.
(36:02):
At least half of their projectsare actively using BIM 47% say
that and we're only seeing thistrend continue to increase.
We're also seeing ADCprofessionals say that.
76% of them say that it reducesrework.
Reducing rework saves time,saves money and saves on
(36:23):
potential litigation.
66% say that it improves budgetand cost controls.
If I stay within budget and Imaintain and I control my cost,
I'm also reducing litigationbecause I'm staying within the
framework of the contract and55% say that it shortens the
project lifecycle time, whichcreates an opportunity to
(36:44):
produce more, produce more worknow and in the future.
And it's been proven that thereturn on investment increase
with high-end engagement is 40%of that project.
So if you look at that $10million project and you had been
to it, you could potentiallysave 40% on it.
So if you look at that $10million project and you add BIM
to it, you could potentiallysave 40% on it.
It would be $4 million.
(37:05):
That's a huge chunk of changethat you can save by thinking
and conceptualizing everythinglike that.
So some other benefits to usingBIM would be visualizing actual
building elements in 3D,eliminating costly mistakes
during construction, replacingthousands of printed drawings so
(37:26):
you can have something visuallyrepresented and overall,
enhance construction safetymanagement.
I want to talk about that inpractice.
So I said earlier in thepresentation, if you reduce the
amount of hours, in the fieldyou're reducing the number of
accidents that could occur inyour overall improving safety.
(37:47):
So the entire BIM you know BIMis not just for the 3D
representation what we do is wecreate the IKEA set of
instructions for constructionand we take that IKEA
instruction set and we hand itover to what's called
prefabrication.
Prefabrication is a warehousewith shop tools that are in a
(38:09):
physical space, not on the jobsite, that probably have half or
less of the required people tobuy the material in bulk, run it
through machinery that cutsthat piping down to size per
spec of what we designed, withfar less human involvement human
engagement than if we weredoing that on the job site with
(38:31):
manual tools and again removesthem from the site.
So it moves a lot of the workthat could otherwise happen on
the job site to thatpre-propercation stage.
If you optimize and perfectthat pre-propercation stage,
then you ship it to the job siteand you're simply and you can
even pressure, test it andinspect it pre-installation.
(38:53):
So you're passing inspectionbefore you even got it to the
job site.
You ship it then to the jobsite and then you just in theory
attached a few bolts and nowyou've got the whole assembly
installed and you haven't spenteight hours or two weeks
assembling out the job site.
You've taken that all off thejob site and you've been
greasing and minimizing the riskof litigation.
(39:14):
So 75% of companies that haveadopted them report a positive
return on investment.
I'd like to say that I'm surethat we can help the remaining
25% see that return oninvestment.
So, talking about laserscanning, I had introduced that
concept before.
It's also known as realitycapture.
(39:36):
It's the same space, same name.
It uses lasers to measure andcreate 3D space through the
model and it's a growing segmentof the construction due to
efficiency, sophistication,portability of equipment and
again, helps reduce overallpotential litigation.
I actually have a case studythat specifically talks about
(39:56):
laser scanning.
But again, imagine you'retrying to make this physical
space change but you didn't havea real world understanding of
what was here and you shippedstuff to the job site and you
went to install it and you said,oh shoot, that's in the way.
We have to start from scratch.
Well, there's a whole coststructure to that.
Because of that, there's chainorders and somebody's got to pay
for that change somewhere alongthe way.
(40:18):
So if you can actually capturethis in reality and then plan
for what you're going to build,you're going to save a lot in
that sense.
So laser scanning contractorsreceive tremendous value on both
renovation and new projects,and it allows for modelers to
all work on that and collaborateremotely together.
(40:38):
Okay, so this is the fun partto all work on that and
collaborate remotely together.
Okay, so this is the fun part.
How can BID help reducelitigation in construction?
So a couple more data points.
Us Bureau of Labor Statisticsrates the construction industry
as the riskiest environment forwork injuries and fatalities
(40:59):
across all other industries.
Construction tops them.
I don't know if that's a goodthing or a bad thing.
In a sense I think it's a badthing.
So utilizing buildinginformation modeling,
construction companies canenhance safety management
through other ways that I'vetalked about.
You can bring labor off thefield but have that be a
pre-found shop, pre-planned,pre-produced, all of that
(41:21):
material before you install.
You can produce again the Ikeainstruction set of instructions.
So you're centralizing thethought process of that design
to an individual or group ofindividuals that all approve
that design, rather thandecentralize it to each
individual job site and letthose individual choices be made
(41:44):
at that site.
The more you can decentralizethe thought model, the more you
can de-risk that thought modelBased on research we've done.
The top four reasons forconstruction litigation include
construction defect claims,construction delay lawsuits,
water, mold and built-in damageclaims, and theme and breach of
(42:06):
contract claims.
So building informationmodeling can actually help with
each one of these items.
In terms of construction defectclaims we can.
In the design process, whetherwe have the engineer level or
the detailer level, they canlook for what is the specific
design of that component all theway up to the manufacturer so
(42:29):
they can make sure that thatpart that's going in is
appropriate for that moment intime.
So that should avoid futuredefects Construction delay
lawsuits we saw earlier in thestatistics that it improves.
I think it was 40 somethingpercent.
Said that it improved 44percent, if I remember improved
project schedules.
So hopefully it actuallyadjusts the schedule for the
(42:51):
better and avoids the lawsuitsthat good construction delays
water and mold claims would comefrom good, good plumbing design
and good plumbing installationgood installation of the IKEA
instruction set and then leanand contract breach claims would
be reduced by keeping the costdown.
(43:13):
As we talked about, there's acost reduction in the building
information model and usabilityinformation model.
There's also risks toconstruction and having a lack
of a document strategy anddocumentation strategy.
Having a lack of adocumentation strategy allows
for heavy rework or costlyrework, lost productivity for
(43:34):
hunting down documents, scheduleoverruns for blown budgets and
disputes between contractors andclients and that difficulty in
responding to litigation demands.
The good news about buildinginformation modeling is that if
you have this centralized teamthat's spread out around the
country, it forces this conceptof how do we collaborate, how do
(43:55):
we document.
So the BIP execution plan isthe starting point for that.
It lays out what's your digitalfootprint of this project and
it forces building informationmodeling and it forces a healthy
documentation strategy.
How do we work with GCs and A&Efirms?
We help visualize the ultimatevision of the architect and the
(44:15):
engineer.
We work directly with the owner, the GC and the CEL to
interpret their vision down toan each of an interactor team.
We also can lead coordination.
I talked about coordinationearlier in the pre-construction
process for general contractors.
We can work across multiplesubs and run that entire process
for all of the subs, or we canwork for one side of the energy
(44:37):
network collaboratively with theenterprise.
We can train major firms andreceives on coordination, class
detection, project management,new tools and software like
Revit.
We can run class reports forthem, we can assign classes, we
can educate on projectmanagement, fiscal
responsibility and then run coderefresher courses.
(44:59):
And we're starting a trainingline of business with them.
So here's a video.
I just got a time indicator.
Yeah, so if there's time forthis, I'll share it, but
effectively, this is ourdetailers at play.
So these are our guys that areon their computer detailing.
(45:21):
Maybe it'll be at the end of mypresentation just to kind of
transition between one segmentto another.
So case study time is.
I have two case studies.
In this particular case studywe were subcontracted by a
(45:43):
subcontractor who was contractedby the general contractor.
The general contractor had anagreement with the subcontractor
.
Subcontractors scheduledcommitments that they had to hit
to the general contractor.
Those are commitments that thatsubcontractor made without our
involvement.
That subcontractor came to usand said we would love to.
We can't do this, so we needyour help doing this.
And we said okay, for the twothings that you need, we can
(46:06):
start on time for one of them,but for the other one you won't
be able to start on time, or thetime that you've dedicated you
need to start on time.
We can start on time X plus two, let's say so.
We stated our what we couldcommit to very clearly to the
client.
The client said, okay, let's go, let's execute, let's do this
(46:28):
Over time.
There was some confusion on theproject because the general
contractor had not been informedthat there were certain delays
along this path and theywouldn't inform that of what we
could or could not get to.
When we approached this withour subcontractor, the
subcontractor did not want ushaving this conversation with
the general contractor.
They wanted to own that veryconfident, that they wanted to
(46:50):
own that relationship with thegeneral and they did not want us
to communicate anything to thegeneral.
It put us into a very difficultposition because we knew what
commitments we could make, howwe could deliver to the project,
but we weren't being enabled tocommunicate those commitments
beyond the client that we werefunding.
Ultimately, what happened,obviously, is the construction
project fell behind schedule andthe general contractor wasn't
(47:11):
getting the information theyneeded to understand the why.
They were just seeing that itwas running behind schedule.
And in order to react to thisor force that conversation
forward, the general contractorback charged the subcontractor.
There's delays, there'sconstruction delays.
That's one of the four reasonsfor litigation.
And the sub went right back tous and said well, you guys are
(47:32):
late, so we're going to backcharge you.
So again now we're in this kindof weird vortex of having told
the client what we can do, butsomehow we're getting back
charged for delivering on whatwe actually could do.
So our project manager went andcollected all of the emails
that I'd written thecorrespondent with, created a
timeline and then showed boththe sub and the general
(47:54):
contractor exactly what happenedand how it transpired.
We ended up settling a no-costsettlement, just out-of-court
settlement, to remove ourselvesfrom that project.
But it was a huge lesson to usto ensure that communication is
documented and to set anachievable timeline in this
documentation and to receive itas an alarm bell if your client
(48:15):
doesn't want you talking to thegeneral contractor to create a
two-way communication path sothat's case study one with court
litigation.
Case study two is that this isthe laser scanning case study I
referenced.
So in this case study we had abasement area, a subfloor area
(48:37):
that had a lot of equipmentmechanical equipment that
already existed.
That equipment had been laserscanned not by us, but as a
relevant had been laser scannedat the beginning part of the
project, and that should havebeen given and handed over to
the detailer and carefullymanaged and coordinated while we
designed for what we were goingto modify and improve in that
(48:58):
area.
Our contract was simply timeand materials, so let's provide
an expert over to this project,and that expert would be managed
by an overall project, notnecessarily by us as a firm A
very simple time and materialbasis project.
(49:25):
As this project unfolded, though, these laser scans and clashes
were not heavily discussed inthese normal coordination
meetings that happen at thegeneral contractor level.
So we actually had beenapplying the laser scans.
We just didn't catch everythingand everything that should have
been.
That actually created somechallenges.
The electricians went in to tryto install it and they said,
hey, there's this existing stuffin the way and we're going to
(49:48):
have to reroute it in the field.
It's going to cost a lot ofmoney and so we need to talk
about who's paying for thesecosts, because this was clearly
documented and physical herebefore.
As this escalation occurred andmoney was started you know,
figures were started to point atwho's going to pay what we
noticed that our sub verysimilar to the last story had
(50:08):
backed away, had leaned out ofthe conversation, had leaned out
of the relationship with us,and we started to dig into
where's the contractualobligation here.
Number one this is time andmaterial, so it needed to be
managed at the level of us.
Number one.
Number two in the BIM executionplan that I referenced earlier,
it clearly outlined that thegeneral contractor was
(50:31):
responsible for coordinating andcoordinating laser scans and
clashes.
So it was their responsibilityto make sure that clashes had
been detected.
Gc was not wanting to take thatresponsibility and the
subcontractor was not wanting topush that responsibility onto
the GC to protect therelationship between the sub and
the GC.
So again it was a conversationof will dev designs ultimately
(50:52):
pay for that because of thisrelationship that needed to be
protected at the GC and the sublevel.
And I noticed the subcontractorleaving out and I spoke at many
different levels up to thepresident of that subcontractor,
and ultimately we had somein-depth conversations and we
both got ourselves to lean backin and ultimately settled, based
(51:16):
on the relationship, at a nocost settlement where we, even
though contractually I think wewould have won, we did want to
avoid the cost of litigation andso we didn't pursue that and we
just took both costs out of ourstraps, so all of our costs
covered and moved on.
And that's the relationshipmanagement side.
(51:37):
And so a takeaway from this islook for the red flags and
communication breakdowns.
Maintain strong communicationand partnership focus.
Also, we learn to be proactiveand draw upon resources like the
brokers and legal communityCompanies and counsel and then
document, how others react andput them on notice in a
(51:59):
professional relationship andthen relationship oriented
manner.
So, even as our clients wereleaving out, we had to lean into
that relationship to help themfeel safe and secure that we are
still working with them towardsthe ultimate goal.
And so, just to wrap it all uptogether, if you remember, on
the first slide I let you knowthat I had educated me about the
two most important things toavoid litigation.
(52:20):
It's about documentation andcommunication.
So you see both of thoseoutlined here.
It's a case study.
I want to thank you all for somuch for your time.
Just as a summary, bim Designshelps visualize the architect's
and the engineer's originalvision and provides the visual
representation to our clientsfor their review and feedback.
We avoid critical field missesand change orders to achieve
(52:41):
clarity on project installationand through building information
modeling, each project isassisted in avoiding possible
litigation due to lack ofdocumentation, communication,
planning and visibility, and Iwant to thank you all so much
for your time.
Thank you very much.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.