Trust but verify. It’s a time-honored treaty enforcement principle. It also works well as a basic mantra for BIM (building information modeling)-based building construction. Just ask the Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) Team at Gilbane, a family-owned and operated construction company. Armed with a phase-shift laser scanner, a Gilbane VDC engineering team recently documented measurement discrepancies on a high-profile building construction project.
Gilbane specializes in the high-wire world of at-risk construction. On occasion, Gilbane is called in to rescue troubled projects. Recently the Gilbane VDC team was summoned to do just that. John Tocci, Jr., Director of the VDC Team sets the stage: “The work involves a new corporate campus, the headquarters of a Fortune 500 company. For various reasons, the previous construction manager was terminated. That happened on a Friday. My team took over the job on Saturday. By Sunday afternoon we were laser scanning part of the project in order to reconcile measurements for Monday morning meetings.”
Trade contractors desperately needed reliable benchmarks to accurately set walls, ducts, pipe, conduit locations, and other assemblies. Then there was the elevator shaft. Laser scanning verified two-inch variations on all sides, with the elevator opening three inches smaller than it should be. There was a new sheriff in town and the trades eventually rallied to the Gilbane VDC team.
A point cloud of modeled as-built conditions.
“We’ve had a number of cases where the field team, trade contractors, or architects have argued with us about dimensions of existing conditions, Tocci stated. “We’ve been right every time. It underscores the fact that BIM and VDC, no matter how established we think it is, is still an emerging technology.”
As Gilbane discovered the anecdotal side of laser scanning pales in comparison to the dramatic ROI story. “Our first laser scanner paid for itself in the first week of operation,” Tocci reports. “We conservatively calculate we saved about $150,000 on the first project we scanned.” Just one week? Understandably, that kind of near-instant payback may strike some as too good to be true. Believe it, says Tocci. “If anyone wants to reverse engineer the calculations, they’ll quickly see the payback was actually quite larger,” Tocci reports.
“We assigned super-conservative values to all the ordinary construction tasks that scanning eliminates. We factor-in the electrical, mechanical, and plumbing packages on the job. “One week understates it. With scanning, there are no back charges. No finger pointing. No remediation. It’s all because it was measured right the first time,” Tocci says.
Like many risk-adverse businesses, Gilbane takes a careful, deliberate path to integrating new technology into their business. “The Focus3D Laser Scanner changed the industry,” Tocci declares. “When it came out it was three times less expensive than its competitors. Instead of capturing a single point at once, it can capture 978 million points per second. That’s a radically different scenario. It’s so easy for one person to move it around. It captures levels of detail that you didn’t think it could. “It’s an amazing tool. We now verify and find discrepancies that might bite us later on. All that risk goes away. We couldn’t be happier or more impressed,” Tocci says.
More Information:
FARO Technologies
250 Technology Park
Lake Mary, FL 32746
Phone: 407-333-9911 | Fax: 407-333-4181
aec.faro.com
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Gensler, HOK, HDR among the nation's leading reconstruction design firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 100 Reconstruction Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Gensler, Arup, HOK among the largest office sector design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 Office Design firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Construction Specifications Institute to end support of MasterFormat 95 on December 31, 2009
The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) announced that the organization will cease to license and support MasterFormat 95 as of December 31, 2009. The CSI Board of Directors voted to stop licensing and supporting MasterFormat 95 during its June 16, 2009, meeting at the CSI Annual Convention in Indianapolis.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gensler among eight teams named finalists in 'classroom of the future' design competition
Eight teams were recognized today as finalists of the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom. Finalists submitted designs ranging from an outdoor classroom for children in inner-city Chicago, learning spaces for the children of salt pan workers in India, safe spaces for youth in Bogota, Colombia and a bamboo classroom in the Himalayan mountains.
| Aug 11, 2010
AECOM, WATG top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 75 largest hotel design firms
A ranking of the Top 75 Hotel Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Parsons Brinckerhoff, Dewberry among nation's largest multifamily design firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 75 Multifamily Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit /giants
| Aug 11, 2010
USGBC’s Greenbuild 2009 brings global ideas to local main streets
Save the planet with indigenous knowledge. Make permanent water part of your life. Dive deep water for clues to environmental success. Connect site selection to successful creative concepting. Explore the unknown with Discovery Channel’s best known guide. These are but a few of the big ideas participants can connect to at USGBC’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, taking place on November 11-13, 2009 in Phoenix, Ariz.
| Aug 11, 2010
Goettsch Partners wins design competition for Soochow Securities HQ in China
Goettsch Partners (GP) has been selected as the winning firm in the competition to design the Soochow Securities Headquarters, the new office and stock exchange building for Soochow Securities Co. Ltd. The 21-story, 441,300-square-foot project includes 344,400 square feet of office space, an 86,100-square-foot stock exchange, meeting rooms, classrooms, a cafeteria, and underground parking for 400 cars and 800 bicycles.
| Aug 11, 2010
RMJM unveils design details for $1B green development in Turkey
International architecture company RMJM today announced details of the $1 billion Varyap Meridian development it is designing in Istanbul’s new residential and business district, which will be one of the "greenest" projects in Turkey. The luxury 372,000-square-meter development on a site totalling 107,000 square meters will be located in the Atasehir district of Istanbul, which the Turkish government intends to transform into the country’s new financial district and business center.