Being an innovative general contractor means walking the fine line between opportunity and risk.
As the GC on a project, you stand to gain the most from the early resolution of constructability coordination issues. But when it comes to performance, it’s also your neck on the line.
Managing hundreds and often thousands of various levels of constructability issues is a BIM/VDC Coordinator's nightmare with the traditional coordination process. Often teams are discussing the same issues from the previous weeks' coordination meetings because issues slipped through the cracks and were not resolved, further compounding the outstanding issues. With increasing project schedules, it is imperative that assigned issues are resolved within the scheduled time.
Model Management and Issue Management are two completely different workflows that need to work in tandem. BIM Track is focused on your issue management workflow. It is complementary to your existing BIM 360 model management workflow and even works if you are distributing models. BIM Track works natively within your clash management solutions like Navisworks or Solibri and within your authoring solutions such as Revit, AutoCAD-based products, Tekla Structures, and more.
BIM Track is a web-based collaboration platform that empowers better BIM coordination workflows. BIM Track becomes a central location for all the information, issues, and communications that team members need for a project. BIM Track tilts the constructability coordination scales in your favor. Let’s look at the top 3 reasons why leading GCs have chosen to use BIM Track as their issue management solution, and how they use it to get the most from their teams.
So what attracts GCs to BIM Track?
Visibility
One of the top challenges we hear daily from GCs is not knowing how their consultants and sub-contractors are progressing against their assigned issues. Traditionally creating reports following coordination meetings is an agonizing task that BIM/VDC coordinators dread. They have no visibility into what the team has resolved until the next coordination meeting, then surprise!
Having visibility to see project-wide how everyone on the project is progressing with their assigned issues is key in mitigating constructability coordination risk.
With BIM Track’s metrics and analytics, GCs get a live view of how the project is progressing. GCs have said having a single page dashboard showing all user activity is enormously beneficial to tracking the performance of the project.
Figure 1.0 BIM Track's project dashboard gives you a project-specific look at what affects your issues, as well as global project activity.
One of the key visibility features is the capability to generate coordination meeting reports with a single click from configurable reporting templates. BIM/VDC coordinators can even use reporting templates to automatically email reports to project participants at scheduled dates and times.
With BIM Track’s API toolkit, GCs are syncing live portfolio analytics and benchmarking to Microsoft Power BI for executive visibility into the project performance of the business.
Figure 2.0 White-labelled Microsoft Power BI dashboards showcase project performance based on BIM Track issues.
Accountability
[Formal issue tracking] doesn't just make sense; it’s critical. It's also fairly easy with the right tools. We use BIM Track specifically due to its ease of use and integration with multiple platforms. With [BIM Track], we are able to hold Trade Contractors accountable for modeling and working with other trades in a timely manner, but also to make sure Design issues are noted and that the Design team can be held accountable for timely resolution of the design issues as well. The Metrics and other benefits are just gravy!
Charles Goin
VDC/BIM Manager
at Howard Shockey & Sons, Inc.
Another major challenge we hear from GCs is how often they are having to review constructability issues from the previous week’s meeting because the individuals that were assigned the issues did not resolve them. Sound familiar?
Having a solution that helps hold project participants accountable for assigned issues is a critical component to a successful project.
As the BIM/VDC coordinator assigns issues to project members with BIM Track, they receive an email notification of the issue with a link directly to the issue that can be viewed natively within their design authoring environment or from within their internet browser with all the instructions of the requested design change. Along with the email notification they receive the assigned due date from the BIM/VDC coordinator of when the issue is expected to be resolved, avoiding any confusion or misunderstanding. Additionally, the day before the issue is due, if the individual responsible has still yet to resolve the issue, BIM Track will automatically send a (friendly) email reminder letting them know the issue is outstanding and that it’s expected to be resolved before tomorrow’s coordination meeting.
Ease of use
The flexibility and intuitiveness of the BIM Track product are unmatched; Haskell is able to quickly launch a project, invite team members, customize zones, phases, teams, and begin analysis and management of coordination items across multiple office locations in no time.
This allows Haskell to maximize efficiency and compress the typical coordination cycle, which translates to project time and cost savings by cutting months off the overall coordination process. BIM Track is a must-have product in our opinion for any BIM power user.
Ryan Camer
Director of Virtual Construction
at The Haskell Company
With BIM Track we have taken a unique approach to not disrupt your existing model management workflow. In fact, you will be surprised how BIM Track complements your existing process and actually automates your workflow.
A key to user adoption is certainly ease of use. Having the BIM Track dialog box within your design authoring environment helping users navigate to the issue within the model with a single click is a major timesaver and one of the many features that design consultants love about BIM Track.
Figure 3.0 An issue being retrieved and resolved in Revit using BIM Track.
Instead of email and screenshots, project participants can raise issues and communicate natively from within their authoring environment while linking issues and communication to assets within the model.
Sound interesting?
These are only three examples of why many of the industry’s top GCs have standardized their issue coordination using BIM Track. BIM Track provides a clear way to give your consultants and subcontractors the answers they need. It encourages teamwork & open, instant communication. No excuses.
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