To speed the design and fabrication workflow for a customer’s research facility build, North Mechanical Contracting & Service used Trimble® systems, saving an estimated $1 million in costs and cutting by 400 percent the time that would have been needed for traditional materials takeoff tasks. The project required North Mechanical to generate material takeoffs and fabricate all mechanical and plumbing components for a laboratory building in south-side Indianapolis, IN. It represents the company’s largest fabrication contract to date for one of the area’s largest manufacturers.
North Mechanical is well known in the industry for successfully using the integrated project delivery (IPD) method to deliver challenging industrial projects on time, under budget, and with fewer risks. IPD is a collaborative approach to project delivery that integrates people, systems, business structures, and practices of all stakeholders to optimize project results and increase value to the owner.
Dustin Allen, project and building information modeling (BIM) manager for North Mechanical, explained that technology is fundamental to the IPD process and critical to optimizing the design-to-fabrication-to-construction workflow. “Today we take on a lot of industrial IPD builds, which means we have a much bigger role in the actual project design piece,” said Allen. “There is a real need for more intelligent, fabrication-ready models that have the actual system components included. That’s why we turned to Trimble SysQue®.”
Technology Improves Efficiency
Traditionally, manual processes for this type of work included measurement of end-to-pipe and pipe-to-hanger dimensions, manual quantity takeoff, and individual component labeling. With the typical fabrication cut sheets consisting of about 50 pieces, elevations, and more than 30 fittings each, the process is tedious, prone to errors, and inefficient. Looking to eliminate unknowns and create a more automated and accurate fabrication workflow, North Mechanical adopted Trimble SysQue and the Autodesk® Revit® platform—first for the fabrication of hangers and then for pipes and components.
“We knew we wanted to eliminate manual steps for fabricators and improve the accuracy and efficiency of everything from fabrication down to installation,” said Allen. “When you add fittings into SysQue, the model is smart enough to give you the pipe length, and when you get to the end, pipe length is reflected in the schedule. You can cut 100 pieces at five feet and put pieces on with fittings with extreme accuracy. We knew this would save a tremendous amount of time and rework, and the big payoff would be big savings for our customer.”
North Mechanical uses SysQue to design fully constructible Revit LOD 400 models based on manufacturing-specific content. Using SysQue in Revit enhances the model of systems with materials and sizes based on actual manufacturer products by name and part number. As a result, fabricators can produce pipes, fittings, and hangers much more quickly and accurately than using conventional methods. Allen explained that with SysQue, the model includes relevant fields for spool drawings for fabrication and installation, such as piece number, diameter, nominal size, size, family and type, system classification, system abbreviation, material, count, and length.
The laboratory project also helped North Mechanical establish a completely new fabrication workflow for producing piping spools and fabricated skids that can be replicated for other projects. That includes importing raw component data into Excel and Word programs to easily organize, print, and apply labels to each
hanger and component.
“Having this level of manufacturing detail on our hanger and component labels increased our efficiency and allowed us to cut our workforce in half during the peak of the job.”
—Dustin Allen, Project/BIM Manager, North Mechanical
“Having this level of manufacturing detail on our hanger and component labels increased our efficiency and allowed us to cut our workforce in half during the peak of the job,” said Allen. “By allowing us to fabricate roughly 90 percent of components offsite, we also reduced our footprint on the job and allowed for increased efficiency among our partners because they had more insight into and they had longer to complete their work,” he added.
“Our new workflow with SysQue and Revit has helped improve collaboration with fabricators tremendously.”
—Dustin Allen, Project/BIM Manager, North Mechanical
Using SysQue on the lab project, North Mechanical fabricated 60,000 linear feet of piping and over six dozen skids and preassembled modules. Allen believes that the solution has strengthened the quality of the piping and component design by providing fabricators with access to 3D, information-rich models very early in the prefabrication process. “Our new workflow with SysQue and Revit has helped improve collaboration with fabricators tremendously,” said Allen. “They now ask more meaningful questions, which leads to better coordination between us, less rework, and higher quality design. This new process eliminated 90 percent of rework on the lab build, which is huge. We had zero change orders due to clashes or coordination issues on that job, which is outstanding. The intelligent 3D model gives fabricators a better sense spatially of the components and eliminates problems before they happen.”
“This new process eliminated 90 percent of rework on the lab build, which is huge. We had zero change orders due to clashes or coordination issues on that job, which is outstanding.”
—Dustin Allen, Project/BIM Manager, North Mechanical
Leveraging Just-in-Time Ordering
North Mechanical is also generating material takeoffs from the schedules developed with SysQue and Revit. Vendors receive a part list with approximately 1,000 line items, organize and accept the spreadsheets, and place orders directly using North Mechanical’s schedules. In most cases, components are delivered in two to three days—enabling fabricators to have the exact materials they need, precisely when they need them.
Allen estimates he has ordered 90 percent of all materials for the lab project from his desk with 100-percent accuracy in terms of the precise number of components, fittings, and valves required. This precision allows Allen and his team to be more focused and deliberate with fabrication and management on the job. He estimates it can cost tens of thousands of dollars in restocking fees and labor costs to perform takeoffs using conventional methods. With SysQue, North Mechanical has eliminated those expenses and other possible unknown expenses required for takeoff. Altogether, Allen estimates today the company is saving 400 percent of time compared with traditional materials takeoff tasks.
More Accurate Layout and Installation
North Mechanical is also using Trimble Field Link for MEP, a solution that consists of the Trimble Field Link software powering a ruggedized tablet connected to a Trimble Robotic Total Station for laying out hangers and assigning naming conventions to embedded structures in the field. This approach reduces errors and extends the BIM workflow by allowing North Mechanical to export hanger points or cable tray attachment locations from the 3D MEP models to the field for simplified field location and staking.
Overall, Allen believes that one of the biggest competitive advantages of using SysQue and Revit is that the platforms have improved their models and they deliver a higher quality of design and higher quality of installation. “With SysQue and Revit we’re able to validate install with the BIM model first, which increases savings and reduces rework and change orders required dramatically,” said Allen. “Overall, I would estimate we achieved at least a 10-percent shared cost savings using SysQue and Revit on the lab build, resulting in about $1 million savings in total. Best of all, it made our customer very, very happy and we now have this streamlined fabrication workflow in place that we’ll leverage, and it will make us more competitive going forward.”
For more information, visit www.trimble.com. MCAA thanks Trimble for being a supporter of MCAA18 and providing a convention souvenir.
North Mechanical will present on best practices at the MCAA 2018 Fabrication Conference.
