Virtual design and construction

1. Stutter Medical Centre Castro Valley: Case Study of an IPD Project
SMCCV Project – state of the art 130 bed hospital in Castro Valley, CA; a $320 million project
Integrated Project Delivery System – integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a
process that collaboratively harness the talents and insights of all participants to reduce waste and
optimize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication and construction
- Tight collaboration between owners, A/Es, and builders from early design till project handover
Reasons to choose IPD for this project as project had many challenges that could not be met by using
traditional DBB process
- Many facilities required mandated seismic improvements – IPD good way to reduce time delays
and budget overruns typically associated with large projects
- Hard deadline for both design and construction
- Accelerated schedule - 30% more than conventional
IPD Team consisting of people from all trades along with the owner and A/E was formed
- No GMP set for project from start, instead profit sharing model adopted to finish the project on
time and under budget; this profit sharing contract will be signed before the construction starts
- Firms devoted full time employees to the project
- State Regulatory Agency takes 16-24 months to review project after submission and provide
approval
o Will lead to delays
o So, team used phased review approach
Complicated shape of design and added schedule and budget constraints led to adoption of BIM model
- BIM model was created first and paper documents were done at later stages when required
- BIM model used for quantity takeoff, estimation and fabrication as well
- Real time access to project information by using Bentley’s ProjectWise information management
and documentation control
o Allowed smooth flow of information without delay
o Allowed for direct inputs from fabricators to increase efficiency
- Continuous design reviews done to allow cross functional teams to collaborate and contribute
their knowledge for better results
- Solibri Model Checker used to check compliance with accessibility and ADA codes
- Value Stream Mapping – visual method of documenting workflow to identify value added and
nonvalue added components – use data to maximize value, eliminate waste and save time by
streamlining workflows
- Team meeting are important for IPD approach - regular meeting held bi-weekly – people attend
the meeting physically or connected remotely (GoToMeeting) if unable to be physically present
o Model reviewed together – questions and doubts that other discipline people have are
cleared by experts from particular discipline in question
o Problems can be detected and resolved almost immediately – example is discussed
where minor structural changes in the model resulted in clashes with other

2. components, structural team was asked to join the meeting remotely and matter was
resolved in no time.
Advantages of IPD observed on the project
- Structural design time reduced from 15 months to 8 months
- Collaboration from different trades resulted in better design quality
- IPD requires people to meet on regular basis which counts for billable hours towards design
cost, but use of IPD has proved to be overall less costly than conventional approach – time spent
in meetings reduced time that would have been spent on redesigning and remodeling
- Incorporating IPD approach for a project requires strong willingness from the owner, and also
from various trades involved in the project to collaborate effectively for success of the project
o IPD promotes effective communication among various members of team
The VDC Scorecard: Evaluation of AEC Projects and Industry Trends
Most studies regarding planning, adoption, technological use and performance of VDC are based on
case-studies approach. Case Study approach has limitations as it does not provide enough insights and is
not strong as a toll that can be used for making decisions regarding adoption and implementation of
VDC on a project. This paper tries to change that scenario as it provides a statistical approach to it.
Statistically established insights are more powerful toll in aiding decision making easy.
- VDC Scorecard measures project performance in 4 major areas: Planning, Adoption, Technology
and Performance
- Areas are further broken into 10 Divisions, and under each Division there are 56 detailed
practice measurements in total
- VDC Scorecard correlates VDC performance factors with case study based observations and
hypotheses
- 51 correlation pairs observed – 6 VDC Scorecard Area-based correlations, and 45 VDC Scorecard
Division-based correlations – Figure shows the various Areas, Divisions and Measures and
percentage weightage of each in the overall VDC Scorecard
- Weighted Average Percentage of each VDC Area is taken to get the overall score
- Interviews for data collection from 108 unique projects done; over 150 VDC Scorecards made
o Data collected from AEC projects from 13 countries in North America, Europe and Asia
and 15 states across USA
o Project delivery method also range from DBB to IPD and IFoA (Integrated Form of
Agreement) – evaluated from pre-design phase to end of construction and O&M
- VDC Scorecard Results – Average Overall score = 50% ; Planning Average – 50% ; Adoption
Average – 56% ;Technology Average – 48% ; Performance Average – 47%
o Conventional Practices – below 25% - 2 projects
o Typical Practices – 25% to 50% - 49 projects
o Advanced Practices – 50% to 75% - 52 projects
o Best Practices – 75% to 90% - 5 projects
o Innovative Practices - >90% - 0 projects
 Scores show that VDC is commonly used, but yet not adopted as a prominent
tool in AEC industry - Industrial and Healthcare industry scored more than other
industries – stringent norms in these industries make VDC a good choice

3. Figure: VDC Areas, Divisions and Measures and percentage weightage of each in the overall VDC
Scorecard
Results of Correlation Analysis:-
- Planning Area: Shared belief of VDC among stakeholders is good for implementation of VDC.
Formalized documentation of VDC objectives is first step of VDC collaboration and has
significant effect on the integrated performance of project teams; establishing quantitative
objectives contributes significantly to project’s success. General VDC guidelines should be
developed which can also be adopted by future projects
- Adoption Area: Early engagement of stakeholders and their role in decision making is important
for success of VDC. Frequent meeting should be scheduled to track efficiency and to resolve
issues; promote innovative communication and facilitation methods like Integrated Concurrent
Engineering (ICE) sessions. Incentives should be given to all stakeholders as a motivation to work
together for the overall benefit of project
- Technology Area: Different levels of LOD should be established for different stages of the project
– the amount of detail that is put in LOD should also be decided for every stage in such a way
that enough detail is available for each stakeholder to do their work in that stage. High
interoperability among the softwares used on a project should be encouraged to avoid time lost
in making information from one software to be useful in other software – good interoperability
means data from one software can be imported to another and used readily.
- Performance Area: set up targets for each performance category at the planning stage. Targets
can be broken down to milestones; constant track should be kept on them and performance

4. report created, readjustments can be done if required. Review of performance and outcomes
should be done on a regular basis – weekly or more often
Case Study 1- Healthcare Project in California
- IPD method used for construction
- High collaboration between owner, end user, designers and general contractor
- VDC consultant kept from pre-design phase till end of construction
- Special contractors involved in the design phase of project to provide inputs for pre-fabrication
- Less RFIs, change orders, accelerated permission process, fast response time of design team on
construction problems, better energy performance
Case Study 2- Museum Project in Europe
- Had many challenges – project team consisted of people from 10 firms located worldwide,
highly complex design of museum
- Team collaborated to include VDC in planning phase with objectives which included better
communication, facility performance, safety and project quality
- Had a separate consulting team for adoption of digital process – it provided training and tutorial
on digital software to design division and developed innovative tools which were specifically
used in this project
- Multidisciplinary collaboration achieved using cloud model management system – effectively
organized and managed large amount of data
- Finished BIM model contained data not only for construction, but also for O&M – provide
maintenance routine for different components
Success and Shortcomings of VDC
- 86% projects agreed towards the value addition to the project by adoption of VDC
o Value addition in form of cost saving, short construction duration, more efficient and
sustainable design, less rework, clash detection and real-time problem solving, and
better collaboration and project delivery
- Many AEC firms used VDC, but failed to track and monitor quantifiable metrics which are key
performance indicators. VDC needs systematic monitoring via quantifiable metrics which is one
of the shortcomings