By Shane O’Regan
Constructing Info Modeling (BIM) know-how is just not a cure-all for the development trade. However a rising physique of proof exhibits that BIM gives challenge stakeholders a brand new order of development precision and understanding, beginning with unprecedented knowledge and visualization collaboration throughout all trades.
Giant, complicated development initiatives don’t have any room for errors and each millimeter of deviation could make an enormous distinction. Robotic options will help reduce errors and scale back rework by making certain format and measurement inside tolerances on your duties with out sacrificing velocity or productiveness.
Towards this rising digital-first backdrop is a military of specialty contractors within the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) trades. Some determinedly embrace the brand new regular. Others proceed to weigh their cost-benefit choices in opposition to acquainted, albeit fading, analog measurement practices. With their central position within the lifetime of any constructing challenge, MEP contractors are all the time in a main place to be a number of the first movers for adopting new applied sciences.
Going All-in
For MEP supply particularly, there are a variety of different causes which place it centrally within the BIM ecosystem. Take format, for instance. It’s not getting any simpler for MEP format groups to seize distances and angles for hanger, anchor, sleeve, field, pipework, cable trays and different building-service parts, particularly with right this moment’s curved, nonlinear constructing designs. The calls for of prefabricated assemblies additionally require tolerances that push conventional measuring instruments such because the tape measure, string and theodolite to extremes.
The probabilities of error might be excessive. Is the tape measure regular? Is that basically one of the best reference level? Does the string mimic the curve? Even a minor measurement error can echo downstream in sudden methods. Small surprise development budgets and insurance coverage insurance policies sometimes anticipate measurement errors and omissions.
Robotic Complete Station
The importance of digital measurement know-how is its unerring potential to pinpoint format coordinates straight from the BIM mannequin, taking the all-too-error-prone strings, tape measures and plumb strains off the desk. For instance, knowledge might be transmitted again to the workplace to confirm exact placement of the format positions and allows faster determination making primarily based on millimeter correct true discipline knowledge.
Actual-World Examples
With automation, laser-placed precision, and single-operator ease come velocity. Ryan Hoggatt, director of producing for UMC, a full-service MEP contracting firm primarily based in Washington state, is aware of the earlier than and after effectively. “We have been engaged on a clear room facility that was modeled for miles and miles of under-floor piping. They initially needed us at hand draw the detailing due to a schedule concern. That may have taken a whole lot of hours. Our operator went out and scanned the ground and introduced the information again. We completed in lower than every week what would have taken at the very least a month. All in 3D, too. Now the consumer desires your entire facility scanned.”
Hoggat additionally described how its determination to put money into a digital measurement instrument was born out of necessity. The day of reckoning arrived after finishing a grueling boiler room improve for Boeing, which required the fabrication of 1000’s of spools. “I mainly mentioned there’s bought to be a greater method than tapes and lasers,” he mentioned.
Miller Electrical Co. is the nation’s largest and oldest electrical contractor, working in all 50 states. Much like UMC, Miller is dependent upon the fabrication of huge off-site modules utilizing the BIM mannequin. Alan Creel, vp of pre-construction providers for Miller, defined: “If we’re sure we’re designing and putting in exactly, then we’re capable of shortly set up a lot bigger coordinated assemblies. We’re getting bigger with each challenge.”
That rising confidence stems from a robotic complete station. Miller is commonly the primary to put in its assemblies on the job website. That places it at a measurement drawback. Lots of the reference factors one would possibly ordinarily count on, equivalent to HVAC ductwork, aren’t put in. That publicity prompted the robotic complete station funding.
Creel added, “We will lay out in an empty discipline without having for string strains, tapes or offsetting. It’s made an enormous distinction in the best way we work. We now practice all our union electricians to make use of the robotic complete station. We expect it’s important to our commerce.”
The Sack Firm, primarily based in Statesboro, is a full-service MEP contracting firm that has served the Southeast United States for 76 years. It used modeling and format know-how as wanted however hesitated to amass in-house robotic complete station functionality till a current college development challenge. To check the brand new system, the corporate used it to double-check what it had beforehand laid out by string and tape. The robotic complete station recognized a number of errors that have been mounted earlier than set up.
“Having the ability to see issues in a 3D setting makes it simpler to grasp what you’re looking at. Quite than going via a whole lot of pages of design paperwork, you activate a pill. Utilizing the robotic complete station ties our work along with BIM, which saves us money and time and reduces general challenge dangers,” mentioned Brandon Spainhour, the corporate’s BIM/CAD coordinator. “We’ve got one particular person devoted to the robotic complete station. Nobody is taken off a crew to digitally measure.”
Conclusion
MEP contractors’ want for placement and fabrication velocity and precision makes them logical BIM advocates. They play a central position within the lifetime of any constructing challenge. Their detailing, set up and fabrication duties should coordinate with the marketing consultant’s 3D mannequin, making them particularly reliant on BIM methodologies for a profitable challenge supply.
The MEP contractors’ enabling instrument—the robotic complete station—is essential for coordinating design adjustments to the MEP workplace staff in actual time from the sector. Clashes are resolved sooner and extra precisely, eliminating pricey challenge delays and rework legal responsibility.
Shane O’Regan is Director iCON, Constructing Building Discipline Portfolio for Leica Geosystems, a part of Hexagon. Hexagon’s Geosystems division supplies a complete portfolio of digital options that seize, measure, and visualize the bodily world and allow data-driven transformation throughout trade ecosystems.