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_This article is part of a blog series on New technologies, like virtual design and visualization, that are often used in construction project management. When we discuss these technologies, the term used is Virtual Design and Construction (VDC). Stanford University created VDC in 2001 to increase productivity in the construction industry.
VDC is a digital technology that strategically integrates various approaches to manage construction projects. It is more than a 3D model. By adding planning, cost analysis, scheduling, and collaboration. You create a virtual project
VDC is dedicated to improving how the AEC industry organizes, conceptualizes, and executes design and construction to improve the decision-making process, address the construction’s productivity issues, and innovate to build quality constructions.
The VDC's new approach is that planning and constructing are reviewed digitally, at an early stage of the design phase, before any real construction happens, to save time and money. Owners, designers, contractors, subcontractors, and the maintenance team are involved in the project strategy. They collaborate in a virtual environment to evaluate various options such as materials and sequencing.
In VDC you build your project once digitally and once physically, and you apply that concept to the entire construction process.
VDC relies on BIM to set up a 3D digital view of the building and its components.
The "digital twin" is a digital representation of the space occupation in your project. You may visualize, analyze, and optimize all aspects of your building.
The VDC technology enhances your project team collaboration for smoother coordination and communication.
VDC helps you spot issues early in the design phase, reducing rework and enhancing project quality. It covers the project lifecycle, from conceptual design to facility management. It gives you an holistic view of your building.
VDC analyzes time (4D) and cost (5D) of the BIM model, by helping you to visualize the scope sequencing and cost management.
By reducing poor communication throughout the project life, you ensure your team uses the same data, allowing a smooth decision-making process at all stages. This allows you to deliver on time and within budget. As your processes are streamlined, improving your efficiency.
VDC employs many software and tools such as modeling software, project management tools, and collaborative platforms. These tools allow your projects to
VDC demands in residential and commercial construction, the increasing complexity of customer requirements, and the complexity of building processes are fueling the growth of the global VDC market.
Combining VDC and BIM models allows the automation of construction processes and puts the focus on modeling the project and how the construction will appear and work when in use.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the shortage of skills experienced by the construction industry have drawn attention to technology and tools that drive productivity. VDC is a possible solution to deliver projects on time and within budget, improve the building experience at every stage of the project’s life cycle, and translate client expectations and performance objectives into a Building Execution Plan (BEP), to deliver a coordinated implementation and delivery of the project.
The process of VDC modeling of a project starts during the design phase, it describes and visualizes the construction details, and determines the construction process including the operation of the building.
Without BIM and VDC, you will struggle to interact and collaborate as you cannot visualize the entire project life. By describing the elements that make up the building (floors, walls, beams, etc.) you can define the different teams that will execute the activities and mett the objectives of the project.
VDC involves multidisciplinary teams. A VDC specialist generates VDC models and coordinates the various disciplines involved in a project. If your firm does not have a VDC specialist, you can outsource the VDC functions to an external consultant.
The role of the VDC specialist consists of coordinating the work of all the teams. They can move planning and decision-making to the beginning of the construction process to reduce risk, assess performance, reduce costs, avoid scheduling overruns by digitally working out the big problems in the design phase.
The technologies are:
For example, Mortenson Construction, a U.S.-based, top 20 builder, developer, and engineering services provider serving the commercial, institutional, and energy sectors, is using VDC to solve design problems and deliver better services to its clients.
The Singapore VDC Guide is a worldwide reference, in terms of guidelines for the implementation of VDC.
The Framework aims to define the following objectives. Establish a common understanding of the definitions, components, and principles of VDC. Provide a framework to guide VDC implementation in building projects or for organizational improvement.
In the construction industry, according to the ConTech survey, 45% of project management workflows rely on spreadsheets, even in large, complex, and innovative construction projects. Making the process very vulnerable. Programming a spreadsheet is difficult, as errors are challenging to catch before they become a problem, it limits users' access rights, and wrong information is onerous and painful to track and know when it was inputted, by whom, and why.
To illustrate our point, here are some statistics on issues in the construction industry that can be resolved with VDC Reworks represent 4-6% of total project costs and make up 300% of productivity losses. Poor communication, rework, and bad data management cost $177B annually
These risks can be mitigated by using management software on the cloud like Plannerly. Such systems can solve issues with integrations and interoperability, data integrity, planning, and decision-making.
Due to strict deadlines, it is easy not to plan early or plan at all. During the planning and design phases, critical decisions are not made, changes, reworks, and decisions must happen when issues are uncovered. Stakeholders have very little control over the consequences of those changes.
VDC methodology and lean management are the solutions to these issues.
Lean management is a methodology used in VDC that helps construction companies to schedule delivery times with the consent of all team members Lean management in the production phase can use the right materials, agree on tasks collaboratively, and reduce waste (57% in some cases).
They help you eliminate non-added value activities, align with and understand the client’s requirements. Standardization, automation, transparency, and streamlined processes make the optimization of collaborative workflows easy, so the adoption of continuous improvement a must in your organization.
Using lean construction helps you to improve your productivity, reduce costs. Your contract terms are agreed upon and adhered to enhancing your safety and quality The above boosts your customer satisfaction, and allow you to adopt collaborative work and generate higher profit.
Lean teams build virtual models and timelines to understand the project concept, meet client expectations, achieve performance goals. By developing a digital twin of an asset, your teams can work out the construction task sequencing, define plans, design, construct, operate. The project team can share data and capture dependencies in various models when changes are made.
VDC benefits add to the bottom line and ensure its future.as describe below.
Visualizing construction in 3D or immersive technologies helps to identify and mitigate potential safety risks that could arise during construction or once the building is occupied and operational.
Implementing safety measures could avoid damage to the building structure and minimize the risks of accidents. This limits the legal liability for project owners, designers, and construction teams as hazardous situations are avoided before construction starts
30% of the building materials purchased for construction projects end up as waste, due largely to inaccurate estimates and rework.
To reduce waste with VDC, you can use processes like collaboration, modeling the integration of all subsystems and building components, and cross-functional design reviews.
VDC minimizes site visits by architects, engineers, and other professionals as they can assess construction issues and risks remotely, preventing delays and saving costs.
The VDC handover process to project owners upon completion of construction includes a 3D model, which is superior to traditional drawings or blueprints. These models help plan and guide both routine maintenance and required repairs.
Identifying project hazards in traditional construction projects is based on prior experience and risk management expertise. VDC accurately identifies the potential risks of each project to minimize surprises and keep schedules and timelines on track.
For example, Mortenson Construction was able to reduce schedules by 32 days on average using VDC.
VDC permits project teams to assess different energy efficiency scenarios to reduce carbon emissions using innovative and reused materials.
To mitigate the environmental impacts you can run simulations for scaling up electricity consumption in the future.
VDC provides total control of the design and construction process by limiting unforeseen events in the construction process. This speeds up the construction times, optimizes economic and professional resources, and adds value to the project.
VDC focuses on understanding the responsibilities of the various groups and disciplines to improve the detailed model and construction process. This facilitates the distribution of tasks and objectives amongst all stakeholders. It enhances the coordination of trades by avoiding overlaps and unforeseen events.
VDC improves collaboration as you are working on a single model b and facilitates the coordination of the different disciplines. You are then able to transmit information among all those involved, standardize criteria, creating a collective awareness of the status of the project.
For example, some stakeholders do not know how to interpret technical drawings and documents. VDC allows governmental municipality leaders without a technical background, and members of the public to understand what a project encompasses, using visualization tools and animations.
The virtual model of the proposed design and a great BIM Execution Plan allow you to impress owners. Sales and business development teams leverage the VDC model to show the owner or developer alternate design and material options with the ability to make decisions and see differing results instantly, eliminating useless revisions between the VDC team and the sales department.
Using VDC allows you to improve your estimate accuracy. The estimates are reliable for bid purposes, post-award project planning and budgeting, and winning bids resulting in a profitable project. Accurate planning and scheduling
The transparency gained through collaboration, and the integration of virtual design and BIM software allows cost estimates to evolve through the life cycle of the project, to deliver full profit potential.
The size of your construction projects will affect the cost-benefit ratio of the VDC, so before implementing VDC you should make sure that it is justified.
The construction industry's mentality is to implement new systems or tools only if they produce a high short-term return on investment. VDC projects are adding value and making better use of resources, which can take some time to materialize.
Large construction projects in many countries are always late and over budget, for example:
In Boston, the “Big Dig”, a highway project to decongest the town center ended up five times over its initial budget
Montreal Olympic stadium, built in 1976, costs were so hugely over budget that it took 30 years to reimburse the debts
The Brandenburg Airport project in Berlin started in 2006, and the first flights took off in 2020, ten years later than scheduled.
The main reasons for these overruns are lack of communication, poor definition of activities, low productivity.
Investing in VDC implementation may require spending a significant amount of money, with a long-term payoff. Before rejecting VDC, consider that the construction industry's traditional processes is archaic and incoherent.
By moving to VDC, you can help project teams to collaborate more effectively, integrate processes, people, and the product into models.
You can address common sources of risk before they lead to costly, time-consuming rework and tackle big problems like sustainability, safety, and transparency to give all stakeholders access to interactive visualizations of the project.
At the beginning, VDC methodology implies a strong initial investment into new building or infrastructure construction processes, which need to be viewed comprehensively.
Consider a variety of disciplines that must collaborate to account for construction becoming more complex.
AEC firms use VDC in various ways. It is very valuable for complex projects like infrastructure or multi-building projects. Nevertheless, it can be used wherever construction teams can implement it It is an excellent tool for lean construction methodologies and prefabrication.
Driving Vision's BIM expertise diagnostic looks at how you can eliminate waste (time and material) and improve your margins, and the quality of the information provided during the design and construction phases.
A Driving Vision expert will conduct the interviews online and will issue a report and discuss our findings with you. Together, we will decide on the best way to implement the solutions at your pace and according to your budget.
Implementing BIM can be daunting, but Driving Vision is here to help you at the pace you are comfortable with. Get started by getting in touch now
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