Paperless planning

The 10-story headquarters of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska in Omaha will save an estimated $5 million in design and construction costs by using new high-tech tools that save time, reduce waste and boost productivity.

The $98 million project at 67th and Frances Streets in the Aksarben Village development illustrates the construction industry's embrace of computer technology as it migrates from architect's desk to craftsman's tools in the field.

Consider the savings:

» A project this size would have generated thousands of pages of blueprints and construction documents. Instead, a computer program integrates plans electronically, automatically updating information for contractors and subcontractors.

» Software “builds” three-dimensional computer models before the first nail is pounded. The virtual building shows “clashes” where beams, pipes or other structures try to occupy the same space, so they can be moved before work begins. The system also can resolve potential safety hazards early on.

» The building's owner gets detailed computer images and specifications on the complete building, making its operation and later renovations easier.

»Subcontractors, armed with exact specifications, can build complex structures such as plumbing junctions at their own shops rather than having to fabricate them on-site, reducing time and wasted material.

“In the old days, you would have been looking at hard blueprints and making sure everybody was looking at the up-to-date versions,” said Janet Richardson, senior vice president for Blue Cross. “This is very slick. It really has saved a lot of anguish and re-work within the building.”

“There used to be a lot of cutting and pasting,” said Don Mohlman, president of the building's developer and owner, Tetrad Development. “Now it's all in the computer.”

Mark Chalkley, senior associate for the architecture and engineering firm Leo A. Daly, said the computerized approach is becoming the norm.

The Tetrad building, to be occupied by Blue Cross starting in January under a long-term lease, is the biggest Omaha building project that Daly and Kiewit Corp., the contractor, have undertaken with the computerized system, known as building information modeling or BIM.

Kiewit also is the general contractor and plans to use the BIM systems on an even bigger structure, the TD Ameritrade headquarters just starting construction in the Old Mill office area near 108th Street and West Dodge Road.

Richardson oversaw construction of ConAgra Foods' headquarters campus in downtown Omaha more than 20 years ago, built with traditional blueprints. Now her Blue Cross job sends her to weekly meetings on the Tetrad building.

“It's saved time doing it this way,” she said. “It's cleared up any confusion there might have been. If anybody has a question you can pull it up on the screen, and everybody's looking at the same document.”

The economic slowdown prompted more architects, owners and contractors to use the process to save money, speeding up its adoption nationwide, said Catherine Palmer, marketing manager for AEC Industries, maker of the Autodesk Revit software being used for the Tetrad project.

Surveys of contractors found that familiarity with the system grew from 5 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2009. Use of the process is expanding to roads and other infrastructure, Palmer said, and nearly half of commercial building projects in North America used at least some form of BIM last year.

In the Tetrad building construction office, Kory Kyllo, a project manager for Kiewit, calls up a 3-D image on a big-screen monitor. Using a computer mouse, he zooms inside the structure's first floor, viewing its innards in different colors — blue for water pipes, orange for electrical conduits, green or red for duct work, white for beams and columns.

He asks the computer to find places where the interior systems would obstruct one another. A list appears, and he clicks on one item, calling up an image of two building members clashing.

He shifts to a floor plan with a small red square highlighted. When he clicks on the square, he sees a document that requires a door to be moved from its original location.

“We post all these electronically,” Kyllo said, rather than making copies of change orders, assembling them into binders and faxing them to subcontractors.

“Everybody's going to be carrying a laptop some day,” said Norm Tworek, training coordinator for Steamfitters and Plumbers Local 464 in Omaha.

Younger members training to be journeymen already are familiar with computers and what they can do, Tworek said, and older union members are coming in for computer classes.

On the job these days, he said, a worker might get an e-mail about a change in the project. “Within seconds they're starting it. It's very much a time-saver.”

Saving time is part of the sales pitch when Waldinger Corp. bids for a subcontracting job, said President Blaine Wilcoxson. For the Tetrad project, workers used the 3-D computer models to build bathroom plumbing structures at the company's shop. Instead of taking up space at the construction site for three weeks, installation took only two days.

“We can fully design a bathroom bank and fabricate it off-site under controlled conditions with a known work force and higher quality for less money to the owner, and pressure-test it before it's installed,” he said. “That's instead of working on the eighth floor of a building with the cold blowing in and a thin layer of ice on the floor.”

Depending on the job, Wilcoxson said, the system can reduce fabricating costs between 15 percent and 40 percent.

Other Omaha construction projects are benefiting from high-tech systems, too.

At Midtown Crossing at Turner Park, workers for Weitz Co. used robotic devices to locate about 2,000 points on each floor for walls, doors, pipes, electrical connections and other features, said Rob Zimmerman, a Weitz project executive.

The system has been available for several years but was especially valuable in this case because the main Midtown buildings are curved rather than square, making it difficult to measure exact locations manually.

Weitz also is using 3-D modeling for the Elements hotel at 33rd and Dodge Streets, the last piece of the Midtown development. The 3-D version can show potential safety hazards, such as a top-floor location where it would be difficult for a worker to securely tie a safety line to guard against a fall.

“It's a lot better to find that as we're building a virtual model than as we're getting up there and putting somebody in a potentially hazardous situation,” Zimmerman said.

The 3-D models can show building owners details down to the type of grout used in the bathroom tile.

“We can show the customer what it looks like, and they can make some changes, the details that may affect the aesthetics or the functionality of the space,” he said, often without charge if the timing is early.

Weitz did a case study on reinforcing steel used in the walls of two similar projects, one with standard drawings and the other with 3-D modeling. The 3-D project's exacting measurements saved about $200,000, used 22 percent less material, yielded a 32 percent gain in productivity and took 15 percent less time than the standard project.

A typical project ends up with a big bundle of leftover steel, Zimmerman said.

“We had less than 0.1 percent waste in the reinforcing steel. To me, that's the eye-popping statistic.”

Contact the writer:

444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com

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