Special Report: 1.12.2010

Posted by Joe Salimando on Tuesday, January 12, 2010

ECOBUILD 4: SHEET METAL CONTRACTOR ON BIM

Dee Cramer's experience . . . relevant?

By Joe Salimando

The final sessions of EcoBuild, on Dec. 10 in the D.C. Convention Center, were to start at 3 p.m. Despite a strong drive to jump into my car and avoid rush hour, I stayed -- to hear Matt Cramer, president, and Steve Hunt, BIM/CAD manager, of Dee Cramer, Inc. (Holly, Mich.), a sheet metal contractor, talk about "BIM for Subcontractors."

First, some background:

1. Several years ago, when I was a marketing consultant to the SMACNA-SMWIA labor-management group (in the sheet metal industry), Dick Cramer was involved in the joint committee to which I reported -- and was President for a year of SMACNA, the sheet metal contractors' group. I got to know (and like) this contractor.

2. Dee Cramer's involvement in BIM, as described by Dick in a presentation at one national event, was stunning. His company handled the HVAC work at a brand new General Motors plant. The information on the HVAC ductwork was fed from the building information model (the BIM) -- the data from the computer model of the plant -- into Cramer's computer-controlled sheet-metal-cutting machines. That's how the HVAC duct for the plant was fabricated. Needless to say, it wasn't a small amount of duct!

3. Here's the BIG finish: NO WASTE. Nothing was thrown away. Nothing had to be redone. What came out of the BIM and went into Dee Cramer's machines was, to use a word, Perfect.

4. No waste from a major subcontractor in a major construction job? YES. That's the big story.

Dick Cramer talked about this (to a group of his fellow sheet-metal contractors) when he might have kept it to himself. That was exemplary, because NO WASTE is a tremendous competitive advantage for any construction subcontractor -- in any field, including electrical. It's a huge edge.

 

Update & Extension

What I learned on 12/10/09 was that Dee Cramer Inc. has taken that competitive advantage and run with it. Yes, Matt's dad has stepped back (considerably) from day-to-day involvement in running his family-owned company. But Matt is still out there, and the company is still taking advantage of -- and talking about -- BIM.

Talking BIM for subcontractors: Steve Hunt (left) and Matt Cramer.

"I've had people tell me that we shouldn't be sharing this with the industry," Matt told me. "But our industry needs to come into the 21st century. It will be better for our company if all of us do it, and the industry advances together. We can eliminate a lot of waste with BIM."

What about the electrical construction industry and its use of BIM? Several notes.

a. In November, Frank T. MacInnis, chairman/CEO of EMCOR Group -- home of the nation's largest electrical contracting enterprise -- spoke to the Construction User's Roundtable at its annual meeting (as keynoter). Topic: Beyond BIM. I tried, and failed, to get a copy of the guy's' remarks; EMCOR's PR people told me (proudly, but to my dismay) that FTM speaks without notes -- which makes the fact that he generally makes a lot of sense pretty darn remarkable, doesn't it?

b. I've also heard that EMCOR Group is spreading BIM (as a "must") to all of its operations. That's a VERY IMPORTANT "However" here, however: EMCOR is also the home to the nation's largest mechanical contracting operation, too. The mechanical contracting industry, like the sheet-metal side, is big on BIM (for very good reasons). So perhaps FTM's topic both makes a lot of sense and isn't necessarily representative of the electrical construction biz.

c. Despite that, I have the feeling that many electrical contractors ARE getting involved in BIM -- at least, the bigger companies. WHY? Because many owners of larger projects are getting interested in BIM, not the least of which is the federal government. The General Services Administration (responsible for finding a place to go to work for about 1 million non-Defense federal workers) is a pioneer in BIM. It is working, at least count, on 20+ new structures on which it is insisting that everyone use BIM. "Everyone," you can bet, includes the ECs on those jobs.

d. Matt Cramer's take on the EC angle: He's talked to electrical contractors about BIM, and he gets a so-so reaction. Some know about it; some don't; some don't want to hear much about it. He's mystified as to how some ECs can remain so "old school" . . . but then . . . unlike your humble reporter, he's not 56 years old! He also told me that there was an attendee at EcoBuild that he (and Steve) talked with, a CAD guy who works for an EC. I talked with them about who that fellow is; he works for a well-known NECA-member electrical contractor.

For a look at GSA's efforts on BIM, start on this page (and continue to the various subpages indexed on the left of that page).

 

What BIM Does Now & Could Do

Hunt spoke about how BIM is now used on large construction projects for "clash detection" -- which means, to eliminate the many, many (thousands!) of places in a typical large project where the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing contractors run into each other. This can mean clashes in space (you can't fit all of that duct and pipe into the limited amount of space) or time (the job schedule has the mechanical workers and electrical workers installing "stuff" in the same at the same time.

That never works out very well!

Using the BIM computer model, the clashes in space and/or time are detected in advance. They are resolved in meetings (which take place before construction starts). The conflicts DISAPPEAR. Here's what this does:

FOR THE OWNER -- eliminates one heck of a lot of change orders.

FOR SUBCONTRACTORS -- eliminates the possibility of delays of days or even weeks. With the project scheduling's kinks ironed out before the work gets starting, things can keep rolling along. Field productivity soars (in every trade).

FOR ALL CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTORS -- it allows any contractor working on the jobsite to "focus on just-in-time processes," Hunt said. Call it JIT.

How to think about that, from Dee Cramer Inc.'s point-of-view: Without scheduling bumps and kinks, there is a reduced need to store HVAC duct on site, just-in-case. The company can fabricate the HVAC duct off-site, ship it to the jobsite, and install it -- reducing the need to handle and re-handle the material. Because it's not stored on the site, it doesn't inadvertently take on some damage. Because it's not lying around for days to weeks, no one trips over it (in other words: NO safety hazards are created by duct not stored on site).

 

Electrical Applications (Just A Few For Now)

What does THAT have to do with electrical contractors? After all, Dee Cramer Inc. isn't into pipe and wire, is it? So perhaps there is nothing here for the electricals, especially those who are "old school" and don't want to hear about BIM.

But refer back a few weeks, to articles here about older workers in electrical construction, jobsite productivity -- and prefabrication as a possible partial solution. Perhaps BIM's solutions might mean a lot to an EC using such ideas. If a contractor prefabricates electrical assemblies off-site, it will be highly productive to ship them to the site and install them the same day (again, instead of storing the prefabbed electrical stuff somewhere on the site).

We're talking here about extending the productivity benefits of the prefabrication via tight scheduling.

Additionally, there's the fact that jobs designed properly -- and rechecked by a computer -- have less waste. There should be a greatly reduced need for just-in-case over-ordering, at the very least. AND: Hunt pointed out that, with the contractor confident of the job schedule for a pleasant change on a BIM-involved job, there are "no interruptions to work flow." This actually happens in real life! "The result," he said, "is higher productivity in the field."

That is true for Dee Cramer, but it won't be any less true for an electrical contractor -- or for the plumber or the carpenter.

ECs who migrate to projects that use BIM will find a new universe. There will be fewer change orders (no more lottery tickets!). There will e a reduced need tor revise and revise and revise drawings and as-built drawings.

In theory, a contractor who becomes confident in the role BIM plays will be able to sharp his pencil. He can bid or negotiate the job tighter (for less gross money) -- and yet make more money at the same time!

How's THAT? By reducing the risk that the electrical contractor has to take on (and routinely now does on most jobs), BIM will lead savvy ECs to submit lower bids. That will lead them to win more jobs. And, they'll make more money on those jobs, thanks in large part to smooth-run jobs (schedules that work as well in the real world as they are drawn up to do on paper).

Does all that sound like a fantasy? The folks at Dee Cramer Inc. don't think so. Having met the father and now the son, and listened closely (many times to Dick, once to Matt) -- I'm pretty doggone sure they know their onions!