On February 11, 2009, Zetlin & De Chiara LLP organized a roundtable discussion on Building Information Modeling. Michael J. Vardaro, a partner of Zetlin & De Chiara, moderated the first in a series of discussions planned to facilitate the exchange of information between owners, design professionals, contractors and subcontractors, to advance the implementation and use of BIM in the construction industry. The participants were James Vandezande, Digital Design Manager of the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP; William Sharples, Principal of SHoP Construction; Jonathan Mallie, Principal and Managing Director of SHoP Construction; and John A. Rapaport, General Counsel and Director of Operations, of Component Assembly Systems, Inc. The unique backgrounds and experiences of the panel provided the basis for an informative discussion of some of the issues the construction industry faces in implementing BIM.
John Rapaport
Jonathan Mallie
William Sharples
James Vandezande
THE DEFINITION & MEANING of BIM
MV: Often times, the line distinguishing 3-D models and Building Information Modeling gets blurred. What is BIM, and when does a project qualify as a BIM project?
JR: Component Assembly Systems, a drywall subcontractor, saw early on that with technology you can interrelate all the different values and the different costing and all the things we do in the construction process. It starts as an internal process with each company looking at what BIM is in terms of information, how information flows within the company, and then how you interact with the rest of the construction community. What we have seen in the industry is that BIM is used to look at clash detection and ways to reduce RFIs after the bidding process. Also, pieces of projects that require shop drawings or additional detail, like a curtain wall design, may be modeled by a consultant during the construction process.
JV: I want to throw out two statements which I always tell people, “BIM is a process, not a tool,” and “BIM is in the eye of the beholder.” BIM to an architect or engineer is a lot different than it is to a subcontractor and an owner. There are some fundamental tenets of what BIM is. It has to be 3-D, model-based, and the “I” in BIM needs to be incorporated in some form or fashion. What does this mean? It means you have an object in a model that needs to know what it is. It can’t just be a solid. It needs to know whether it’s a door, or a wall or a toilet. It needs to know to some degree when it’s going to be built. And the behavior – when they put a door object into the wall object, how does that wall behave? Does it cut the opening where the door needs to be? If a door is moved, does the wall opening move with it? If a wall is moved, do the doors in that wall move with it? All of this kind of behavior defines what Building Information Modeling is.
WS: BIM is not new, it is a reinvention. The issue we’re having right now is not so much with the model, but the protocols in which you build in the job trailer environment. When I worked in construction in the 80’s in Washington D.C., the supers would establish the protocols in the job trailers. How drawings would be checked, how you would do quantity and place take-offs and so forth. It translated all the way to the foremen in the field and, ultimately, to the subs. This process does not exist for BIM. The focus of Building Information Modeling is communication management. The key word we use with our subs and contractors is trust. Trust comes down to how you resolve issues such as coordination issues, and other problems that come up that ultimately move the project forward.
RE-DEFINING ROLES
MV: BIM offers many valuable advantages – conflict detection, visualization of the project and cost estimating are just a few commonly acknowledged. But to realize the full potential of BIM, the roles of the various project participants must be redefined. How must the roles change to facilitate the transformation to the BIM process?
WS: It’s the communication. It’s training our design staff, primarily architects. How do you communicate in a new way to the work force? The whole protocol in which you communicate with your subs and contractors does not exist and this is something SHoP is focusing on with its staff. The biggest challenge SHoP Construction has taken on is training our design staff, on the SHoP Architects side, on how to communicate this information clearly and succinctly with the subs to gain their confidence. It’s really the connection to the actual workforce in the field that we’re focusing on.
JM: This is one of the reasons we formed SHoP Construction. To start out, we are going to team up with general contractors, to find someone who is going to be onboard with this. We develop an agreement with them that we are going to carry out this process in this way. Eventually, you are bringing these industries together. General contractors need to be open to integrating their companies with the design force up front.
WS: That goes with shared risk though. It’s less so on the contractor side because they are carrying all of the bonds, and ultimately, the project on their shoulders, but what can the design side take? On our private work and our development work, we are partners in this. We put our money where our mouth is. That means we don’t send our fabrication cut files to a contractor to figure out how to make them. We figure it out in our office. Whether it is a curvilinear brick-precast wall or faceted metal façade, those files are done in our offices and they’re sent out to the fabricators. We tell fabricators “you cut from these files.” We develop means and methods with our installers. But again, those issues of tolerance and risks are shared. Suddenly, the contractor says there is no risk for me here – I can focus my risk issues on other things, other than the façade. These are the ways we start to develop these relationships of trust. Ultimately, this venture, this joining of these two different industries together comes down to “What are you going to do for me?” This is going to create the ability to move forward.
JR: This goes back to the master-builder concept. The architect was always the master-builder. The idea is a sound one but it does raise the question “Where does the GC/CM fit in and what is its role?” I think the public works should be the first on board. They should have databases looking at best value bids. Now you look at the idea of rating contractors. You can’t go anywhere and see who the best subcontractor in New York is. The government should be looking at ways to build information to get the best contractors out, and then these jobs will require a certain level of competency to bid. Right now, there is no such requirement. The government should be the one requiring better ways to work, not just comparing numbers from companies which aren’t the same. They’re addicted to “lowest price” and the state government can’t handle anything different. Do we want the best actors? Are we going to encourage best behavior in a way through contracting?
IMPLEMENTING BIM
MV: I am sure that BIM sounds great to everyone, but the real challenge is how to move to BIM from the environment we have all known for so long. What needs to be done to get a company ready to offer services on a BIM project?
JR: In 2009, most contractors have not adopted BIM. Most are not even experimenting with it. We want to get involved with BIM, but no one is modeling the drywall contractor’s work. We’re considered a low-cost change order contractor. Right now, the MEPs are where BIM is and we’re not yet in the i-rooms. Internally, I’m showing my estimators what the world of BIM is. I’m educating my people. We’re looking at hiring a modeler. Why hire a modeler if you’re a drywall contractor? The world is moving in this direction. Go back to before computers were part of business, before there was e-mail. It’s the same basic principle. You’re going to have e-mail, you’re going to have the internet, and you’re going to have BIM. Implementation can take many forms. Educate your personnel and get on board, the best contractors understand this.
JV: From the designer’s perspective, there’s the term “lonely BIM v. social BIM.” Lonely BIM is essentially starting the process internally without necessarily worrying about sharing the model or sharing the risk. In social BIM, you’re willing to share the model with the subs or the GCs. Even in our traditional projects, we use modeling and BIM, to some degree, to do analysis. But the deliverable in many cases is still 2-D drawings. So at some point in the process, the data gets dumbed down. On the flip side, an owner or client comes to you with RFQs and RFPs that have varying degrees of “What are your BIM capabilities?” Some just say “you must do BIM” and have a few requirements. Other owners are requiring BIM, but they are very specific on what they want you to tell them – how you can do what you do – interference detection, scheduling, estimating, clash detection. They know, they’ve realized, and believe in it or have seen BIM in past projects and this is what they want. When you have that kind of requirement, you have to learn. You have to do it or else you won’t get the job. As these projects come across our desks more often, it almost necessitates the implementation of BIM.
JM: It starts with the philosophy of the designers. The philosophy from the design side is we can no longer sketch on a piece of paper and say “Here, go figure it out.” That architect presents a problem with everything we are discussing today. One of our design philosophies is, “We want to know how much you want it to cost.” We have to make that a part of the process. We want to know the schedule you want to build it within. And we are going to look at means and methods during the design phase. We’re going to look for technology that can help us do that.
MV: Undoubtedly, the construction industry is transitioning towards using BIM. We all understand that various changes in the roles of project participants and the lines of communication will have a profound effect on each of the parties’ potential liability. In that regard, the legal community is struggling with the move to BIM. The transition to utilizing BIM to its potential will take time, the question is just how much?
Thank you to all of our guests for participating in this informative discussion.
To view the complete roundtable discussion on BIM, please visit: http://www.zdlaw.com
The digest of this BIM Roundtable was prepared by
Calvin Lee, Legal Intern.
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