AFE November/December 2011 : Page 13J. F. Ahern Co. senior CAD designer Pete Hafemann analyzes multiple system layouts using a BIM application. O&M team, expensive change orders were the norm as owners learned of the need for changes near the end of the construc-tion phase. By that point, correcting any fl aws was more diffi cult and costly than if stakeholders had been consulted and been able to point out those fl aws before construction began. “Th e most important thing a building owner can do when starting a construction project is to get the entire pre-construction team involved as early in the process as possible,” said Roy Nation, manager of pre-construction services at J. F. Ahern Co. “Th e sooner the pre-construction plan-ning team is consulted, the easier it is to steer the project in the direction the owner wants, helping to achieve what they want in the most effi cient and cost-eff ective way possible,” added Nation, who has more than 23 years of experience in both build-ing construction and operations. turning to design-build and design-assessment desi gn-assessment models, where stakeholders are consulted early in the process instead of waiting until mistakes are made and have to be corrected. “ Every year, more and more owners are ” The BIM Walk-Through One reason why the “putting the project out to bid” method may have been so popular in the past was that rolls of drawings from the architect or engineer were sometimes diffi cult to envision for those stakeholders who were not accustomed to reading ar-chitectural plans on a daily basis. Reviewing the plans involved lengthy in-person meetings with the architects and engineers. Technology is changing all that, making a collaborative building process the norm. Firms like J.F. Ahern Co., whose design-build team includes 13 engineers with decades of expe-rience in building construction and operations, now provide futuristic 3D “walk-throughs” over phone or computer confer-ence systems, such as GoToMeeting or Webex, eliminating travel time for clients. More importantly, instead of pulling out large, unwieldy sets of plans, high-tech Building Information Modeling (BIM) soft ware gives stakeholders “virtual walk-through" using 3D November | December 2011 Q  Facilities Engineering Journal Q  www.AFE.org 13 StructureTec |
