Eliminate the Shop Drawing Review Process through Better MEP Design

BIM’s integrated design coordination and project management capabilities make information sharing between the building and design teams much easier. Although BIM has been around for more than a decade, it has undergone some significant improvements recently and provides many benefits during the design and construction stages of a project.

However, the advantages of BIM in terms of coordination, project management, and efficient information sharing are still vastly underutilized due to the laborious process of maintaining accurate and coordinated BIM models. As a result, it simply is not used as effectively as it could be. With that in mind, here are a few ways in which coordinated and optimized designs can help eliminate the laborious BIM coordination and shop review process, saving months of delays during the construction cycle.

Create Better Drawings Through More Accurate Modeling

Although your MEP team may be skilled and adept at using BIM as a way to speed up the coordination between MEP teams, architects, and structural engineers, this process can be quite expensive and, most often, incomplete with respect to the full coordination of the work of all trades.

BIM modeling and coordination can be a very time-consuming job; however if done well, it should pay back in the field due to the better coordination of the work with fewer costly clashes discovered in the field.  There’s no more appropriate application of the saying “prior planning prevents poor performance” than in the world of construction.

Apply Better Clash Detection

Ensuring that your BIM manager or lead design modeler provides the proper degree of clash detection with your designs is essential for a successful project. If these clashes are not found and resolved early during the design process, time and resources will be significantly lost down the road as conflicts arise.  Early determination of the permitted work zones for each trade will ensure a smooth design and construction process. At the end of the day, conflicts will necessitate reworks if ignored, resulting in downtime and schedule delays while they are being addressed.

Leverage AI to Avoid Clashes in the First Place

Automated routing and sizing of MEP systems using AI technology helps to prevent clashes in the first place. Clash avoidance is far better than clash detection and clash resolution in terms of both time and money consumed during the design and construction process. Rather than going through the time consuming and costly BIM coordination and shop drawing submittal process to resolve the inevitable clashes that occur in a conventional design, AI software can be utilized to properly route and size the systems in the first place. This budding new AI technology promises to create nearly “clash free” designs without having to go through the conventional process of multiple sessions of coordination meetings, followed by multiple rounds of review by the design professionals.

Furthermore, issuing fully coordinated drawing sets prior to bidding, results in clearer, more precise bidding by the contractors and subcontractors and a smoother, conflict-free process of building the building. Construction timelines are advanced by months by avoiding the shop drawing submittal process altogether. The benefits of clash free MEP designs for all stakeholders in the project are tremendous. Change orders and delays in the field are also minimized by using this new process.

Go for Better Take-Offs

Take-offs have traditionally been created and completed using 2-D drawings, often in printed or PDF format. However, with accurate and better-optimized designs, you can shorten the time needed for bid preparation. The important thing is to make sure the models are of high quality so that the right data can be taken directly from the models, rather than from paper representations of the intended design. Ultimately, a shortened tender period will result from increasing access to the coordinated design information and improving the overall building’s design.

Avoid Using the Cheapest Route

Sometimes, your design team might outsource the MEP design work to third-party service providers to achieve more competitive pricing, which indeed may be cheaper. However, this will typically result in delays and poor quality performance. Your MEP design team should be well versed in the latest technology available and utilize the tools to deliver both quality and value at the same time, rather than trading modeling quality for a lower design fee. It is a false economy to think that savings in design fees will lower overall project costs. Typically, the reverse is true.

In the end, all design and construction team members will experience delays due to one team’s failure to perform during the design process. Chances are that outsourcing your workflows, thinking you will get a better value, will ultimately result in more costs to the project and lead to waste and project delays.

Hire the Right Design Team Members

To guarantee success, the right inquiries need to be presented to guarantee that these essential guidelines are actualized. As they say, “the proof is in the pudding.” We propose that owners and architects confirm that the MEP design group has the relevant aptitudes and BIM prerequisites they indicate on paper by presenting a few inquiries in every team selection meeting. Some potential inquiries may include the following:

• Do they apply advanced design software for all projects or just in rare cases?
• Do they have access to the latest AI powered software to reduce the burden of modeling in 3D?
• Does their software provide cost optimization features including integrated modeling capabilities?
• What kind of training programs have they created to instruct all of their personnel?
• Do they have a stable design team structure, or are their employees assembled on a project by project basis in a traditional departmentalized engineering fashion?
• Request a list of their projects for the past 12 months that were developed in 3D and distributed to collaborative design and construction teams.

Knowing the answers to these questions will lead you to a MEP team that is trained to generate accurate and better coordinated MEP designs. This will reduce project completion times, reduce change orders, and allow builders and managers to understand the design much better.

Utilize 3D Visualization Tools

Utilizing 3D models in virtual reality combined with the architectural and structural models allows clients, such as building owners and end users, to view their buildings in three-dimensional viewports instead of conventional two-dimensional drawings and renderings. This technology provides a more comprehensive and realistic perspective and allows for identification of aesthetic issues long before the first shovel hits the ground. Many clients are simply not able to visualize the buildings and spaces from conventional 2D representations, resulting in surprises and changes once the project begins to come together in the field. At that point, it is either too late or too costly to make a change, resulting in less than satisfied customers. 

Addressing and solving potential dilemmas at this stage will save substantial resources, time, and effort during the project’s construction phase.  Showing the client a virtual tour avoids these last minute surprises and reduces the overall cost of getting to the ultimate solution – a happy client.

Share Models With the Construction Teams

In the past, this stage of the project has been completely disconnected, primarily due to fears associated with the modeling accuracy and legal responsibility for the work. Working together more closely and being more open with information, such as exchanging better MEP design models more often, can reduce the amount of time and money spent on a job while allowing design professionals to monitor progress firsthand.

Including the construction teams in the design process will allow you to use the abilities and knowledge of everyone involved in the venture. Furthermore, the right design implementation plan can let project members get the necessary information and collaborate by simply reviewing models on simple, intuitive viewers, without the need for extensive training in complex BIM modeling platforms.

Higher quality BIM models, including accurate and coordinated MEP information, speeds the entire process by eliminating the need to regenerate models at the subcontractor level as the project moves into fabrication and installation. Quality MEP design models reduces the overhead on subcontractors to implement those designs into real-world systems.

Create Working Drawings

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is revolutionizing how architects, engineers, and other project participants create working drawings. If done correctly, it will accelerate the production stage of the working drawings and provide project managers with a competitive edge. In addition to reducing submittal and review times, clash free BIM offers greater design certainty, as it allows all stakeholders to better understand the project before proceeding with the installation. It also enables them to work more efficiently on site, eliminating costly delays and mistakes, which arise when multiple parties are isolated from each other in the design process. As such, quality BIM is an invaluable tool for any project looking to achieve their goals on time and within budget.

Bottom Line

At the end of the day, to lower the expenses of the MEP installation, it is essential to have a well-planned design process with the appropriate competency, technology, and quality built in. AI assisted design processes dramatically move the needle with respect to inter-disciplinary coordination, saving everyone time and money. It is also crucial to have well-optimized, more accurate, and better MEP designs to identify issues in the design phase before they arise in the field. Contact Schnackel Engineers to see how the latest in AI assisted design technology can be applied to your project, large or small.