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VDC, BIM, IPD introduction

“The road to success is always under construction”
                                                                   Lily Tomlin

Success can no longer be built and developed the way it was five years ago.  Like Moore’s law, the speed of technical integration with construction processes is accelerating rapidly.  The union of construction and technology has been changing the playing field for over a quarter of a century.  In fact, leaders with the vision and foresight to exploit the value of technology early, gained significant competitive advantage (while laggards lost contracts and money as computer aided design moved rapidly from a “nice to have” to a “you don’t qualify” to be considered for the job without it).  Without exploiting technology effectively and intelligently you lost - you lost time, you lost money, you lost partners and you lost clients.

Today Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), and  Building Information Modeling (BIM)  provide the leading competitive advantage that is fast becoming tomorrow’s industry standard.  Just as CAD created high profit margins for organizations that properly adopted the technology in the mid eighties, VDC, IPD & BIM technologies will provide significantly higher profits.

Virtual Design Definition on Wikipedia site

However, the successful implementation and execution of VDC/IPD/BIM is complicated, and like any new tool, if managed inappropriately quite costly.  All of us are aware of the financial consequences of mismanaged software implementations.  Successful implementation of VDC/IPD/BIM software applications requires responsible guidance, as well as experienced leadership and management.

Companies implementing CAD technologies lost months (sometimes years) of production before getting it right, simply because they had the wrong people doing the wrong things.  With Virtual Design and Construction, Integrated Project Management, and Building Information Modeling applications, failure or success will be dictated by the quality of the professional you have handling one of the most important technical tasks your company has undertaken in years.

I have had the unique privilege of blending the technology and construction worlds to serve real world exigencies as both a licensed General Contractor and highly sought after systems integrator and CAD executive.  Whether authoring AutoCAD productivity tools *1, integrating IPD on an active VA hospital seismic retrofitting *2, or training top CAD executives *3, my real-world experience has demonstrated that expertly implementing technology into construction processes yields an incredible and profitable alchemy.

According to CIFE/CURT/GSA *4 key success factors for VDC/BIN/IPD implementation are:

  • Implement VDC/BIN/IPD early in the design process where it provides most value
  • Define process, responsibilities, legal methods for managing project risks and levels of detail for VDC/BIN/IPD initiatives
  • Generate scope of services agreements and contract documents, set objectives, and define model use in decision making policies
  • Attain buy-in of all critical players and/or stakeholders. Establish an internal steering committee if warranted.
  • Hire dedicated full-time VDC/BIN/IPD executive to drive process, communicate domain expertise, facilitate training, manage outsourcing, retain competitive intellectual capital, build value metrics, document best practices, monitor and report return on investment metrics and most importantly compress learning curve (according to AGC  2007 Study this can save 18 months)

Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), and Building Information Modeling (BIM) are the most important business technology changes since computer aided design and I believe I can be one of your most valuable assets in assisting you to expertly implement these new strategic initiatives.  Thank you for your consideration, I look forward to speaking with you.

Warmest Regards,
Greg Robinson
415-922-3675 cell


*1 Key man creating/authoring/implementing Bonus Tools, known today as AutoCAD’s Express tools

*2 Seismic retrofit of active VA hospital, Long Beach CA

*3 HOK, WPMA & Assoc, GPLA Inc, Eastman Kodak, Motorola, Scott Paper, Kohler, Stanford Univ., Penn State, Bosie Cascade, Chevron, Sierra Pacific Power, Disney, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Hughes Aircraft, Lawrence Livermore Labs, Degenkolb Assoc.

*4 John Kunz & Brian Gilligan, Center for Integrated Facility Engineering (CIFE), Stanford University, Presented at CURT National , meeting, Naples, FL 6 November 2007

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