Course Reflection - Arthur McCloskey

In this course, a lot of the forward-thinking technologies and capabilities that are revolutionizing our field were explored in good detail.  The highlights of these capabilities were BIM, artificial intelligence, robotics, relational databases, and sensors.  These lectures were supplemented by class visits from people in the industry that were able to bring a practical aspect to these ideas.  This class was comprised of many different types of students across many different concentrations and majors.  After graduation, many of us will branch off into various different job types in our industry.  From planners, construction managers, structural engineers, MEP engineers, I think we can take away something from this class that could be useful in our professional lives.

I personally will be going into the construction management field after graduation, and looking back on the things that I have learned in this class, there are several major takeaways.  The first is BIM.  The presentation by Whiting Turner was particularly helpful in extending what we learned in BIM to what I could use in CM.  Even over my limited co-op experiences, I cannot count how many times the proposed plans caused clashes and conflicts across trades.  Navisworks and Revit were a particularly useful software to use for this, and I had wished that the companies I was with were using it.  That would have certainly helped reduce some of the issues in the field.

I think the database lessons were really useful.  I didn't necessarily enjoy it to be completely honest, since large data management is never really that interesting, but I see how if can be very important in my industry.  Many of the projects I have been on require management of a lot of equipment, machinery, finance, etc.  The knowledge of Access and other database programs could make the aggregation and manipulation of data much easier for managers, which allows them to focus on more important things, like coordination and execution.

Overall, I think this class was a good introduction to the future possibilities of technology to our industry.  I can see how it is beneficial for all kinds of students, no matter their major or concentration.

Comments on Others:

Egla Qori – I think that your post was really beneficial to read, considering you seem to know what structural engineering firms are looking for in a candidate.  Since most of us are probably structural engineering, it is important to know which of these capabilities we learned in this class are important for those employers.

Paulina Gawor – I agree with Paulina in that I was expecting a lot of the class to be more in depth into Revit and programs like it.  I suppose this allowed us to cover a larger amount of information in such a short term, especially when it came to the sensors and databases.

Drew Hovey – I also enjoyed the presentation on NavisWorks.  It still surprises me how little I have seen it used in industry.  I suppose as we graduate and the industry catches up, we will see it used more.

Reflection on the course

When I signed up to take AE 410, I expected it to be more of a designing class that will teach more on how to work with SketchUp and AutoCAD. On the contrary, I learned very new concepts in this course which I think opened my eyes on very new topics for me in my major.

The course focused on Artificial Intelligence, BIM and Databases. Before taking this course, I had a very basic idea on how robots are constructing in big factories, but I did not realize how the robots are also being used in construction fields, and how intelligent they are programmed to overcome obstacles and receive commands for several tasks.

Another topic that I was expecting to learn about in this course and that we went through and understood very well was 3D printed buildings. Before taking this course, I really wanted to learn more about the 3D printed buildings advantages, how they are constructed and put together and whether they are used nowadays or are still being developed. We understood it very well from professor Mitchell’s explanation, and my peers’ blogs that introduced new information and have taught me a lot.

Reflection on my professional career and future:

I believe that AI plays a huge role in BIM, and have been and developing the industry in so many aspects. My plan now is to go back to Kuwait after I graduate and hopefully work in one of the Architectural firms. I am very sure that they use BIM and such developed technologies. I also know that in Dubai they are relying on 3D printed buildings, Kuwait work on many projects with Dubai as well as exchanging experiences, so hopefully after learning so much about the 3D printed buildings I can have a hand on one of the projects which I am very excited for.

Another useful tool we used was Microsoft Access creating Databases. Even though I faced few trouble and errors on the assignments, I have a clear idea on Queries and relationships which I really believe I would benefit from it in my professional career. I also learned very much about sensors which I didn’t have a clear background about before this class.

One of the most effective things in this course were the guest speakers that use what we are learning in their daily work. That showed me how important all the topics we learned are and gave me a push to read more about everything and, I was always interested in reading my classmate’s blogs to learn new aspects of the topic.

In conclusion, the class was much deeper in the topics than I anticipated it to be and very useful to me, my major and in my future career for sure. I believe that professor Mitchell’s useful presentation and videos were very helpful. The videos that were showed to us in class, especially the robots working on construction and overcoming obstacles to do specific tasks, in addition to the blogs and guest speakers were very helpful and taught us a lot. The course was very interesting, we had so much fun while learning the new topics, and hopefully we can use all that we learned in our future jobs.

Response to peers
Nick Pawlikowski : It is great that you knew about most of the topics in this course. To me even though I knew few topics, I was not familiar with the great deep information provided in the lectures and blogs by our colleagues. I as well had never worked on Databases and I enjoyed it and like working on it this course I really think it helped me a lot.

Joe Dressel : I agree with most of what you said about the course. I strongly agree that the guest speakers were very helpful, they brought us a lot of prospective as you said and shared their experience on the topics which helped us very much.

Ronald Herazo: I strongly agree that professor Mitchell did a great job teaching this course and really helped us a lot and made it so much fun for us. Most of the topics even though we had a basic idea about, deep information were shared, reading the blog posts helped introduce more information and finally the guest speakers also sharing their experience gave us the best idea possible. 

Future Problems with Revit/BIM - Arthur McCloskey

     While Revit is getting increasingly popular among design and engineering firms, it still has a lot of drawbacks.  Revit can be a confusing program to learn, especially for those that are unfamiliar with object based modeling.  Particularly, employees that have been accustom to AutoCAD can  have particular difficult adjusting.  As the industry moves closer and closer to making Revit the new standard of modeling, it can only be assumed that the problems will minimize over time.  Many people see Revit becoming easier to use, have increased capabilities, and better sharing capabilities.  However, it is an interesting exercise to think about what could still be a challenge as more and more improvements are made to the program.

     Perhaps one of the most obvious drawbacks to large-scale adoption of Revit is the decreased understanding of traditional architectural design or engineering.  When issues arise in the field or in design, over-reliance on computer modeling hinders innovation, and encourages a narrow-minded perspective.  In the article "Want to be an Architect?  Don't Learn Revit" speaks a lot to this point.  Over-reliance on BIM puts architects and engineers in programming and drafting positions exclusively, which suppresses the potential of these individuals [1].

     In addition to the effect that Revit has on people, it can also have some technical drawbacks in the coming years.  These are more difficult to research, as most sources report that it is expected Revit will become more robust technically.  I think that there is a potential for the program to include capabilities like structural calculations, HVAC flow calculations, electrical component sizing, etc.  These may sound like a benefit (and they are), but all this increased computing requirements will be burdensome on our computers.  They also will now require a particular care in construction of a model.  This opens up new problems when, for example, an architect goes to edit a wall section, rendering the structure unstable and crashing the model.  Additionally, these models can become inflated in size, which can make using them on-site nearly impossible.  On most of my co-ops, our field representatives would often open drawing generated by traditional CAD programs.  If these 3D models are brought to the site, perhaps this ability will be overshadowed by the enormous model sizes as functionality increases?    Overall, I see many of these potential issues being mitigated and overcome, as that is just the nature of progress, but it is important to consider them as the program develops

Comments on Others:

Brennan Connolly - I think the article you linked was very interesting.  I always saw Revit being incorporated to analyze aspects of design we usually use other programs for, but it is interesting to see AutoDesk already developing a plugin to assess energy performance.  This, as you mentioned could really have a profound effect as more and more buildings are pushing for LEED certification.

Zhijing Zheng - The list of current issues with BIM was really useful to me as I constructed my blog post.  I was very interested in your comments on the effects on smaller firms.  We often do not think about how these large software agglomerations can put a huge burden on the little guys who might not have necessary computing power or technical infrastructure.  Perhaps BIM could be a major player in the reduction in small engineering/architecture firms.

Ronald Herazo - I found the figure you have on your post particularly interesting.  We always seem to assume the construction industry is far behind on the adaption of technology, but it is stark to see how far.  As BIM gets more and more complicated, we might just be trying to take on more technology that could prove useful or operable for us.

References

[1] Architectural Ellipses, Intern Architect.  "Want to be an Architect?  Don't Learn Revit."  Web.  Available: http://archinect.com/arch-ellipsis/want-to-be-an-architect-don-t-learn-revit

B2-BIM for Contractors

From the reading of the Chap 6, I learnt the BIM will bring lots of benefits to the contractors. In the building construction phase, there are several different types of the cooperation methods which include design-build, design-bid-build or the Integrated Project Delivery. The BIM will provide the different benefits to different approaches.

In the construction process, there are many steps like schedulding, cost, and planning. This is a complex and many parties involved process. If we used the traditional software or the methods to work,  like CAD drawings, it will cost extra time and resources. For example, in my previous coop experience, we have to print out our design drawings and mail it to the subcontract. The subcontract had to mail us back their shopping drawings with the equipments specification information to confirm. Then after we confirmed, we need to mail back the confirmed paper drawings one more time. During this period, mailing the paper drawings cost lots of time.

But when the contractor used the BIM, they can get information from the BIM model. Like the detailed building information, specification information associated with each buildings, analysis data related to performance levels and the project requirements, design and construction status. The contractors will be able to get information very effectively and easy instead of the traditional paper  mailing method.

The BIM model for the contractors can start with the beginning with design team. The design team provide the 3-D model and the contractors to add the details to the model to make model visualised to owner and use the model to do the further work. Or the design team provides the 2-D drawings to the contractors, they manual entered the drawing to the 3-D model and to do the further work.

BIM model will be able to export and work with other estimating software for planning, costing, scheduling. The BIM today, it can put the unit contrate information in the software to estimate the total concrete cost for contractor. For the BIM in the future, it might including the different concrete transportation cost, contrate work planning depend on the weather information.

4-D BIM model is a great tool to help contractor to do the construction planning. For example, the model will be able to show the foundation, steel erection. Also, it can review the site crane reach, clearance and conflicts. It will help the contractors to know the status of the site and fo the planning work.

In summary, the BIM tool will be able to help contractors to develop work easy and quick. To use the BIM is a future requirement skill for the contractor.

Sources:
Eastman, Charles M. BIM Handbook : A Guide To Building Information Modeling For Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers And Contractors. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 24 Jan. 2017.

Comments to Classmates' Posts:

Yosep Bak (link)
From the reading of your post, I learnt the benefits to the owners. Before reading your post, in my mind, the BIM is more important for the design team or the contractors who are the technical people. But after reading, I feel like it is as important as owner, especially for the owner who can't read the CAD drawings, the 4-D and 3-D visual image will help them to understand the building. 
Samuel Kim (link)
From Samuel's post, I learnt a brief history about the BIM which is great for me. BIM was worked as Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) and Boundary Representation (BREP) in the early history time. Also, the compare 2009 and 2013 the BIM files, which has 2700% increase which really give a strong feeling about the BIM is tool for the future. 
Ziyang Lin(link)
From your post, I learnt that the General Service Administration(GSA) has made a standard for models that could be considered as a BIM preliminary concept design. Also, the example about the requirements are including “floor slabs defined with target thickness and floor-to-floor distances also applied to depict roofs” and “north arrows for building orientation” in BIM is cool. 

Assignment B2 - David Sanchez - Group E

BIM for Contractors

The use of BIM technology in the construction industry has major advantages that can save companies time and money. BIM does this by helping team projects plan the construction process better which in returns reduces errors and conflicts.

One of the first and probably most important points made in this chapter is owners and architects should include contractors and subcontractors in the construction process of BIM. The reason for this the author says is that “traditional design-bid-build approach limits the contractor’s ability to contribute their knowledge to the project during the design phase”. (Eastman 263). In addition, the author continues to discuss that the use of the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) feature is the best use of BIM as a collaborative tool amongst the owner, architect, designers, GC, and subcontractors. Other benefits of BIM mentioned this chapter include accurate clash detection of subcontractors and correction of these clashes and accurate cost estimation of the project for the contractors.

A drawback to the use of BIM from a contractor's standpoint is that there is a significant learning curve when using the new software. This can hinder production at the begin of the construction as the contractors learn to use the software. The author made suggestions to make the transition easier for contractors.

The final point made about this chapter is that in the absence of owners lead BIM efforts, contractors need to establish leadership in the BIM process so they can gain an advantage and better position themselves.

Source: Eastman, C. M. (2011). BIM handbook: a guide to building information modeling for owners, managers, designers, engineers and contractors. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

B2 - Singh, Prahlad

BIM technology has tremendously improved over a very short time interval. It is a very beneficial designing program for designers and engineers in many numerous fields. Through the assigned reading on the sixth chapter of the BIM Handbook by Charles Eastman, it was very interesting to learn how this source of technology helps contractors implement in their projects by saving time and money. BIM is a very helpful tool for contractors to promote their piece of work to owners during the bidding stage. When contractors are being provided with the scope of work from owners, BIM is going to be a very helpful tool to estimate the cost. In the particular chapter, it is shown how the contractors use BIM, for example:

• Constructability analysis and clash detection
• Cost estimation
• Quantity take offs
• Construction analysis and planning

In particular the contractors who work for larger firms use BIM to obtain construction planning and scheduling, cost control, accounting, procurement, marketing and so on. BIM is still not too user friendly for contractors but is slowly improving its functionality to assist all factions that use the software. Contractors have seen BIM evolve into a more user friendly and time saving tool as the newer versions of BIM and the process involve tools such as:

• Detailed Building Information – A list that provides all the components of the building, thus saving time for the contractor to go back and forth the list to check and perform estimates and quantity take offs.
• Temporary Components – This provides information regarding equipment and other temporary components that are essential for scheduling, sequence and planning.
• Design and construction status – This tracks the progress of components that are relative to design, installation and testing.

The above BIM flowchart depicts where the contractor builds the model from 2D drawings and uses it for cost estimates and etc.

The chapter discusses mainly how BIM is a very useful software and can be utilized by most of the parties involved in a project (engineers, subcontractor, architects, etc.) and that it helps them share all of the information, and as a result help expedite the construction process.

Source:

Chuck Eastman et al., BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors (Wiley, 2011)

Comments to others

Ray: You discussed the benefits of the BIM software with regards to Architects and Engineers. Walking through the major aspects of the software like simulations and analysis, showing just how advanced the software really is. You also mentioned how it is used more prominently by firms to generate schedules and contracts more specifically.

Nick Pawlikowski: Having no previous knowledge about Interoperability, this was an very educative read. You laid it out for a newcomer to the topic really well. I like the way you spoke about the diversity of the industry and it was very eye opening for me. The figure helped further explain the bigger picture to me.

Alsaleem: You discussed and very correctly pointed out the pros and cons of the software with regards to the owners and managers. I liked the way you incorporated the fact that the software helps show in detail the energy usage etc to the owners/managers as they would be extremely interested in how their building is functioning and where they can reduce/cut costs. On the other hand the lack of experts point I was not fully on board with as even though there is a lack, this shouldn’t stop the availability of it being easily accessible for the owners