Bernards, a well-respected, nationally ranked construction firm and Colombo Construction Company, a southern California firm known for its quality healthcare projects, have teamed for the first time to provide construction management services for the $57 Million Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District Replacement Hospital in Tehachapi, California. This new 25-bed, 79,000 square foot facility will replace the existing hospital which no longer meets current California safety standards, and is located in a rural part of Kern County. As the only hospital in a 50-mile radius, the project is a vital addition to the community, so it’s important that the team completes the job as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Challenge
The project broke ground in early 2013, and the first challenge the team faced was how to manage the enormous number of drawings necessary for the construction of a hospital. Since Tehachapi is a California hospital, it requires approval from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD*). Because of time constraints during the bidding process, two sets of drawings had to be correlated: a “permit set” of 500 documents for OSHPD approval, and another “bid set” of 520 documents for the prime contractors.
Not only was the bid set larger, but it also contained updated information that was not reflected in the older permit set. The team needed a reliable solution to quickly and accurately compare the differences between the two versions. Printing hard copies of each set and comparing them against each other was not an option — the process would be time-consuming and risk a significant margin for error. Moreover, because of the project’s remote location, printing costs are extremely high. It was becoming clear that digital was the only way to go.
A Digital Solution
The team at first considered looking for a third-party service to help with the seemingly overwhelming task of comparing the two sets of drawings. Fortunately, Bernards Project Engineer William Lopez had a better idea. Having used Bluebeam Revu on other projects with great success, he was confident that leveraging Revu was the best course of action. The technology was already in-house, and this solution saved time and the cost of looking for a third party qualified enough to complete the work.
The Tehachapi team contacted the project architect, requesting PDF copies of both the permit and bid sets. They then began the process of creating an electronic plan room by installing two 55” screens and using Revu’s Compare Documents feature to display — side-by-side — the automatic comparison of the two sets. This feature enables users to select two drawings, and automatically highlights all disparities with clouds, so they are easy-to-find.
Upon completion, the team reviewed and organized all the markups using the “Markups list.” This feature tracks markups as they are added to the document in a convenient list that can be filtered, searched, imported and exported.
Results
Using Revu, the team compared an initial test set of 100 sheets, and everyone was happy and surprised when it took only 3 hours to back-check the results. In fact, William and the team were amazed by the speed and success of the test. “We were able to complete the final job of comparing the permit set against the bid set in just 15 hours — pretty amazing, considering we had expected this process to take over a week!”
A quality assurance/quality control review revealed that Revu was finding the myriad of important details, including revision symbols and date stamps, that manual scanning could have missed. Even minute details in the scanned permit drawings were picked up. Best of all, the team was able to spend their valuable weekends at home, not in the office reviewing drawings.
Mike Funderberg, Bernards’ Project Manager for the Tehachapi project, commented “The utilization of Bluebeam for this document comparison effort saved nearly 400 hours of the Bernards/Colombo staff’s time to devote to other pressing issues. Being able to not only utilize software, but rely on it, made our processes so much more efficient.”
Continuing to Leverage Revu
OSPHD is still in the process of updating the permit set to reflect the advancements of the bid set drawings, and is sending approvals just about every day. As the Bernards/Colombo team receives those changes, they slip-sheet them into the master set using Revu’s Replace Pages feature, updating the sets 10 times faster than it would take to update a paper set.
The Tehachapi team is also using Revu for BIM coordination. For example, when they discovered the ceilings needed to be dropped to accommodate additional ducts and piping, they created 3-D PDFs of the sectioned BIM, to send to the architect with their markups. This is a much faster and easier way to share redlines, and the team loves how easy it is to manipulate 3-D PDFs. They also plan on using Revu for takeoffs, color coding, and other day-to-day construction tasks, and have already set up Wi-Fi in the trailer, enabling plan review in the field.
To learn more about Revu or download a free 30-day trial, please visit us here.
*OSHPD is an agency created in 1978 to provide the state with enhanced understanding of the structure and function of its healthcare delivery systems.
Related Stories
| Nov 1, 2010
John Pearce: First thing I tell designers: Do your homework!
John Pearce, FAIA, University Architect at Duke University, Durham, N.C., tells BD+C’s Robert Cassidy about the school’s construction plans and sustainability efforts, how to land work at Duke, and why he’s proceeding with caution when it comes to BIM.
| Nov 1, 2010
Vancouver’s former Olympic Village shoots for Gold
The first tenants of the Millennium Water development in Vancouver, B.C., were Olympic athletes competing in the 2010 Winter Games. Now the former Olympic Village, located on a 17-acre brownfield site, is being transformed into a residential neighborhood targeting LEED ND Gold. The buildings are expected to consume 30-70% less energy than comparable structures.
| Oct 27, 2010
Grid-neutral education complex to serve students, community
MVE Institutional designed the Downtown Educational Complex in Oakland, Calif., to serve as an educational facility, community center, and grid-neutral green building. The 123,000-sf complex, now under construction on a 5.5-acre site in the city’s Lake Merritt neighborhood, will be built in two phases, the first expected to be completed in spring 2012 and the second in fall 2014.
| Oct 21, 2010
GSA confirms new LEED Gold requirement
The General Services Administration has increased its sustainability requirements and now mandates LEED Gold for its projects.
| Oct 18, 2010
World’s first zero-carbon city on track in Abu Dhabi
Masdar City, the world’s only zero-carbon city, is on track to be built in Abu Dhabi, with completion expected as early as 2020. Foster + Partners developed the $22 billion city’s master plan, with Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, Aedas, and Lava Architects designing buildings for the project’s first phase, which is on track to be ready for occupancy by 2015.
| Oct 13, 2010
Editorial
The AEC industry shares a widespread obsession with the new. New is fresh. New is youthful. New is cool. But “old” or “slightly used” can be financially profitable and professionally rewarding, too.
| Oct 13, 2010
Test run on the HP Z200 SFF Good Value in a Small Package
Contributing Editor Jeff Yoders tests a new small-form factor, workstation-class desktop in Hewlett-Packard’s line that combines performance of its minitower machine with a smaller chassis and a lower price.
| Oct 13, 2010
Prefab Trailblazer
The $137 million, 12-story, 500,000-sf Miami Valley Hospital cardiac center, Dayton, Ohio, is the first major hospital project in the U.S. to have made extensive use of prefabricated components in its design and construction.
| Oct 13, 2010
Thought Leader
Sundra L. Ryce, President and CEO of SLR Contracting & Service Company, Buffalo, N.Y., talks about her firm’s success in new construction, renovation, CM, and design-build projects for the Navy, Air Force, and Buffalo Public Schools.
