Verify! Verify! Verify! Virtual BIM Coordination for Construction.

KATELYN LEWIS: And I personally-- as a BIM coordinator, I perform a lot of on-site verification. And we'll go over that later. That image of myself and my girlfriend Melissa-- her and I are colleagues, and she's actually a boom coordinator, too. No, no relation. We're both Lewis. That's rare in New Mexico. And we do the same thing.

And then, in the bottom right corner, you have an image of actual BIM coordination. So you have your ductwork, your fire protection, your joists, hangars, ceilings, all of that. And then we have a scan down in the bottom left and the ground penetration radar in the top right. More community work. We do a lot of virtual reality. We model, scan, we drone map.

Now, in the top right corner-- we'll get more into this in a little bit, but that's an actual on-site situation. You can see that, up in the top right, no clashes within that model. But in the field, the field foreman installed those pipes six inches too low, so it was causing a clash with the fire protection line. That's pink.

Now, that particular line, the fire protection guy calls me up and he's telling me this problem. So I find out, and we're doing verification, that these guys installed that stuff too low, so they had to fix it. And that's the situation that I kind of run into constantly. But we'll get more into that.

Now, enough about that. Let's get into the actual summary of the class. So we're going to kind of go through how we utilize that data to virtually coordinate buildings and what kind of software we use. Mainly, we use BIM 360 Glue and Revit, and some of the other things. But those are the two main software that we use.

And we're going to talk about those challenges from the design all the way to the construction, and how we mesh with the mechanical, electrical, and the plumbing, and the fire protection. Plus steel, as well. So we'll talk about all that, and we'll get into the fun stuff. OK.

Who resonates with this? I feel that-- "We solve problems you don't know you have in ways that you can't understand." I feel that's true because, as a BIM coordinator, I feel like I'm so far behind the scenes, I'm kind of that person that's behind the curtain which is a good thing. We help solve these problems so far behind the scenes that you don't really want the owner to be involved with certain situations that are just kind of minute and little.

But then you have the big problems that we like to solve and fix that, if you don't have to involve all the way down to the owner, it would be nice. And you want the general contractor to look good. You want the design teams to look good. You want everybody to come together as a team and communicate. That's why, lots of times, you don't know you have these problems.

All right, so our learning objectives. We're going to learn how the BIM coordination is utilized before the construction ever begins. Then we'll talk about how you prepare that project for virtual coordination. And then we'll go ahead and talk about understanding the process, the workflow, and the timeline it needed to stay ahead of that schedule. And then, the part that everybody's really excited about is understanding how virtual coordination helps with cost and safety.

OK, the virtual BIM coordination before construction. This is a big thing. You need to understand the type of project contract you're dealing with. Because when you're understanding the project that you need to-- the contract you need to understand, you know, as a BIM coordinator, when you need to step into that project, and how you need to align your detailers and align your schedule and communicate that way.

Now, there's many different contracts we deal with. So you have design/build, design-bid-build, IPD-- which I don't deal with very often. But to give you an example on a couple of these contracts where I step in as a coordinator. So design built. You're involved, on the design side, with the AE teams, architectural engineering. Your communication has increased. You're creating this relationship with the AE teams.

So it's a little bit easier to solve problems with the design ahead of time before you're creating a bunch of RFIs. So, for instance, I can talk with the mechanical engineer and I can say, hey, I'm in your model, I'm doing some clash reports, and I can see that you have a ductwork that's going right over an electrical panel. We need to adjust that. We need to move it and get it out of the way.

Now, there's various reasons that he might have missed that. That might be because he didn't have the appropriate work sets on in Revit. Or he just missed it because he's busy, and everyone gets busy. And kind of adjust those things. So that's the design/build. Your communication is a little bit different. It's more so up front, and you're producing a relationship.

Now, in design-bid-build, it's designed, contract documents are stamped and signed, and then it goes out to bid, gets awarded to the general contractor, and then I come in. So now, I'm responsible for reviewing the contract documents and then producing RFIs, questions. Starting that communication after the fact.

Not all AE team members necessarily like that. In my experience, sometimes they get kind of upset because you're questioning their design. Not all the time. It's happened to me before, though. So personally, I like the design/build, because then you're creating a better relationship.

Now, pre-construction involvement. 90% of what we do is all pre-construction. That last 10% has to do with on-site verification and facilities management. So everything we do is so far ahead of the construction schedule-- sometimes months-- that it's all pre-construction. So more on that later.

OK. Now you need to know your subcontracting team. Who are you dealing with? What's their relationship like in the industry? Are they easy to work with? Have they ever handled these types of processes before? What kind of software do they use? What kind of software are we going to use? Navisworks? BlueBee? AutoSPRINK? Revit? AutoCAD?

Now, we personally require our coordinators to work in Revit the most that they can. I know that's not practical all the time. So I try and work with them the best I can, but we like to have Revit because in the future, when we work with facilities management, we have the capability of putting that data and information into the models. And then you can put those into the parameters and produce an easier model for facilities management in the future. OK.

So prepare your project for virtual coordination. Get ready, this is going to be a mouthful. OK, so I review the contract documents, like I said. So I review everything ground-up. I'm involved all the way down below the dirt.

So I work directly with the survey teams to locate grids, to help the building be located on-site, so for staking and layout. We have to locate what types of foundations are going to be used and avoid those situations. And then once we start getting ourselves above the ground, everything in site and civil we have to review. So like I said, your foundations, your grids.

And then when we move into the architectural, we have to review everything back all the way down to, what types of walls? What types of supports for those walls, like Kickers Ceilings. What types of ceilings are you going to use? What types of supports for those ceilings?

How are those supports going to affect your mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and your fire protection? And then, in your contract documents, you're reviewing the details. Everything. And then after the architectural, you're reviewing the structural. So, again, back to your foundations. Gray beams, auger cast piles.

And then when you're-- you get out of the ground and then you're overhead. And now you're dealing with, what kind of steel is it? Is it red steel? Are there joists? What are the requirements for that? What are you going to do, and how are you going to review those things?

So when you're reviewing all your contract documents, you'll also get to the point where you have to review the submittals from the subcontractors. And then you get into the specifications. So you've got to review that too.

And then your MEP and your fire protection. You're reviewing all those. So what kind of systems are you going to be using? How are those systems going to be supported in your plenum spaces? How will that affect your coordination with the other trades? So we review that.

Now, after we kind of get an idea of all of that and we start producing questions, we now review the construction schedule. I have to review the construction schedule because I have to build a completely separate schedule. I have to build a BIM schedule. And we'll talk about that.

And then you locate a subcontractor list. So you know who you're working with. Now you have to produce a list of who you're working with so you know who you're contacting and you know their capabilities.

These are just giving you some images of certain things that I'm looking for. So again, like I mentioned, wall kickers. So those pink arrows are pointing at some wall kickers. And when we review that information, we will review it back into notes-- buried in the notes-- or your submittals. More so, your specifications.

And then up at the top right corner, you have a detail. Because, like I said, you have to review your details. And how often is it that you review a detail and it tells you to go to the floor plan? And then you go to the floor plan, it may tell you to go back to the detail. Or it tells you to get the specifications section. And then you go to the specification section and it tells you to, go back to the floor plan.

So you're kind of constantly going in circles sometimes because the information is in multiple places. So you have to make sure that you're not guessing what you're doing. And you can go back and review that, because you have to know when it's important.

These are a couple more images that I can show you. So down at the bottom, those are some joists. So I run into this quite a bit. Any structural engineers in here? Awesome. OK. So when we review joists, we have to review from the joist submittal supplier, because those joist submimttals will give you the correct webbing openings.

How often is it that you draw a joist from Revit and it gives you the appropriate length, it gives you the appropriate width, but those webbing openings are hardly ever correct, ever. So we have to know that. We have to know that. Because if my MEP guys are going to start running stuff up and in between those joists, those openings have to be correct. We have to model the bridging, as well. So any kind of supports.

Now, the top image, does anyone know what I'm pointing out here? This image at the top is showing incorrect dimensions. How often is it-- and don't lie-- y'all have changed dimensions in your models? Not true dimensions. This is a big deal. I have to go through the model and make sure that this dimensional information is correct. Now, the top dimension says 74'6". That's the wrong dimension. That 74'11" is the correct dimension.

When I start seeing that information across the floor plan, I have to go back and verify all those dimensions. I can't do what I need to do as the BIM coordinator if I can't start out with correct dimensions. So when I start seeing those signs on the projects, I have to go back and I have to review that. So make sure you're modeling with the correct dimensions. OK.

So this is showing just an example of a construction schedule. There's different things that I look at when I create a BIM schedule. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I have to create a BIM schedule. That is completely different than the actual construction schedule. There are certain times, or certain dates of install, or certain situations-- slab on deck, underground MEP. I look at all of that in a schedule so I can create a BIM schedule.

Now, people are going to freak out, but this actually works. I create a BIM schedule to be 100% coordinated eight weeks before the construction is scheduled for install. People are like, that never happens. That never happens. It totally works. It does. 85% of the time.

Now, I have them be 100% coordinated eight weeks before the construction's scheduled. And then after that, it goes through approval-- about two weeks, maybe. Because it has to be approved by the AC teams, or AE teams. And then once that's done, then it goes through fabrication. So I'd give them about five to six weeks to fabricate their shop drawings.

Now, the specification review image is just giving you kind of an example of what I look at in the specs. No, I am not going to go and review a [? honking spec. ?] Everybody knows those suckers are big.

But there are things that I will look at that are directly related to the coordination. So insulation requirements, hangar requirements, special coordination requirements-- because sometimes architects like to sneak that stuff in there. That's almost messed me up a couple of times. So I look at those specific things.

Because, for instance, your insulation-- I have to make sure my detailers are putting the appropriate insulation, because how often is it that you're running your MEP down this cramped corridor and everything's butted up together? You need to make sure that they're providing the insulation, because if that has to happen and you've got your trades running down that corridor, we need to make sure it fits. So insulation is important.

No, I am not saying that the design teams have questionable knowledge. I am saying that, because of all the information that we have to pack into our models, sometimes the information takes you in circles. Because everyone's busy, all this information gets put here versus there.

And also, these models, lots of times, on the design side, it's design intent, right? So we have to go back, and I have to make sure that the superintendents and all these field guys have the appropriate information in their models. Because a lot of information is not modeled, like your kickers.

So once we do that, then we can start creating a process and a workflow to stay ahead of the timeline for the construction. So we create a Revit coordination model. It's a completely separate model, and we use it to bring in any kind of miscellaneous information that needs to be modeled. For instance, kickers, king studs. Who models king studs on the design side? I got one hand. OK. So king studs are hardly ever, ever modeled. In my experience, I have never seen that. So we have to model king studs.

Now, when I was a designer-- remember I told you I was a mechanical designer? Those are things that I never thought about, king studs. So if I ever went back to design, I would completely change the way I design things. Because those are just simple things, because you're not physically seeing that stuff, you won't avoid it.

So king studs. And it happens. 99.9% of the time, my detailers-- especially my plumbing guys-- run their piping through a king stud. I am not going to have a four-inch pipe that runs two inches into the king stud and have the framer frame out the door just to avoid the pipe. It's not happening. I make a move in.

So it happens quite a bit. So you have to be aware of that. We also model the ceiling grid-- not just the ceiling, but the actual grid. Because when you're in Glue, that information, you can turn off the ceiling and then the whole thing disappears. So you want to be able to see that information.

You want to see the grid layout so you can see where your diffusers are laying, your lights are laying, to be able to coordinate and physically see that information. So we model ceiling grids. We also have to model room tag text, because you want your details and your subcontractors to know where information is going to be in blue. So we model that information.

Now, all of this, we have [? Dynamo ?] routines to help us with that. Because it would suck to have to go and do this one by one. Now, a big one that I have to pay attention to is fireproofing? Who puts clearances around their fire proofing? Yeah! How often is it that it's almost messed with you and hit you in the butt? Because it's almost done it to me.

I had a project one time, and we were almost done coordinating the basement. And it was so packed with all this different trade information, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection. We were almost done and the superintendent tells me, Katelyn, did you consider fireproofing? No. What? Dang it.

So here I am kind of freaking out, and I'm like, oh, no. These detailers are going to be so upset that I have to tell them, oh, hold on guys, we didn't take into account for fireproofing. And everything was tight to structure. So I had to go back, I had to review the handy dandy contract documents and the specifications-- because it took me to both.

And I'm like, OK, how do I do this quickly, efficiently, and make this as least painful as I can? So I'm looking at this information and I'm like, all right. The deepest part of the fireproofing, where is it? So two inches. OK. So I applied two inches everywhere.

And then I come back to these guys and I'm like, OK. We had the room. I checked. I'm like, guys, I need you to lower all your trades two inches and we should be good. It worked out all right. A couple of things we had to change here and there, but, whew. So now, as I point, I have to take into account fireproofing if fireproofing is needed on your project. That's a big deal.

Because you really-- and I would rather put too much clearance on something than not enough. Because if you do that, you really don't want your trades chipping away at the fire proofing, because then you're compromising the system, right? So that was the most efficient way for me to do that. So yeah, we do that.

Now, with all these changes, you have to be aware that, if you have addendums or ASIs or RFIs, that change the design. So that all that information has to be updated into the model. Now, sometimes you may get lucky enough, and you may get the architect or engineer to actually send you an updated model, but that's rare.

Most the time, they will not give you that information because they're not contracted or required to do so. I've gotten some people to do that. It's kind of like, hey, can you send me that stuff? Yeah. Or no. Then I have to model it. I have to make sure it's correct. OK.

So we create a BIM schedule, like I mentioned. Now, up here, you can see on the left that this is just kind of giving you an example. Now, I forgot to mention, when you're understanding the type of contract you're in, we have a separate contract for our subcontractors.

That particular contract is attached to their awarded contract called the BIM attachment. This information is within our contract. So it tells them what they can and can't do, who takes precedence over who. It has the BIM schedule, it has a participation log, and it has an upload instructions within it-- all related to the project they were awarded.

Now, this BIM schedule shows phases of certain deadlines, of certain things that I require uploaded by certain dates. Now, so phase 1, for instance, is architectural, structural, and lighting. Now, lighting and ceilings are the very last thing to ever be moved when you're coordinating a model.

And that's because, well, your lighting calculations and layouts from the engineer, they can't be changed. The architectural and structural, I'm known as the person who has to handle the sandbox. So I keep all that information up to date with those ASIs and [? MCRs, ?] et cetera.

And so phase 1, phase 2, phase 3. Different things I require uploaded at separate times. And sometimes we have deadlines of, OK, I want you to be 100% coordinated by this date and then I want your field use drawings by this date. Or I'll have it rolled into one date, depending on what kind of team you're dealing with.

And then we create a BIM participation log. So that particular participation log has every subcontractor. Remember that list that we created in the beginning? Every subcontractor and detailer are related to the project-- your mechanical, your electrical, your plumbing, your fire protection, your steel guys. Because you want a steel model if you can get your hands on one.

Oh, and then we go through the upload instructions, like I mentioned. So it's really important to know that you can get these guys to upload all their information in the appropriate file naming, folders, locations, things like that. And I'm responsible for that. And I'm really picky, and I want things to be consistent on the site so it's easier for people to go back and look at that information. So I make sure and upload model instructions, as well.

And then we create a BIM kickoff meeting. We have to participate in a BIM kickoff meeting before coordination ever starts. So I bring in the general contracting team. I bring in all the subcontractors, myself, my bosses, and we talk about this BIM attachment. This BIM attachment, we go through, do this, do that, don't do this. If you do this, we're going to charge you $100.

So once we have a BIM kickoff meeting and we discuss those things, you create a project start date. And once we do that project start date, then we can actually start coordinating the models. All right! So when we start coordinating the models, I have to ask, OK. I have subcontractors and detailers that have never worked in Glue before. Who's worked in Glue here? OK, handful of people. Navisworks? Most people. Awesome.

Now, I did find out that a lot of people don't use collision detection in Glue. A lot of people use Navisworks? I don't have a problem with doing my collision detection in Glue, and I'll show you why. But I have to train my guys. And I have to tell them, OK, have you worked in Glue? No. OK, have you worked in Navisworks? Yeah. All right. Well, Glue is kind of a user-friendly software.

So I train them how to do that. And in the middle of training them how to do that, I have to set up notifications on their computer. Because I don't want to hear this, I didn't receive that markup. I didn't receive that comment. Nuh-uh. I sent it to you. And then I hear this thing-- I can't upload the models. I can't get this stuff up into the cloud. Whatever.

I make them know how to clear their cache on their computer. Because as we know, Glue is a cloud-based product, but those cache files get cached down to your computer. So it's important to maintain your computer, its updates. Clear your caches. So we do that.

And I show them how to do that. Because I don't want any excuses why they can't upload their model, because they will drag their feet and try and tell me they can't do that. No excuse. This is how you do it. This is how you fix it. And there are situations that you have that. But for the most part, I make them do that.

Now, when we get all that situated, everybody knows where to upload their models into Glue, what folders. And then I create a merged model. And then from that merged model, we can start coordinating those models. So when I do that, I create clash reports.

So in these clash reports, from personal experience, I have to narrow down these clash reports per trade. So HVAC versus lights, steel versus domestic piping, lights versus power, even. I break them down per trade because it forces them to look at every single clash report. I don't necessarily trust them to tell me that they're going to look at everything, because then I have to take the time to go back and backtrack that. And my job position, I don't have the time to do that.

Now, I do that because it's also not my responsibility to go through and make markups for thousands upon thousands of clashes, especially things that are obvious. Like, OK, you're not going to have a pipe through a piece of duct, and it's an obvious fix, so go back and fix it. I'm not going to sit there and talk to you about that.

So when things start narrowing down into bigger problems and bigger challenges and issues, then I step in and I create markups. Now, I take those markups and I break them up by folder-- per trade-- just to categorize them, make it a little bit easier on them. And I usually label my markups, where they're at in the building, what the problem is, whatever.

So as you can see, there's a couple images that show certain markups that I created. Now, you'll see one that's kind of in the center of my page. That's a [? CAM light. ?] I had a detailer one time, he was running his domestic cold and hot water directly through that [? CAM light. ?] And I'm like, OK, dude, you've got to move that piping out of the light. Lights take precedence. You have a pressurized pipe. That needs to move over.

So what does he do? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight elbows around the [? CAM light. ?] I'm like, this isn't going to save anybody any time or money when they have to prefab a pipe with eight elbows. And then you have to take into account all the hangars that has to be placed on each corner. No, no, no.

[LAUGHTER]

So I'm like, all right, dude, no. Fix it. Move it. So he did, of course. And then you have some of the other images that I have, certain things that are obvious. No, I'm not going to talk about that in my coordination meetings, because that's [? an ?] obvious situation. Figure out how to fix it. If you can't figure out a path for your piping, then I'll step in and I will do what I can to help you. But I'm not going to have these coordination meetings, and they're not going to be two hours long, talking about things that are obvious fixes.

So I have these coordination meetings. Now, I have to document everything I do. Now, all of my meetings are done virtually. So I'm at my awesome computer station, and we have these meetings, and everyone is wherever they are, and I have these meetings on Skype so everyone can see my computer.

Now, I have to document everything I do. So you can see up here, we have a BIM report. That BIM report is kind of like a meetings minutes. It gets people dates and requirements by certain deadlines and things that need to be fixed. And I also record my meetings on my computer.

Now, that is because, when you're dealing with somebody-- [? these ?] subcontractors, and general contractors, and the AE teams, lots of times, they sit in on my coordination meetings. Someone's going to say this, or promise you this, or say they didn't do that. You want to make sure that you're holding people accountable for what they're saying.

Because it's going to come back on you as a BIM coordinator, why something's wrong. Or how often is it that you hear on-site, I'm just following the model. Or, well, I'm following the shop drawings. Or, they told me to do this. No. You need to make sure and document everything you're doing.

Now, I had a situation one time. I was in the middle of a coordination meeting, and let's just say these two men were older than me. And they were going at it. They were fighting. They were hashing it out over my meeting virtually. And I'm like, hold on. Little old me, right? Hold on. If you two do not stop what you're doing right now and stop acting like five-year-olds, I'm going to cut off this meeting and I'm going to charge you $100.

Or I had a meeting one time where I had this particular subcontractor, and he was very rough and gruff and [? rahh. ?] And we're having these issues on-site, and it's underground. And he's running one of his sanitary pipes-- whoo-- right through a grade beam. And not right through the center of it. It was the bottom half of the grade beam.

First of all, I had him-- I told him, you need to move that. There are no details in the set that says that you can penetrate a grade beam. So that needs to change. So he tells me, well, can't [? the ?] structural fix their grade beam? What? Hold on. No? Wait, are you telling me that you think piping takes precedence over structure? Well, my inverts. Your inverts can change. No.

I mean-- and the cost that would have been implicated if they had to adjust the grade beam to make it deeper for the pipe. I mean, no. So he had-- so those are the types of things that I have to record and I have to document, because they could come back and they could not only bite me in the butt, but it'll bite the general contractor. So you're not only protecting yourself, but you're protecting the entire team as a whole when you're doing that. Yeah.

There's a lot of information, and everyone's freaking out. Everyone's on fire because we ran into the situation. I constantly run into things where they're like, we're having this issue on-site. Why didn't you catch this as the BIM coordinator? I'm like, I'm human. I'm not going to catch everything.

I mean, come on. You're not going to catch every single problem that you have in a model. We're here to mitigate risk, we're not here to take away you and what you do on the job. So that happens. It does. And I think it's true. I mean, I do. I still love what I do, but I do think that's true. All right.

So after all that, and we have all these different coordination meetings, a couple of months down the road, we finally get to a point where we create field use drawings. How often do we create field use drawings, and I'm looking at these pages, and I'm like, I can't read what I'm looking at. Nothing is clear. Got text everywhere.

Now, coming from the background I do, being on the design side for eight years, I've been involved with creating the contract documents, dimensioning things, labeling things, knowing how to create stuff that's clear and concise. So when I get these drawings from my detailers and I have to look at them and approve for clarity and content, it's very often then I bloody up these drawings because, no. You need to make this better. You need to make this where people can read it.

Because it's not just your field guys which are the most important people, because they're putting this together, they're building it on-site. But sometimes the owners get this information, the general contractor gets the information, so your superintendent. All these people get this information, and you have to make sure that it's clear, and you can read it, and people understand what you're looking at.

So these particular drawings are from a couple of my detailers that have been my favorites thus far. And he did really good. Things look clear and you can read that information. Now, if you're really lucky, you get a detailers that will also create 3D views for you, which is awesome. Because then you have the guys in the field that can look at this information, ugh, that's how it's supposed to look. That's how we need to construct it. So if you can get your detailer to do, that would be awesome.

So once I'm done with, like, my fifth iteration from marking these up, bloodying them up, sending them back and forth, I finally approve that information for content and clarity. And then they get sent off to the AE team for approval. Whoo! We did it. So once that information is done, we made it. Yay! But we're not done.

So here we are. We're about eight weeks down the road, six weeks down the road. This stuff has been prefabbed-- what could be prefabbed. And now stuff is being installed on-site. So I perform on-site verification. So as I do that on-site verification, I perform that in various ways. Scanning, so scan to BIM processes. So I go out on-site and I scan this information.

So cast-in-place concrete walls for certain cord penetrations in those walls. I take that [? point cloud, ?] I bring it back to the office, I put it up in our software, and then I verify that to the coordinated model and where those penetrations have taken place-- whether they're correct, or they're not, or what needs to be adjusted.

And then I use my handy-dandy iPad. So who uses their iPad on-site? Cool. So I take that iPad, I bring the model up in Glue from my iPad, and I walk around on-site and I check stuff out. And I'm in a room seeing where the stuff's being installed. [GASP] What did they do? They did not install this stuff that we [? coordinated ?] in. How often does that happen?

So then I have to perform this on-site verification, whether it's correct or whether I run into those types of issues. And then I have to bring in the general contracting team, so the superintendent. I have to bring in the field foreman. I have to bring in the detailer related to that trade and we have to discuss these problems. Because they start installing it in the wrong spot, who knows what's going to happen down that system line, right? So you have to run into those situations and you have to deal with them appropriately.

Now, when you work with that and you run into those issues, and the field guides are doing whatever they want whenever they want, that now makes your job completely pointless. You can't do what you need to do if you can't have everybody on board. That starts with me all the way down to the guys that are installing it. Everyone has to be on board. Everyone has to work as a team.

And these guys, technically, are contractually obligated to follow this information. Because now these field use drawings, you take these contract documents that you started with, you're not installing to that information. You are installing to these field use drawings. Because that gives you the information from center of duct, center of pipe, to grid lines, to outside walls, however you make that your standard, and elevations.

They need to show that information pinpoint so you know exactly where that information is going. Because how often is it that you have this huge mechanical room has all this different piping and ductwork on top of each other and it's not shown appropriately? It's not built appropriately? And then what you do is now a waste of everybody's time and everyone starts wasting money. It's a thing.

We also use this handy-dandy tin box in the middle. It's called our data vault. So now, since we use Glue, because it's cloud-based, I can have the field guys send me questions directly to my office real-time. I can communicate that information real-time. And then we talk back and forth. I create markups with my iPad, send them to the guys in the field, we talk about information.

And then now they can coordinate back and forth with each other and myself, all real-time because it's in the cloud. So we do that, and we get that. We get through the on-site verification. Which is cool, because I'm not in the office all the time. And I do like to be on-site, and I like to see this stuff and how it's going to be built. It's awesome.

I resonate really well with that rated R for adult language. Little old me, I cuss up a storm in my office. I run into these situations and I take off my headphones-- ra-ra-ra-ra-ra. Ra-ra-ra-ra. I'm not going to cuss in front of you.

But people are like, Katie, just calm down. I'm like, no. These guys are not installing it the way I told them to, and we worked so hard to create these drawings. Just calm down. It's a thing. I mean, yeah, I do. I cuss up a storm. Cool.

So now that that's all done, we prepare our model for facilities management. Now, once we get everything situated, we put the appropriate information and we track that in the established different formats. So like I said earlier, you put that into your parameters. You input the appropriate supplier information, this versus that.

And you push that from Revit to Glue, Glue to field, field to ops. We do this really heavy in our office. I personally haven't dealt with this very much, but we've got a couple of guys that are really into this. Because this is the new [? wave. ?] This is becoming really popular with owners. So we handle this and we do this quite a bit in our office. OK.

Here's the big one. How is what you do saving so much money and helping with safety on-site? Well, there is no definite way to actually calculate cost for what you do. Because if you think about it, you're solving these problems before they ever become an issue. So how can you prepare a cost when there's no cost to be compared to because it's not an issue, right?

But there are things that we can assume, and there are things that we can talk about. So you go through this coordinated process. You get to the point, and you create your field use drawings, the guys prefab what they can. So now you're prefabbing more. You have less crews on site. Your site is cleaner. Because now you're not having all these guys cutting different material up trying to make things fit on-site. So you're solving problems before the damage is ever done.

Now, we do other things to help us with this. Like I said, the data vault, because you're interconnected with the teams, and then they can go through and they can review this information real-time. I also do the scanning. So there was a project that, just a couple of weeks ago, I was down south, New Mexico, and I had to verify the structural steel with the submittal model.

So I go through, and I had to make sure all the elevations were correct, where they were installing the steel, and we had certain amount of information that we had leniences for. But we did that, we came back, we brought it into the model, we compared it to the steel submittal model, and we were done. You're like all right, cool.

So that's another thing, because you don't want to go and have-- all of a sudden, you have all these problems, and then you've got floor flatness issues and all this stuff because the steel was installed in the incorrect place. So we do that.

Now, the image that you can kind of see in the top middle, now, this is a project that I dealt with. Now, blue is structural, black is architectural. So this particular situation, these are cast-in-place concrete walls. Normally, because it's a structural item, your guys on-site are going to construct this information for the structural drawings. They're way off.

So if they were going to go and pour these cast-in-place concrete walls-- and no one caught this. I'm the one who caught this because of various different situations. The sump pits weren't in the right location because the elevator tracking was right in the sump pit. So it caused me to overlay these drawings and review this information, and I found out the walls were in the right spot.

So you could only imagine the kind of cost that would have been involved with this. If they were to install and build these walls per the structural set like they're normally supposed to do, they wouldn't have been put in the right spot. Or they would have been found way too late. But because I was reviewing those contract documents ahead of time and being that second-- this extra set of eyes, there was not a problem.

Now, this trickled in to other information. Because I'm overlaying this information-- and I did that with BlueBee-- I'm all of a sudden noticing that the exterior walls are cast-in-place concrete, too. Here is your architectural window opening. Here's your structural window opening. And it happened all the way down that wall five levels up with the same problem.

So because of this, because this created different issues, I had to bring in the general contracting team, I had to bring in the architects, the engineers involved, the structural engineer, and I had to show them, this is the problem that I'm dealing with and these are the issues. They still didn't believe me. And I'm like, wait. I overlaid this stuff seven times to make sure that I'm not wasting your time.

So the solution was, there was a miscommunication and they had to go back, and then they had to fix that problem. Because during design, at some point, the architect didn't give them the most up-to-date information. So the structural [? guide ?] was behind, and so he had to go back and he had to fix that stuff. But we solved it before it became a problem. Cool. OK.

So here's a good one. This is another project. This is a cast-in-place concrete wall solution. We had a mechanical chase in those walls. And no one took into account the big embed plates in those cast-in-place walls. Because those monster embed plates are supporting the beams for the level above.

So the detailer that I was working with recommended that he took the return duct, the purple duct, and run it out into a different room. But because of sound attenuation purposes and guidelines, we couldn't do that. So again, I had to get the mechanical engineer, the structural engineer, the architect, I had to get them all involved and to talk about this. And the structural engineer ended up having to go back and re-engineer this information.

So what did they do? They ended up taking those embed plates, pushing them up to be, now, teeter-tottering between two levels an inch below that orange beam. So the mechanical engineer got off easy. And he was able to leave his ductwork where it needed to be to penetrate and disperse into each level.