Building information modelling (BIM) has come a long way in recent years, taking over the traditional 2D sketches and 3D physical models to enable more accurate models and better communication tools to Architecture, Construction and Engineering (ACE) professionals. But there’s one area where workflows and timelines could still be improved and that is in clash detection.
BIM tools have grown to be able to highlight when a potential conflict might occur, either structural or in management, so stakeholders and project teams can redesign or address the issue before it becomes more pressing, and potentially more expensive.
While this process helps improve the timelines and workflows from the early digital age of construction, tremendous hours of manual labour and gaps in communication still lead to reworks and wasted man-hours. The average construction project takes nearly 15 per cent more time to complete than planned, driving up costs almost 20 per cent from increased wages, equipment and more.
Recent studies show that rework is still accounting for nearly a fourth of total project costs. It’s unrealistic to assume detection will prevent all hard and soft clashes, but it still leads to considerable savings. If it prevented just half of those requiring rework, that’s a 17 per cent cost reduction. The truth is, clash workflows have never been easy, but that is about to change.
Clashes vary depending on the sector and generally fall into a few categories; hard clash, soft clash, and workflow/4D clashes.
Hard clashes occur when two physical objects overlap and share the same space running into each other, like a pipe colliding with AC ductwork. Soft clashes occur when objects don’t intersect, but their buffer zones do. A lack of buffers zones can create safety problems or code violations. The final type of clash detection deals with workflow/4D clashes which impact scheduling and other timeline problems. For example, workers’ schedules, tasks, and timelines do not match up when materials arrive late.
With the average project containing thousands of clashes and the average rework from an undetected clash costing from $1,500 to $17,000, just a hand full of clashes slipping through the cracks and getting constructed can impact the bottom line quickly.
Revizto+ and Clash Automation
Having released version 5 of its Integrated Collaboration Platform (ICP) in 2020, Revizto publicly released Revizto+ and Clash Automation on October 19, which recently identified over three million clashes in under 45 minutes.
Revizto+ and Clash Automation allows project stakeholders to access the full benefits of BIM by taking away the risk of human error in addressing clashes, thus saving hundreds of man-hours.
With over 3000 clients and over 200,000 users across 150 countries, Revizto is a tried and tested tool in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and the APAC region. As CEO, Arman Gukasyan explains why the new Revizto+ and Clash Automation is the “coronation” stage in the 11 years since the platform has been developing and expanding.
“During the development of the platform, we knew that seeing interactively nowadays is not enough. We wanted to create an issue tracking component that would allow people to identify the issues, assign those issues and then follow up on those issues. So, we set out to create an issue management system back in 2013 and then as we expanded. The platform, we introduced docs to ensure real time usage and contract drawings,” Mr Gukasyan says.
“The next step was to complete that coronation with the Clash Automation, so that now it’s a true integrated collaboration platform. When we talk about Revizto today, we are talking about centrally managing a process that has typically been very chaotic, not only on the design side but also on the construction side. We want to reduce those bottlenecks with real-time collaboration and the way we do real-time collaboration is having a proper context of what we are looking at,” he adds.
Revizto publicly released Revizto+ and Clash Automation on October 19th via a Global Presentation hosted by Revizto CEO, Arman Gukasyan, and Brett Settles, Global Director of Customer Success.
To learn more about Revizto+ Clash Automation, visit: https://revizto.com/en/