April 2013

Attendees: Dave Bleiman, Catherine Chan,
Craig Goings, Bruce Madsen, Karen Thomas, Dan Tsui, Marla Ushijima

Major Topics:
Newforma
File sharing

March 2013

Attendees: Luis Buenfil, Bruce Madsen, Guillaume Miara, Sheena Shook, Karen Thomas, Marla Ushijima

Major topics of discussion:

BIM strategy services offered by small, agile consultants (such as Case, Ant Group, Ecodomus, Kimon Onuma) to design firms and owners.

Cobie data: clients hear about it and want it, but client project managers don't want to pay for it.

Particular software is less critical than the process it facilitates.

There's a lack of consistency among firms on BIM deliverables. Everyone in the industry has a duty to push standards forward. BIM makes it more critical.

Contract language is for BIM is critical. Project managers are wary because they're on the hook for money and schedule.

UC Berkeley offers no interdisciplinary training and no Revit. Schools that don't produce good interns with useful skills will drop off. Mentorship is crucial. SF AIA mentorship program offers 360º, cross-firm mentoring connections.

Writing up meeting minutes can be facilitated by audio recording. There's an ipad app that records audio with bookmarks that are tagged to typed notes. Transcription is difficult due to background noise typically present; pretty much has to be done by humans.

February 2013

Attendees: Dave Bleiman, Eric Davis, David Green, Mario Guttman, Mike Hilliard, James MacKenzie, Bruce Madsen, Nancy McClure, Kim Pipkin, Tony Rinella, Adhamina Rodriguez, Gina Siciliano, Madigan Talmadge-Bowers, Vidhya Thyagarajin, Dan Tsui, Marla Ushijima, Glen Walson

 
James McKenzie of Swinerton hosted at Swinerton's offices (thanks, great conference room!), and led a lively discussion on BIM workflow between designers and builders. He drew from his related presentations at Autodesk University on project delivery and best practices for construction data extraction from Revit.

December 2012

Attendees: Dave Bleiman, Luis Buenfil, Bruce Madsen, Dan Tsui, Marla Ushijima

Topics of discussion:

Bruce decried the inconsistency of Revit family naming and expressed a wish for an industry standard. He mentioned the standards for plumbing families developed by ATS.

Dan brought up the database he's creating in SQLite (for his girlfriend's recipe collection).

Python was mentioned as an "awesome, easy, fast" database alternative. Luis says that Python integrates into Revit, and provides integration between Revit and several other programs such as Rhino, Vasari, and 3D Studio. It's open source and offers a graphical interface. It can be used as a front-end for creating geometry from a project program; and multi-variable input facilitates analysis and design optimization.

Luis told us about the flying motorcycles and cage match at the AU keynote speech (!). The main talking points at AU, and the evident direction in which Autodesk is investing, is in cloud computing and mobile solutions, such as visualization in the field on a ipad.

Dave brought up Turkey. Ground displacement in the recent earthquake was 3-4 meters. He mentions that the banking system was isolated from the Lehman Bros. disaster and the economy is fairly healthy. There's a nation-wide push for hospital construction, seismic retrofit and base isolation. Mock-ups of O.R.'s are not economically viable; virtual simulation would be a good substitute.

Virtual simulation benefits from development in the gaming industry (since that's where the money is). Game engines can handle the geometry much better than Revit for smooth, fast walk-throughs. Dan describes a work flow of .rvt file > .3ds > Unity game engine (which is free!). Then that can be run on a desktop, laptop, or ipad to glasses with two screens that cover the eyes; and a helmet with a gyroscope that tracks head movement. Dan mentions that an iphone taped to a hat would alternately serve that function. The model moves as the person looks around and up/down. SmartBIM is apparently backing development of visualization using Unity.

Bruce likens Revit walk-throughs to "packing an elephant into a Volkswagon." There needs to be a converter to simplify the geometry and proximity triggers to select alternate levels of detail for quick walk-throughs. He thinks this needs to be done by a person, as it requires a judgement call. There's a lot of ambiguity that's not handled well by computers.

We ended with a discussion debating the value proposition of paying tuition at current rates to get an MBA.

November Meeting

Attendees: Dave Bleiman, Nora Klebow, Nancy McClure, Guy Messick, Mabe Ng, Bruce Madsen, Raimi Tan, Karen Thomas, Dan Tsui, Marla Ushijima, Glen Walson, Les Young.

Bruce hosted us at HOK this month (thanks, Bruce!). He had a great presentation on "BOB - BIM Outside the Box" and has graciously shared slides from his powerpoint presentation with us. You can download it here.

Bruce was delayed in starting his presentation due to enthusiastic discussion as people were arriving.

Bruce and Glen compared notes on the current state of Revit MEP. HOK now mandates that MEP work be performed in Revit. Interface Engineering has about 120 projects on Revit MEP. They agree that implementation has been difficult, though improving. The software is now adequate for the task, but workflow remains a major issue.

Data remains an ongoing challenge in BIM. Nancy notes that over the life of a project/building, it's difficult to maintain the integrity of the data. While designers don't want to be data-driven, Nancy points out that heavily-programmed buildings can benefit greatly by using data in a BIM design workflow. Nora notes that hospitals are in the forefront of this strategy because while the diagnostic and testing (D+T) components are different every time in terms of various metrics and adjacencies, patient rooms remain similar from project to project. Dave and Glen agree that hospitals benefit the most from evidence-based design because the owners are deeply involved in the design process, which is critical for its success.

Bruce began his presentation by identifying various aspects of implementing BIM and comparing the cost implications of each. While  BIM software is not inexpensive, that direct cost is a small fraction of the overall costs, as shown in his pie chart above. Marla and Karen questioned the slice for coordination since coordination has always been the architect's responsibility, but Bruce and Dave agree that the effort for BIM coordination is significantly greater than what's traditionally been done by architects because it's handled in the earlier phases of the project rather than getting pushed off to the contractor.

The largest single cost of BIM is for the content. The elements of this are building the firm-specific content for templates, building the firm library, acquiring content as needed, and managing all that content. Bruce's presentation focused on acquisition of content: building, finding, and/or buying it.

Built content can be started from a template, or by modifying existing content. Intuition would assume that using existing content would be easier, but as Glen pointed out, between time spent searching, modifying, and reverse-engineering to fix defects, it's often faster and easier to build from scratch.

Free content can be found from a variety of sources:

• BIM box: In addition to the default content provided, Autodesk offers 30 additional regional libraries.
• Within the firm: project archives, firm library, local office library
• Community exchanges: Balda Architect, Beck Group, CADforum, Revit City, Revit Database, Revit Forum, TurboSquid, Woodwork Institute
• Commericial consolidators: ATS, Autodesk SEEK, ARCAT, ARCxl, Bimobject, BIM STOP, Bimstore, CADdetails, Design content, National BIM Library, POLANTIS, PRODUCTSPEC, SteelSelect, Sweets Network, Reed Construction, RevitFAMILIESonline, SMARTBIM
• Manufacturers: Bruce has identified over 1100 manufacturers providing BIM content, with more coming on board every day. He feels that manufacturers are supporting BIM much better/faster than they had CAD.

Dave told us that manufacturers must pay to be listed with Autodesk SEEK, which limits the value of that resource. He also feels that using the National BIM Library is a route to guaranteed failure. Everyone agreed that while there's a lot of free content out there, there's a lot of time and effort required to find and adapt it—which is not free.

Buying content can be done from stores (Archvision, BD GROUP, Designconnected, ENGworks, FORMFONTS, Little Details Count, Revit Content, Revit Furniture, revitstore, RevitBay, revitcars, Symbol Machine, TurboSquid, Yellowbryk) or commissioned to be custom-built (andekan, LONDON INFOTECH, Pinnacle Infotech, REVIT FACTORY, Revit MEP Store, SumexDesign, Revit Content, TheModus).

Level of detail within a family is critical—it has to have enough information to be worthwhile, but too much detail blows up the size of the model and slows down the work. Bruce promoted three levels of detail within a family: simple cubes with schedules can serve for preliminary design; 2D symbols are usually sufficient for orthographic views; while more detailed 3D geometry can be reserved for where it's really necessary. Dan also suggests swapping out objects as necessary when rendering.

Bruce proposed that it's up to us to address the difficulties we face with content. Currently our efforts are redundant—all firms are addressing these topics independently. Instead we must ask for what we want, provide feedback, and contribute to an industry-wide solution. As a starting point, he solicited input from us on our greatest frustrations related to BIM content. Among those things most mentioned were time lost due to searching for content, content that's not appropriate for a model's needs, poorly-built content, and interruption to work flow.

Bruce identified the things we want:

• A massive library: all the content we need, including system objects, generic objects, and manufacturer-specific objects.
• Consistency: file names, type names, parameters, and parameter names. These standards should be established and maintained by industry groups, professional organizations, national and international standards groups, some kind of AECO Wiki, and all of us in the industry.
• High quality: adherence to standards and quality control, making sure all parameters flex properly.
• Findable: A searchable database or some other resource is necessary to make accessing the content from so many sources feasible. Search parameters need to include discipline, Revit category and library folder names, object name, author, LOD, standard followed, generic vs. specific, and a rating of the quality.
• Accessible: cloud-based, mobile, download-able, and insert-able
• Free or low-cost: all stakeholders should sponsor improvement: manufacturers to fund specific content; consolidators to fund generic content; stores to develop generic and non-component content; professional and trade organizations to develop standards for names and units; and content users to develop standards  for display and function, and to provide input and feedback. Large AEC firms could also be drawn upon to build content.

On the subject of standards, Dave noted that there are existing systems that can be drawn upon. ISO9000, the National CAD Standards, and Omniclass have already sorted some of these things out.

October Meeting

Attendees: Dave Bleiman, Mario Guttman, Bruce Madsen, Marla Ushijima

The group was really stoked after the presentation last month from Doug Childs on Lean Design, so we continued the topic in our informal discussion this month.

We all agreed that Lean faces resistance from the design community, which generally views it as a manufacturing-focused methodology. Marla proposes that the specialized terminology of Lean can be off-putting to those adverse to Lean Design, but that the specific words aren't critical to following Lean principles. Those principles are in line with generally-accepted best business practices—listen to what the client wants, don't waste time on activities that don't advance those goals, and learn from past experience—so if project managers jettison the terminology they can still advance Lean principles and tools on a project basis. Mario feels that the ritual derived from more overt implementation is important for organizational implementation.

We discussed dangers of ritual as well, and the difference between theoretical and actual benefits. We likened it to LEED certification, which can sometimes lead to an emphasis on getting points rather than effective sustainability. Dave questioned the appropriateness of the new Google headquarters' LEED Platinum rating, Mario questioned the slavish reliance on photometrics and Ecotect analysis vs. innovative approaches to getting effective lighting. Dave pointed out the irony of daylighting when shades are positioned to prevent glare but left in that position indefinitely by occupants who then turn on the lights.

How does Lean benefit an organization? Design professions are all about getting the work, doing the work, and getting paid for the work. Lean is mostly about doing the work. Its value in getting the work—marketing—is debatable. Bruce questions whether clients care whether or not you're using Lean; Mario questions whether a firm should try to sell Lean to a client or just let attitudes and performance speak for itself. He suggests that using Lean Design shows a serious commitment to QA, which could be of value in marketing. Added client value and potential marketing opportunities could be a selling point for management buy-in, which Bruce feels is critical for follow-through on whole-office implementation. Dave says that competitive advantage speaks volumes, and compares it to the implementation of BIM. As a demonstration, Mario suggested choosing the most disliked process in the office—such as doing dishes or processing reimbursables—and use a Lean process to improve it.

If internal opposition to Lean is expected, Marla suggests stealth implementation by a committed project manager on an individual project—to start small and demonstrate the value of Lean processes. Bruce and Dave agree that any change represents risk to an organization, so a pilot project must be used for evaluation before spreading it to the broader organization.

Dave is hopeful that Lean would reduce the need  for staff to stay late for a crush at deadline time, through more effective project planning. As an aside, Mario praised sheet lists as remaining of value in the BIM process to identify, plan, and track the work effort. We all agreed that knowing when to NOT do something is the right thing to do—such as when there's insufficient information to proceed effectively. Dave points out that the creative instinct sometimes fights against such efficiency.

Marla asked Dave about PopIcon for Architecture, which is apparently in its beta 3 version. Dave says they're facing a conundrum because they've made the library folder structure rigid to prevent mistakes, but the lack of flexibility creates a problem for architects. Dave is concerned that if they provide more flexibility, PopIcon would become a scapegoat for the resulting user errors. He asked for additional feedback from the beta users.

Mario brought up library management issues with BIM. Perkins+Will has a well-defined nomenclature for family file names, but the folder structure is more difficult to police. Mario thinks it's important for family creators to take ownership of their families and is promoting a structure in which folder names indicate the author, software version, and the unit type (imperial vs. metric). Bruce commented that the person at HOK who was responsible for creating their library of custom content was laid off as an expendable overhead cost. The result is a well-crafted collection of families being overtaken by content created ad-hoc by various designers. Bruce is concerned that the legacy standards—which are really good—will degrade over time.

We discussed the idea of using Omniclass vs. folder structure to classify families and tie them into e-spec. Mario notes that currently specs are typically based on prototypes; Omniclass tends to be either too obvious or too obscure and the middle ground is too small for value. Marla suggested polling our Linked In group to see who's using e-specs.

Bruce asked whether Lean is anathema to design? Architects are typically not interested in "process." Marla points out that certain tasks in the design professions are amenable to process improvement, others not so much. Bruce mentioned "optioneering," a methodology to systematically explore a large number of design options using parametric design tools. Mario pointed out that staffing realities can mess with a balanced work flow. Bruce wonders if Lean can shorten the timeline of a project; Mario wonders whether it can improve accuracy.

Bruce asked us how many manufacturers we think are providing Revit-specific content. Mario guessed twenty are making good content, plus about 500 others. Bruce said there are over a thousand.

Mario says he's developed a batch processor for in-house use at Perkins+Will to create 3D and plan previews, drawn from defined views within the BIM file. Marla asked whether parameters are included in the preview information; Mario doesn't see that as a high priority, and thinks a notes field would be of more value. He wonders whether he could mine the parameters in a family to populate a notes field.

There are several industry events coming up: Arcadia and Greenbuild will both be held in San Francisco, as will AIA|CC's Now • Next • Future conference. Autodesk will be in Las Vegas; both HOK and P+W will be sending speakers only.

Dave proposes a future meeting focusing on the Lean A3 document; he thinks it's really valuable. Marla would like to further examine the ties between Lean, BIM, and IPD. Bruce has a great interest in all the things required for successful BIM use that aren't part of the software package. He believes those things are a hundred times as expensive as the software itself. He has offered to host next month's meeting at HOK on the subject of BOB—BIM Outside the Box.

September Meeting

We had a great presentation on Lean Design from Douglas Childs of TAYLOR this morning. He has been kind enough to allow us to post the slides from his presentation; you may find them here.

James McKenzie and Eric Davis of Swinerton generously hosted the presentation in their well-equipped conference room with stunning views!

And here are a summary and the supplemental notes I promised:

Attendees: Dave Bleiman, Annalise Chikhale, Doug Childs, Eric Davis, Mario Guttman, Will Henderson, Damon Hernandez, Bruce Madsen, Nancy McClure, Karen Thomas, Dan Tsui, Marla Ushijima, Andrew Wolfram

Step 1 - Identify value
Doug started his presentation with demonstrating the first step of Lean processes, by asking the goals of his customers (each person present), and identifying the value they hoped to derive from attending the meeting.

He then explained the premise of What Lean Is and Isn't. Lean originated in Japan by Toyota as an approach to manufacturing excellence, but can be advantageously applied to any kind of process. It is commonly equated with miscellaneous tools such as Last Planner, A3, Six Sigma, Value Stream Mapping and the construction industry specific of IPD. None of these define Lean, but rather can be used to facilitate Lean processes.

Lean is a way of thinking and management targeted at maximizing value to a customer through continually improving processes.

2. Map the Value Stream
After identifying the value as defined by the customer (whosever needs are being addressed by a process, whether a client, building department, boss, etc,), the second step is to map the value stream, which is that set of all actions required to bring a product or process from concept to finished product. The purpose is to analyze the value of each step in the process, and to eliminate all steps which don't add value as defined by the customer. In Lean terminology, this step addresses the concept of the Japanese word muda, or superfluousness, a waste of time and effort.


3. Create Flow
In order to demonstrate the concept of flow, Doug had us do an exercise using the example of inventorying a bag of miscellaneous items.

We split into smaller groups with the purpose of each group individually taking inventory, and seeing how long it took for all groups to complete their separate inventories. The first method was for each group to execute a large chunk of work - to inventory all the objects - and then pass on the objects to the next group, who then did all of their work, and so forth. This resulted in each group having a short period of activity, and long periods of waiting for other groups to execute their tasks. We then tried a process of the first group inventorying a small number of objects and then passing them on to the next group so they could get started while the first group proceeded with successive small sets of objects, passing them on in small chunks. This method resulted in a much more efficient ratio of waiting time to active time, and a much shorter overall time.

4. Establish Pull

The first method was an example of traditional "push" scheduling, wherein a start date is established and each step is executed consecutively one after another. The second method emulated the Lean approach of "pull" scheduling, in which the overall scheduling goal is identified and then the schedule is developed backward to determine what smaller chunks of information are needed when to meet that goal, keeping all team members working concurrently as efficiently as possible. Doug described a common method of pull planning in which a team gathers in one room and collaboratively develops the schedule using color-coded post-its on the wall for each task in a process, identifying its duration, what's needed from upstream actors to perform the task, and constraints.

5. Seek Perfection

The last principle of Lean is the endeavor to continually improve the process, to strive for perfection - meaning the complete elimination of all activities that don't provide value for the customer. It's an ongoing cycle described as PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) which requires transparency and feedback from all, especially customers of the process. One tool to accomplish this is a "plus-delta" check after completion of a process, to revisit the original goals and evaluate what was done well (plus) vs. what could be done better (delta), and to use that input to improve the process next time. Post-occupancy evaluation, anyone?

Doug then addressed some of the objections that are expressed in regard to Lean: that it's just a fad, it's not necessary, there's no time for it, effort should be directed at producing results rather than improving the process, and there's no return on the effort—in large part a lack of understanding and fear of the unknown. Doug addressed those concerns by identifying some of the key differences of Traditional vs. Lean Production and Management—a focus on results vs. customer value, an individual vs. team approach, free-form vs. defined methods, and carrot and stick vs. managed expectations, building consensus and trust—and the resulting benefits:

• for the customer: greater value—faster, lower cost, better quality
• for the designer: happier clients, fewer fire drills and happier staff, and greater profit
• for staff: less stress, greater job satisfaction, happier work environment

Dave Bleiman raised some issues that hinder implementation of Lean. Often outside entities disrupt the process, such as OSHPD or Building Department review; or the entire hierarchy of a team is not on board with the concept; or time-engrained habits resurface at crunch time. He postulates that Lean is easier to implement on a firm basis rather than a project basis. For successful implementation, buy-in and motivation must occur from both the top down and the bottom up.

Doug next reviewed one of the trademark tools of Lean processes, the A3. It's so-called because it uses a single page of paper of Japanese size A3, roughly equivalent to 11x17. It's used to track an issue and the Lean process approach to it. It's composed of a statement and explanation of the issue, analysis—ask why 5 times!—and decision on how to resolve the issue, the specific steps necessary to achieve that resolution, and an evaluation of whether the issue is resolved and how well.

To complete Doug's presentation and demonstration of Lean principals, he solicited plus/delta feedback from everyone in the room on his presentation. Everyone's goals seem to have been met, and we all agreed that Doug did a very nice job of presenting the material. We also agreed that more discussion—which was curtailed during the presentation due to time constraints—would have been helpful.

Those of us who could afford the time stayed on to continue the conversation. Nancy pondered the question of how to implement Lean. Marla pointed out that Lean prescribes a way of thinking that's not dependent upon specific tools or even language, and that a leader could overcome potential resistance to the "Lean" brand by avoiding the catch phrases.

Nancy and Dave think that stress breaks down the Lean process, which Marla points out is ironic as the process is intended to relieve stress. Firmly-ingrained dysfunctional behaviors burden implementation of any kind; the iterative cycle of continuous improvement should eventually overcome that burden.

Dave stated that a critical aspect of Lean is learning how to make proper requests and realistic promises. We all agreed that communication is the most important thing, not the formal tools and terminology of Lean. As Karen noted, it's the job of a project manager to set the tone and create a Lean environment starting at the project kick-off meeting. Dave thinks that it's the project managers who are most resistant to process change. Upper management hears all the benefits and gets on-board with the program but don't directly implement it; and junior staff have no established processes to conflict with the change. Dan thinks one difficulty is the difference between cash flow and profit vs. value creation. It's necessary to figure out how to spread risk across the entire firm rather than burdening a particular project. Damon states there's often interest initially, but when the rubber hits the road, it's pushed off to down the road, on to the next project.

There was a little discussion at the end on some other topics. Eric says that gaming will change our industry, because they're solving the problem of processing huge amounts of data. Our industry just doesn't have an income stream sufficient to tackle it. Dan says game designers reduce polygons to a bare minimum, which is not feasible for AEC. When he can't load an entire model, Damon loads just what's necessary. Dan notes that elements to be loaded can be selected based on location within the building or distance from the viewer.

Damon championed Twitter; he's discovered that using it to post complaints is an extremely effective method for getting a response from a company—they really don't want problems out there, searchable, in cyberspace.

Dave has sworn off multi-tasking, he thinks it just doesn't work. He likes using his iPad because then he can do only one thing at a time.