1 What does LucroSol do? The company is registered to perform general contracting in California & Florida. As such we can build any residential, commercial, or industrial structure. We are a Small Business. Our advantage is using VDC, BIM, and IPD on projects. Digital models include the scheduling of materials, sequence of construction, material take-offs, energy calculations, cost tracking, organization modeling, and process. Creating a digital model of what you construct eliminates 99% of the construction questions and design conflicts, lowers the costs, and reduces construction time. LucroSol uses VDC techniques to provide a higher quality structure, reduce waste and cost, complete work in less time with less labor, and complete the building sooner.
2 So you are a model shop? An important distinction to note is LucroSol does not provide 3D modeling services as singular service, we are not a model provider. We do work with subcontractors who specialize in producing 3D models only if the trade subcontractor is not capable. As experts we manage the modeling process, define the level of detail, all specifications, and quality control of the models our subcontractors create. LucroSol uses a suite of software to model various aspects of a building project to track conflicts, cost, scheduling, sequencing, estimating, safety, analysis, and coordination, data exchange, detailing and 3D. We teach team how to prefabricate and fabricate offsite with the objective of reducing on-site installation resources.
3 WIIFM What’s In It For Me The value proposition for all stakeholders, or “what’s in it for me”, needs to be clearly defined and communicated. VDC techniques, correctly implemented and executed, provide increased profits, earlier completions, less field labor, less risk (safety), and near elimination of Work Orders and Request For Information.
4 How Can LucroSol lower the cost of a building? Digital prototyping provides: A) material quantities which reduces waste, B) exact geometry, removing conflicts, enabling prefabrication of many components, provides clear understanding of building to stakeholders, C) Easy visualization of trade sequence for accurate scheduling, D) field location using survey equipment, E) easily understood as-builts for future construction.
5 How can LucroSol reduce construction duration? Building a "complete" digital model requires almost 100% of the decisions to be complete. So representing of the building to a high level of detail requires: A) all design of structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, architectural features, material suppliers, to be near complete, B) contractors, subcontractors, consultants and suppliers secured and under contract. Because the entire construction team has built the building, albeit virtually, they recognize where to save time by prefabricating building components, improved trades coordination, just in time material and labor supplies. Within reason, every time you perform a new task it takes longer the first time than the second.
6 How much does this cost? Historical project data indicates 0.018 of total for projects under two hundred million. This does not apply large projects with no detailed construction (multibillion dollar road construction for example). Projects with extremely complex construction challenges require more effort (facilities with dense utilities & supply chain constraints).
7 How much does one 3D detailer cost? At the level of work we preform, figures indicate $7800 to $10,500 per shop drawing detailer per month . As of 2015, Technology costs are $88,000 per man month, this figure requires 5 men per month. Please differentiate design models from shop drawings, we're not creating design intent models at this price point.
8 What would a minimal 3D model cost? Too many variables affect this answer. We can provide estimates based in historical metrics. Design intent models, the vast majority of what people think is "BIM" are elementary design intent and contractors can not use them to actually build from. These models are cheap to build.
9 How much money will I save using LucroSol VDC construction services? While reported savings of projects tracked from 2004 to date are all over the map, we have seen from double the VDC cost to ten percent of the total project cost. One client saved eight hundred million on a sixteen month project, so fifty million a month.
10 Will LucroSol guarantee I save time and money on a project? YES! with our executed IPD contract entered into by all major project stakeholders and we manage the project.
11 What is an IPD contract? Integrated project Delivery is the concept of contractual obligation among the construction team, the major stake holders, to eliminate Change Orders, Requests for Information, delay damages and other cost and delay of project incidents. Members of the constitution team contribute their expertise in building the virtual project, doing so encourages the model to be completed with a level of detail enabling ninety nine percent of the design, supply, means, methods, and construction details be complete. IPD is the process of incorporating detailed construction knowledge into the design and modeling to optimize the construction activities (and thereby minimize cost and schedule). IPD can save LARGE % + on schedule and cost. The knowledge is context, personnel, time, and team dependent.
12 What is greatest challenge to implementing VDC? If the entire team doesn't believe in modeling 100% as constructed, one stakeholder will screw up the projects and give VDC and IPD a bad name. We do not believe there is a solution at less than 100% faithful modeling in some form. “God is in the details” - LucroSol believes the "design" team i.e. Architects, Engineers, MEP & contractors must bother themselves with details. LucroSol believes we are due for a period of over adjustment where Architects, Engineers, MEP & contractors will become immersed in the details again - design, fabrication, and construction details. Once we understand the links and dependencies between concepts, detailing, reliability, construct-ability, and productivity; perhaps we can start to specialize again. For the time being, we have need of a generation of master builders who can redefine the process to make maximum use of the potential offered by the new technologies. Only someone who recognizes no boundaries can do this, because in the future, the boundaries will be different from what exist today. If all we have are domain specialists trying to re-define the process only within the pre-existing boundaries, and within the rules as dictated by the lawyers and insurance companies, we will inevitably be condemned to the mistakes of the past. We have to deconstruct design-build problems and recast them in the context of the potential future capabilities instead of the current or past capabilities of the participants. What if structural engineers actually did know how to build buildings? What if designers understood the challenges and opportunities of fabrication and installation processes? In domain after domain, people have a limited view of what they are doing and how it relates to what others are doing. By the time you get two steps away from a particular domain, almost everyone has a distorted and misinformed view of what the true constraints in that domain are. The is further compounded by the deep knowledge that characterizes many of these domains - so deep that experts are sometimes not able to communicate their constraints clearly because of the lack of basic knowledge on the part of the audience. We at LucroSol are working to fix that.
13 Construction according to the 3D model If a contractor cannot construct in accordance with a fully coordinated 3D models the entire team is adversely affected. We have addressed that challenge with the ability of our metrology solutions to validate:
- The equipment adheres to the shop drawings
- Piping sections are fabricated within tolerance
- Hangers are located correctly
- Use routing zones
- Trades have 3D routes to work within for ease of design
- Parties requesting existing conditions receive that information in a timely manner i.e. hours not days.
14 What is LucroSol doing that is different than most? We focus on providing the team just in time geometry at a reasonable cost. Once construction begins the teams deal with as-built conditions. We can collect this information then 1) provide it to relevant stakeholders, 2) record for posterity, 3) compare to design intent/shop drawings/design models. How? Using metrology together with processes and in-house software we developed with SDK's (Software Development Kits) provided by Autodesk, Leica, Faro to name a few. We have successfully argued that for practical reasons the contractor should and will use the model as his primary source of information. The practical reasons are that once we put all the detail into the model, that's "a single source of truth" and there is no way to extract that information and present it clearly and comprehensively in a set of 2D conceptual drawings or in a set of 2D literal drawings. Textual information within a 3D model is replacing traditional 2D diagrams with notes and specs. We are linking the construction trailers to the "live" model. On every project there are job boxes for tools and kiosks for reference models and drawings in the building that is under construction. These are used by the foremen and crew that are actually doing the work. We are on track to put flat screen monitors in the kiosks with a wireless link to the ONE model. It will not be long before there are links between the PDA's that will be an indispensable addition to the journeyman's tool belt and the ONE model. We also know for a fact that it takes twice as long to extract the pathetically ineffective drawings from the model as it does to actually model 100% of the detail, even throwing in the time it takes to coordinate with the superintendents and foremen that are going to construct the building. The thing that has finally made the 3D model useful is that we actually put all the construction details into it.
15 So what now? We have clearly crossed a significant bridge and I do not foresee this ever going back to the way it was. In the future, talk of a "construction" model and a "design" model will be considered just silly. The interest in VR is just beginning, we'll soon be walking not only a virtual model but a hybrid model where we see proposed within existing.