BUSINESS FEATURE Image: New Millennium Building Systems
Schematic of the unique facility design incorporating girders, which saved signifi cant weight.
for New Millennium, touted the company’s BIM processes to Garco’s managers, who viewed the potential favorably. A kickoff BIM meeting made the entire pro-
cess go smoothly, according to Gillenwater. “We talked about what we look for in the model when we’re doing the coordination, what we expect to get into the model when referencing the joists, and what they should expect from us once we get our as-built joist ready and sent back to them,” he says. “The thing that helped out was the coordi- nation with the girders—that was about the most complicated part of the project.” This project was not unusual from New Mil-
lennium’s standpoint, other than in one aspect, according to Tom Evans, engineering manager at the company’s Juarez, Mexico manufacturing facility. The roof had a 1:12 slope from the ridge, necessitating double-pitched girders and canted joists with the same slope.
On a typical commercial facility like this,
Evans adds, the building owner benefi ts from the use of the BIM process that New Millennium utilizes by seeing what the shell of the building will look like. The steelwork contractor—in this case, Garco, the metal framing contractor—ben- efi ts by determining how much space is available between joist members to install mechanical, electrical and plumbing utilities.
Girder helped save weight
This project was anything but typical from Garco’s standpoint, notes David Zabinski, the sales engineer, estimator and the design engi- neer on the project for Garco. “Typically, we use moment frames to resist loading in the lateral and vertical directions in our buildings,” he says. “Usually, defl ection limits require large columns to be used, but in this case we were able to economize by using a brace frame system and
incorporating New Millennium’s girder.” “Normally we don’t use a girder with our fram-
ing, although we use joists quite often,” Zabinski continues. “We actually incorporated their girder into our building design, which was unique. Using the BIM process gave us the confi dence that the detailers would be able to properly incorporate de- tails from another manufacturer—in this case, New Millennium—to avoid any problems with fabrica- tion or erection. That’s one main advantage from a design standpoint. Plus, we were able to verify our crane clearances with the BIM process.” Garco also used the 3-D building model to
ensure that the joists that New Millennium pro- vided would bolt up accurately, according to Steve McChesney, senior product manager/estimator for Garco. New Millennium designed its joists by using Garco’s Tekla Structures model. “Typically, we would detail that material ourselves, but since they were able to utilize our model and import the joist