Another unique feature of the facility was the use of double-pitched girders and canted joists that matched the girders’ slope.
into their model, they could actually detail it for us and then fabricate it,” McChesney says. On a few occasions, Garco modifi ed its
Tekla Structures fi le to refl ect a few changes in the building design and New Millennium made corresponding changes to the joists in the same model, recalls David Fletcher, senior detailer/mod- eler for Garco. After viewing a 3-D model of New Millennium’s joists, Garco determined that ensur- ing the accurate alignment of the girder to 10-inch eave purlins was critical in ensuring the structural integrity of the building. “Up at the building eave, the overhang, there were a few crashing prob- lems with bracing and with the girder bolting to the top of our column,” Fletcher says. “That was nice because, otherwise, we would have had to work out old-school sketches and have the project manager fax them or send them by email to New Millennium to have them make changes that way.” Moreover, Sure Steel would have had
to modify the joists and girders in the fi eld if the designs were slightly off and did not bolt up ac- curately, McChesney points out. As on any construction project, time was
money here. “If we would have done this using the typical mailing back and forth of paper draw- ings, we probably would have increased our time by 30 percent,” Zabinski says. “By using the BIM process, we defi nitely had the confi dence that the details were correct, especially because we were transferring connections details from one manufac- turer to another.” McChesney added that, without BIM, the framing would have been delivered much later than late December 2011. “[BIM] probably saved, at the very minimum, a month for delivery of the building just because we were able to catch problems early on instead of proceeding down the wrong road, not realizing it until the end, and having to go back and redo the work. [Design coordination problems] hurt everybody—they delay
our schedule, our customer’s schedule and the end user’s schedule.” New Millennium’s use of its Dynamic Joist
software and the IFC exchange platform allowed the company to generate a client-compatible 3-D model—in this case, Tekla Structures— overcoming a potential barrier to the use of BIM. “Some suppliers such as New Millennium offer a joist component where you can detail with exact profi les,” says Jeremy Gross, Tekla Group drafting supervisor for Garco. “You save the time because you don’t have to ask what size their joists are or typical information that requires a lot of paperwork or email back and forth. It just so happened that New Millennium used Tekla Structures, so there was direct collaboration between programs.”
Don Talend of Write Results Inc., West Dundee, Ill., is a print and e-content developer specializing in covering construction, technology and innovation.