How using a shared data environment helps improve project margins
Introduction
The main task of digitalization of the construction industry and the introduction of information modeling technology is to reduce the construction time of capital construction projects while maintaining and improving the quality of work.
One of the tools that allows you to work with the timing of the design, development and approval of documentation throughout the life cycle of a capital construction project (CCF) is the organization of a single information space – a common project data environment (GDS).
In this article we will consider the question of how ODS allows you to increase the marginality of project activities. The largest design costs go to paying specialists. The cost of preparing project documentation depends on the time the company spends on its preparation. To increase margins, consider ways to reduce design time without sacrificing quality.
Definition of concepts
Information modeling technologies are a way of converting information about a capital construction project into an information model/OCS models by building relationships within and between various information parts through the use of a common data environment.
The Common Data Environment (CDE) is a unified software and hardware complex for the collaboration of project participants with information models at all stages of the life cycle.
Design timeframe
The timing of the design stage highly depends on the specifics of the project. The more unique the design object, the longer the time it will take to prepare the documentation.
When we talk about design margins, we can consider the possibility of reducing the time required to prepare documentation. At the same time, it is important to understand that reducing the timing of this stage should not be done to the detriment of the quality of project documentation. Otherwise, a reduction in design will entail an increase in the duration and cost of the next stages of the OKS project.
There are processes in project activities that can be optimized through the introduction of appropriate technologies.
Designing a capital construction project is a collective effort of many specialists. Timely exchange of information plays an important role in this process. Each participant in the process prepares their own part of the project documentation. The design itself follows the principle “from general to specific.” Those. First, general design decisions are made, at the next step they are refined, and so on, until the accuracy and detail required for the project is achieved.
If we considered design without reference to cost and time, then each design iteration should be carried out separately and in a clear sequence one after another. In this case, you can avoid a large number of errors and rework. Each design decision follows the adoption and approval of the previous one.
In real life, constructing such a design process is impossible due to the fact that it would take a large amount of time, and, consequently, its cost would be high. Because Since design organizations operate in a competitive environment, they have to independently compress the deadlines and costs of their work. This is possible when different specialists work simultaneously. Those. Even those specialists whose results of activity are the result for one, and input information for another, work simultaneously. The engineer begins to develop his part of the design documentation in conditions of incomplete input information. This mode of operation will continue from the beginning of design work until its completion. Changes in project documentation occur like waves, affecting all its sections. The initiators of such changes can be both internal specialists of the company and external circumstances. They say about this: “design is based on newly discovered circumstances.”
So, it turns out that the project team, which can consist of employees from one organization or from different organizations, which further complicates overall coordination, works together, at the same time, and without complete and reliable information.
The introduction of tools that will improve the coordination of the work of project teams is an opportunity to reduce the overall design time, and therefore will have a positive impact on the overall project timeframe and the marginality of project work. Such a tool is the shared data environment.
Working with outdated data.
As we discussed above, the work of a project team or individual specialist is highly dependent on the work of neighboring teams. To implement such synchronization, certain operating regulations are usually introduced. Until recently, a similar regulation was considered progressive: “at the end of the work week, upload the results of your work to the server.” It was assumed that synchronization was performed once a week and this was a good result.
What does such a work scheme mean in practice? Let's take 3 project teams as an example. The results of the activities of team 1 are the input information for the work of team 2. And the results of the activities of team 2, similarly, are the input information for team 3. Once a week, as the regulations dictate, the teams upload their results to a common server. Let's say that the first team made some changes to their design solutions and uploaded them on Friday. On Monday, the second team saw the corresponding changes and made changes to their solutions, uploading them on Friday of the second week. The third team, having studied the results of the work of the second team, accepted them into work and uploaded the result on Friday of the third week.
So, even minor changes were made to the project three weeks after their initial introduction. And this despite the fact that in the example under consideration there are only 3 levels of mutual dependence.
The information exchange regulation “once a week” leads, in the example considered, to updating the project in 3 weeks. If there are more levels of mutual connections, then the terms will be even higher.
We have a project that will take a very long time to make changes, but this is only part of the problem. Another part of it is that the second team worked on outdated data for a whole week, and the third team worked on outdated data for two weeks. This is called “basket work.” Its meaning is that teams of the 2nd and 3rd level of conditionality develop their part of the documentation based on data that is no longer relevant. When they receive updated information (as we considered – once a week), they have to redo what was done previously.
Establishing faster/more efficient information exchange between project teams has the potential to reduce design time and increase operating margins.
What in this direction makes it possible to organize the implementation of ODS?
Regulations for information exchange can be built on the principle of “delivery of results when ready.” Why is such a regulation not implemented when working without specific tools (on a shared server)? Due to the fact that specialists would be forced to spend significant effort and time searching for updated information. It would be necessary to go through all the parts of the project that could potentially be updated.
The shared data environment has change notification functionality. This functionality is designed to attract the attention of specialists to the changes that have been made to the project. In a simple sense, the system informs the user that a new version of a document has been downloaded or that some action has been taken with this document (for example, a comment has been added).
It would seem that the problem is solved. Project teams upload the results of their activities into the system when ready. System users receive notifications of changes. Work on the basket is reduced to a minimum.
However, life shows that this is not enough. In such a scheme, another problem arises – a large number of notifications. The fact is that the OKS project contains too many documents that may require some changes. This means that a specific user of the system cannot be notified of all changes to the project. Otherwise, all his work will consist of viewing these notifications.
Solving the notification problem is not trivial. Each system offers its own ways to configure notifications. However, ultimately, the introduction of a general data environment specialized for project activities allows us to solve the problem of working with outdated data.
This is the first part where design time can be significantly reduced.
Search and identification of information.
Much of the collaboration between engineers involves the use of input information and design solutions that have been prepared by other engineers, as well as the reuse of design solutions that have been used in other projects. To do this, engineers use various options to find the information they need.
If the work is built through a common server, then information is searched on it. Difficulties may arise due to the fact that each specialist has his own idea of how individual files should be named. To avoid such problems, a file naming rule is introduced into the project based on the composition of the project. How strictly this is executed correctly depends on the project teams. Practice shows that this rule is not followed 100%, which means the search problem persists.
The introduction of a common data environment for design organizations helps solve this problem. The ODS may have functionality that either prohibits loading files with the wrong name or explicitly highlights errors in the name. This function seriously increases execution discipline in the project. At the same time, the time that specialists spend searching for the necessary information is reduced, and the subsequent preparation of the project for delivery is also simplified.
Finding the right information is important, but not the only problem that an engineer faces in his work. After he has found the information he needs, the specialist needs to determine the status of this information. To what degree of readiness is the document under consideration, can it be used in your work, has it been approved? A specialist cannot answer these questions on his own, so he needs to contact the author of the document with a request for information. This creates a lot of small communications that occur between engineers, taking up time and distracting from work.
SOD allows you to solve the identification problem. In the environment of general data for design organizations, there is functionality – document statuses. Typically, these statuses correspond to the ODS methodology – division into readiness zones:
Thus, when using ODS, specialists reduce the time spent searching for the necessary information, as well as identifying it.
This is the second part where SOD allows you to reduce design time.
Coordination of documentation.
The collective work of project teams is characterized by a large number of approvals. The project team needs to not only transfer the results of its work to the other team, but also agree on these results. The agreements themselves can be divided into formal and informal. Informal coordination (synchronization of work) in the work of designers occurs very often. Without the use of specific systems, specialists use existing tools such as email, telephone or face-to-face meetings. A large amount of time is spent on organizing informal agreements. Moreover, this time is not productive; it is often waiting.
Official approval is similar in function to signing documents. Within one organization, such approvals can be accelerated “manually”. But in project activities it is necessary to coordinate documentation between organizations. This procedure can take a significant amount of time, which negatively affects the overall project duration. There are situations when, by the end of the approval, the documentation loses its relevance and the procedure is started again.
At the same time, using “improvised tools”, it is impossible to build effective parallel coordination, and sequential coordination takes much more time.
If we consider the approval process itself, then we can highlight a significant part of the time that communication between the “author of the document” and the “approving” takes. This communication consists of clarifying the nuances of the subject of agreement, clarifying questions, remarks and comments. This information is essential when developing design solutions, because contains the prerequisites for making certain design decisions.
Using a common data environment allows you to build processes for coordination and discussion of design decisions within the system. This saves engineers a lot of time and also saves “specialist attention.” A person does not need to think about organizing coordination and discussion, keep in mind the state of approval procedures, and much more. At the same time, the entire history of the development of design solutions remains in the system and is available in the future, which in turn, again, saves time on resolving questions about why this or that design decision was made. The approval procedure itself can be structured in such a way that several specialists are included in the approval at the same time (parallel approval), which significantly reduces the time for the entire procedure.
This is the third part where SOD significantly reduces design time.
Standardization of design processes.
The first stage of optimizing any activity is to standardize processes. It is impossible to optimize chaos. There is an opinion that design activity is a creative process and automation tools are not applicable to it. This is only partly true. We discussed above that in project activity, in addition to the creative mental component, there is a large number of quite typical routine processes. When we talk about automation of project activities, we first of all mean the automation of routine processes accompanying this type of activity.
Without using any specific tools, project teams work according to individual “just the way it is” principles. Typically, the principles of work of project teams correspond to how the leading specialists of these teams are used to and know how to work. Such specialists are the “core” of the company and are both the strength and weakness of the design organization. The strength of the “core” lies in its competence and ability to carry out complex projects, and its weakness lies in a high degree of inertia. The older generation of specialists trains new employees, which ensures continuity of work.
Previously, such a situation could be considered a big plus for a project organization and encouraged in every possible way. However, the present time dictates different requirements for the organization of work. The project team ceases to be a kind of “closed” team. The work of remote specialists is becoming the norm. And no matter how much we love holding face-to-face meetings with heated discussions of design solutions, all this is beginning to become a thing of the past. This is inevitable, because less economically justified. Maintaining huge design institutes is an expensive undertaking. A new form is the organization of project teams for a project. Different companies solve this problem in their own way; usually the company has its own staff, and additional employees or contractors are brought in for the project.
It is at this moment that the issue of standardization of design processes becomes particularly relevant. The fact is that it is extremely difficult to include new people in individual, different processes each time. This is what accounts for the long time it usually takes new designers to “get into the swing of things.” A specialist needs time to study the specifics of the “core” of the company.
The use of SOD for designers allows standardization of design processes. This step allows you to achieve significant effects in the activities of the design organization:
time costs for design are reduced;
The company has the opportunity to create project teams for the needs of the project, attract additional personnel or contractors. At the same time, the time required to include such specialists in the work is significantly reduced, and the results of their work are of higher quality;
in the development of new projects, it is possible to use to a greater extent the results of work that were prepared in previous projects, which saves time and increases the profitability of the company’s activities;
the processes of work planning and control are based on objective data;
the company gets the opportunity to improve its activities, because Standardized processes can be improved, unlike individual ones.
Process standardization is the first step towards design automation. It is important to understand that we are not talking about automatic design. In the foreseeable future, a machine will not be able to replace a person in creative design activities. However, standardization and subsequent automation will significantly affect the financial performance of project companies. This means that those companies that implement these tools into their work in a timely manner will survive the competition.
Conclusion
Information modeling technologies are not so much about the transition from 2D design to 3D. This is a paradigm shift in work as a whole. For project companies, this means a transition from a “closed” state, when each company lives in “its own world,” to a new technological state, when mastered technologies and established business processes are the key to victory in competition.
The use of a common data environment as a working technology for a design company can significantly reduce design time and increase the profitability of activities. SOD also helps companies increase their own competitiveness, which is a condition for the company’s successful development in the future.
