Interest heats up for risk-reducing tools that marry highly detailed schedules to design and construction models
Software that can show a video of a construction project assembling itself has been around for years, but an important change is afoot, say a wide range of industry leaders. Some of them say 4D technology—that is, 3D plus time—is finally poised to bend upward the long-stagnant construction productivity curve by significantly improving efficiency and reducing waste and risk.
Two flavors of construction sequence visualization are in use. One consists of schedule simulators, such as Autodesk Navisworks and Bentley Navigator, and custom services, such as Visual5D, that link an exported 3D project model to a schedule—imported from Oracle Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project, for example—and play the sequence as if it were a movie. Those tools are well suited for tender presentation, stakeholder outreach and initial construction planning.
Other 4D sequence visualizers, including Asta Powerproject BIM, Synchro Pro and Trimble’s Vico Office 4D Manager with its partner, Tekla, interactively integrate models and scheduling in a way that can support detailed, day-to-day planning. Construction managers particularly note use of Synchro Pro by teams building major projects. Many attribute the growing use of the software to its compatibility with 3D models in many formats, a flexibility that becomes vital during the construction phase as subcontractor models and schedules are integrated, they say.
But, in general, users say the increasing application of lean project management, which emphasizes nearly constant refinement of schedules during construction to meet the evolving reality of jobsites, makes 4D planning a great fit.
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