Challenges and benefits of implementing virtual design and construction technologies for coordination of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems on a large healthcare project

This case study presents the challenges that the project team faced and the benefits they realized in imple-menting virtual design and construction technologies to coordinate the Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) systems on a $95M healthcare project in Northern California, USA. These challenges include creating a work structure for the MEP coordination process, organizing the project team consisting of designers, engineers, contractors, and subcontractors, determining the handoff of information between the team members, creating guidelines for the most efficient use of virtual design and construction technologies, creating the process of conflict identification and resolu-tion between the MEP subcontractors, and aligning the contractual interests of the coordination team to meet the over-all project schedule. We also discuss the benefits that the project team achieved by using the virtual design and construction tools for the coordination of the MEP systems. These benefits include labor savings ranging from 20 to 30 % for all the subcontrac-tors, 100% pre-fabrication for the plumbing contractor, only one recorded injury throughout the installation of MEP systems over a 250,000 square feet project area, less than 0.2% rework for the whole project for the mechanical sub-contractor, zero conflicts in the field installation of the systems and only a handful of requests for information for the coordination of the MEP systems. The overall benefits to the owner include about 6 months’ savings on the schedule and about $9M in cost for the overall project.