Project

In Concord, North Carolina, the Carolinas Healthcare System NorthEast is undergoing a USD 86 million modernization project. Located 25 miles outside of Charlotte, the project includes an infrastructure upgrade to the hospital and a five-story patient bed tower addition. The 165,000-square-foot building will house a cardiology center and 60 med-surgery beds. Robins & Morton (R&M) was tasked with working with subcontractors, designers, and owners to diligently plan the construction process, ensuring safety and high productivity. The team, however, faced the challenge of collaborating with the many project participants. R&M also needed to maintain five emergency exits throughout the project lifecycle in a safe and efficient way.

Solution

R&M’s project team began by sharing 4D animations to prospective subcontractors for reference in bidding the project. This practice led to better communication and understanding of project constraints, which provided more accurate and detailed bids. The senior superintendent then built the project schedule directly in the software. The team met several times each week since March 2017, which led to countless schedule revisions and phasing changes.

Outcome

Beginning in mid-July, the project became a SYNCHRO Workgroup project, which allowed for improved communication for scheduling, modeling, and planning between subcontractors. The team could look two weeks ahead to forecast current issues and discuss possible safety hazards. The R&M superintendent quickly picked up on the new program and was able to create the project and schedule. The project designers modeled the entire project in the application, including the foundations, structure, exterior and interior walls, and finishes. Once the schedule was created, it was easy for the project team to merge the model elements and assign them to the scheduled task. By using SYNCHRO Pro, the project is on schedule to be completed in 2019. R&M has implemented significant changes to improve its internal workflows, with R&M planning to continue using SYNCHRO Pro and 4D modeling on future projects.

Software

For preconstruction planning, bid proposals, site logistics, and safety analysis, R&M used SYNCHRO Pro. The application helped the team easily update the model on a day-to-day basis to reflect what was happening on the field and to the schedule. By helping complete hours of 4D safety review, SYNCHRO Pro allowed R&M to focus on the safety and well-being of every patient, patron, and worker on the hospital’s campus. The team provided SYNCHRO’s 4D safety model with other documentation to outside regulatory organizations.

Project Playbook: SYNCHRO Pro