Revolutionizing Construction: BIM, Modular Building, and the Future of Project Management with Brian Skripac

Have you ever wondered how the confluence of technology and construction is reshaping our built environment? Brian Skripac, a luminary in the BIM and VDC domains, stops by to enlighten us on the revolution within the building industry. His journey from architect to tech evangelist showcases the transformative potential when architects, engineers, and construction managers unite under the banner of innovation. Brian dives into his experiences of promoting a model-centric approach to project delivery, highlighting how smoother workflows are achieved through close-knit collaboration and technological integration.

The episode takes an intriguing turn as we examine the fusion of modular construction with Building Information Modeling. Brian provides a behind-the-scenes look at a recent project where this synergy played a pivotal role, enhancing transparency and efficiency from conception to realization. The conversation unveils the evolution of project documentation, emphasizing the shift towards fabrication-ready models and the intricacies involved, from legalities to risk management. We also peer into the future, speculating on the continued growth of modular construction and its burgeoning relationship with BIM as a staple in contractual deliverables.

Wrapping things up, we reflect on BIM's broader impact on the construction industry, from driving cost avoidance to optimizing resource utilization. Brian shares insights from the successes at Ohio State University and muses on the hypothetical technology that could streamline decision-making in project management. As we express our gratitude for the rich dialogue and Brian's insightful contributions, we look forward to the innovative strides that await us on the horizon of construction and technology.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Welcome to Future Construct. I'm Mark Oden, the CEO of BIM Designs Inc and guest host of Future Construct. Today I'm hosting Brian Skripak, director of Virtual Design and Construction at the Design Build Institute of America, also known as DBIA. Welcome, brian, thank you for making the time to join me. Yeah, thanks for having me, mark, looking forward to the conversation, as am I, sir.

Speaker 1: 0:49

So, as an innovative forward thinking, building, information modeling and VDC leader, you have spent the past 15 years of your career focused on how people, processes and technology can best come together and transform project delivery outcomes. You also have contributed to national publications and spoke at conferences around the world. Through these experiences, you've been able to promote the value of your VDC expertise to potential clients to be recognized as an industry trusted advisor, ultimately leading you to having the opportunity to serve as an advisor group member and past chair of the AIA national technology and architectural practice knowledge community, while serving on the BIM forum committee responsible for authoring the level of development or LOD specification. Thank you for your tremendous contributions in the AES space, brian. I'm honored and I've actively used and read and the BIM forum LOD specification. It's been a great instrument for us to work with. Good to hear. Brian, I'd love to hear your background, your story and education that took you into the DBIA and how the Institute has impacted the AAC industry as well.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Yeah, my background started. My degree is in architecture. I practiced architecture for about eight years before kind of making that transition into the BIM world. Back in 2005 is when I started using some of these technologies. I was working on the technology side doing training and implementation services and very quickly went back to the firm the design firm that I had left to really get my hands on and take the next step of using these BIM tools that I was out educating and being kind of a evangelist for my peers to take advantage of.

Speaker 2: 2:43

From there, working just in an architecture firm, I had the opportunity to job transition and I took a new opportunity at an AE firm that also had a growing construction management component. That's really where I first kind of started learning the design build side of it. I was excited to take that role and knowing what a lot of the construction firms were doing, that we were working with what was happening after design and being excited about that. But seeing an opportunity to really merge those two sides together and having a integrated firm where the builders and the architects and engineers were all under the same umbrella really provided a unique experience. It was an exciting one that allowed us to do things differently, and that was great. I had the opportunity to kind of serve in that role. Our firm got acquired by Canon Design and I spent about 10 years there. What sort of happened is? I ended up working on a lot of design build jobs. We were doing the same sort of thing where we were trying to have this kind of integrated approach to projects, and things always went so much smoother when they were design build projects. It was great. You didn't have the confrontation that you did on design build jobs or see them at risk or other things. There was just a different level of fluidness that was occurring.

Speaker 2: 4:07

After a little while I was looking to do something different and first news, my former boss. She had moved on and I reached out to her for some career advice, looking for her expertise, and happened to be a random passing. She called me back like two days later and said hey, you need to talk to Lisa Washington at DVIA. I was like why would I call Lisa? I'm like yeah, I know Lisa. I'm like why would I call Lisa at DVIA? I didn't understand what that was at first.

Speaker 2: 4:36

She's like they're looking to move forward with this technology conversation. She's like I think this would be something interesting. You should check it out. It was great timing. It was the right fit kind of migrating to this opportunity where you could be a larger industry change agent. Now you have this megaphone of a large membership base that you can start to continue to share best practices with and help the industry move forward in this larger conversation about designing construction technology. Whether it's BIM, vdc, whatever innovation, digital transformation, whatever kind of wrapper you want to put around it or title, it's a great opportunity to work with other forward thinking companies and help move that forward.

Speaker 1: 5:26

Thank you so much for that background, brian. Really exciting material in there I want to focus on you were talking about the merging builders, architects and engineers under the same umbrella. That sounds like that was back around 2005. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 5:41

No, that was more around 2012.

Speaker 1: 5:44

2012?.

Speaker 2: 5:45

Yeah, that's when my role had switched from a firm that was just architecture to working for that integrated firm here in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1: 5:52

Yeah, that's amazing. I usually see maybe the architects and engineer under the same umbrella, but I very rarely see that merged with the builder. Sounds like maybe you're ahead of the times. What do you feel worked really well in that constellation and what do you feel was room for improvement?

Speaker 2: 6:10

Well, it was interesting because this was an established AE firm, big A little E. We had all of our engineering disciplines and landscape in-house. The construction management group was this emerging service line. I think maybe, to start with, what didn't work was maybe being there a little bit more at the transition and having to see how the teams had to integrate differently. There was some maybe trepidation of how an architect and a construction manager would have traditionally engaged with one another at the beginning of the project, but when you're all under the same roof you're part of the same team. Maybe some of those traditional habits were a little hard to die.

Speaker 2: 6:56

But our leaders in the organization Ron DeLario was my boss at the time at Asterino. He did a great job of positioning everybody to be focused and collaborative. They were focused and collaborative around the models that we were creating. There was a lot of change management that went into that from moving past, not only how we worked with our extended design and construction teams, but also how we used a model to communicate and share information, also for 2012, 2013, 2014,. While there was that overlap of about 20 months where we were doing that the designing and constructing that project really forward-thinking approaches that he implemented and was driving forward about how we share information and use it and trying not to be so reliant on drawings and paper that traditional output but certainly our opportunity is an integrated firm and the way we were delivering the work changed that, not something that would have been possible in the same way of a traditional design bid-bill delivery, so that integrated aspect was a fun evolution to be part of.

Speaker 1: 8:07

Yeah, I bet it was. I wonder. Just as a complete side note, I think my guess is that most firms stay effectively separate, not under the same umbrella for liability purposes. So did that ever come up in your world and how did the firm address that?

Speaker 2: 8:23

Yeah, I mean risk management is a big component of that. Going from the design side to the construction side and having bonding capacity, that's just a whole nother animal. That it's just different. It's a different approach. Designers might want to be on one side of that and builders want to be on the other side of that. So I think it's more of just a business as usual approach and certainly that risk management and bonding capacity that's a big hurdle. I mean, a design firms is not just going to naturally migrate over and being able to have a certain capacity of what they could build. They might be designing large projects but certainly couldn't manage the risk on the construction side of being able to do that. So that was definitely different. There was a lot of smaller projects that led up to and built up to those stages where we can do the project that I first started on when I got here.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Well, beautiful. It sounds like even before you got to the DBIA, you were changing the industry. That's incredible.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Well, there was a lot of other people who were moving the needle forward that I got to be part of and learn from their experiences and their leadership in it too.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Beautiful Speaking of how's the work that you've done at the DBIA differed from in terms of the advisory and shareperson roles that you've had throughout your career.

Speaker 2: 9:42

Yeah, it's definitely different. It's a different pace. You know, designing construction schedules are always kind of, you know, changing and morphing and design dates get moved up, design dates get put. You know, milestone submissions change. I think that's one of the biggest things seeing how, you know, dbia works on a very annual cycle. There's events and there's, you know, monthly. You know there's webinars, there's blog posts and things go on a very, you know, set cadence. So it took a little while getting used to that. That was a different kind of a different beat, but all good. And you know seeing the behind the scenes of what goes on in a conference we all go to conferences, we see one another there. There's a lot of activity that goes on behind the scenes of leading up to it. So I've been impressed and amazed at how much activity goes on on the annual planning cycle for that.

Speaker 2: 10:38

But it's been a little bit different in the, you know, defining best practice.

Speaker 2: 10:47

You know working in a firm, even in a large firm, you know you try to have it's more about standards that you're putting in place and well, we need to be able to do things this way in a consistent way.

Speaker 2: 10:59

Now, when you're talking about best practices, it's about sharing with a larger audience the ways that you can work to achieve the best outcome and you also get to see what other people do and how they take different approaches. You know, the beauty of our membership is we have architects, engineers, we have builders, we have trade partners, we have academics, lawyers there's this whole range of industry leaders that we have that we get to see how they interpret those best practices and implement them and we get a really good opportunity to continue to take that feedback and refine and, you know, continue to refine those best practices so they continue to evolve in a different way. And I don't think it's a little bit different than being on the practice side and, you know, maybe being in, not to say a bubble, in a bat that sounds bad to say it, but you're used to the same kind of perspective and methodology, so it's a little bit different perspective, which is fun to see.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Well, brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing I love the dichotomy In your involvement on the BIM Forum committee that's responsible for authoring the level development specification, or LOD specification. My understanding is there was no formal release last year and I'm really really excited to hear if there will be one this year as well. Can you share anything new that's coming out of the BIM Forum this year?

Speaker 2: 12:15

Yeah, I would definitely keep an eye out for a news press release from BIM Forum here within the next couple of weeks, definitely by January. At some point in January, here at the beginning, we'll have the 2023 version of the LOD or level of development specification being coming out, which will be great New update. There'll be all new graphics throughout the document, so it'll be a good next version release of that document. I've been fortunate to work on that since the very early days.

Speaker 2: 12:45

I think it was around for the first publication of it, but it's a great document that I think has, you know, allowed us to have a not really a standard for the industry, because I think a standard means you do this, this is when you do it and this is who does it but a real good dictionary of information that allows us to rely upon a standard set of definitions that the design professional whether that's the architect or the engineer, the contractor, the trade partner, the owner everybody has a clear expectation of understanding of what something means when that assembly or components at LOD, whatever.

Speaker 2: 13:23

So now we have a groundwork and a foundation for how we communicate back and forth and I think the big word that the BIM forum has always used is the reliability of an element in the model and I've always enjoyed and appreciate that term that it's reliable to this because it's been thought out in this way. That's how people can understand how to use it back and forth, and I think for those of us who work in that the management, bdc management or even a project management stage to be able to use LOD as part of a pull planning process to really understand how the components in the model will evolve and who's going to evolve them and how they'll be used, really becomes extremely beneficial and I think it's been a significant tool for the industry to rely upon.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Yeah, thanks, brian, I've really enjoyed using it. In fact, I love how you mentioned it's a dictionary of information. I found it to be tremendous in terms of alignment with the AEGC and owner and any other trade partners that might be involved in the project. Yeah, it's a great document or reference material to say hey, let's at least align on the terminology we're all using and that already creates the teamwork and the collaboration once we've established that alignment. So, yeah, tremendous effort and thank you for you and the larger committees. Team effort.

Speaker 2: 14:44

Yeah, there's a lot of people working on it, so I'm sure they appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 14:49

Very cool, so maybe shifting gears. I'd love to hear about some of the projects that you've worked on, especially related to modular construction. For instance, you have some experience with the Los Angeles County USC Medical Center. Can you explain to our audience what modular construction is and what advantages and challenges are faced with its utilization?

Speaker 2: 15:08

Yeah. So that job that you just mentioned was interesting. It happened to be a design-built job and while I was at Canon Design I had the opportunity to work on it and we had four buildings. It was a behavioral health campus in downtown Los Angeles that was in collaboration with the University of Southern California and amongst those four buildings, which were pretty much the same, there was a lot of repetitive units. So as we started working, we took advantage of our modular group at the time and said, well, how can we become more efficient with the repetitive nature of some of the layout in these spaces and being able to think volumetric and modular, and that we could construct rooms off-site somewhere else, ship them and then literally roll them into place on the floor slab, set them down and make your connections and continue construction. So, just like we hear a lot about DFMA, design for modular dissembl and being able to think about how do we move away from stick construction to an assembly of a kit of parts was something that we really took advantage of and working.

Speaker 2: 16:25

So what had happened is, while we were working with the design team, bim really became an integral part in here, which was exciting for me because I got to play on the design side, I got to play on the construction side and I got to play on the fabrication side and really look at how we stitch all these things together and thought about how do we document these, how do we model them and how do we do all this in a way that's transparent and keeps everybody on the same page about construction. And in that environment we had metal-stud-framed rooms getting built in Lawrence Kansas. All of the plumbing, electrical and mechanical was being built into those and they were being dry walled over, shipped, wrapped, shipped across the country, like I said, trained and rolled into space. We had about there was like 120 rooms that were in there that over the course of those buildings we brought together and unfortunately I didn't get to see construction come to completion on that. But we were well ahead of doing these shop drawings and fabrication-ready models that were becoming integrated as part of our construction documents.

Speaker 2: 17:34

And it was really exciting and it was a good learning experience to see and understand where those traditional construction documents, where do they have to evolve and change? Where were we putting too much information into those documents? Where were we not putting enough specificity into them, based on how our team was set up for what we needed to actually detail at a shop drawing level and fabricate, because it's very much of a different switch right Construction documents and shop drawings two totally different things. And then how do you model those in a way where you bring all that information together and still have the information you need for AHA review and code review, even though somebody else is doing it external to the traditional design team. So it was a really fun project to work on.

Speaker 1: 18:23

That's amazing and remind me in the audience when that project was.

Speaker 2: 18:27

When.

Speaker 1: 18:29

Yeah, what year was that?

Speaker 2: 18:31

one that was 20, I guess 2019, 2020, I was working on that was coming out of design and going into construction.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Yeah, so it sounds like. I mean just, you're consistently at the forefront because you know, modularization has really only started to be an industry topic over the last couple of years and from the language that you were using it, it almost sounds like there's even room to set, you know, maybe not a standard, but again a common dictionary of information around modularization and, as it spreads across the multiple trades and key stakeholders and roles that play a part of the construction, making sure that, as you mentioned earlier, there's enough specificity in the document transfer.

Speaker 2: 19:21

Yeah, I think the big thing and you know, one of the successes that we had on that project was, you know, as we talk about all of these opportunities, utilize technology. It still came down to communication and how we you know how we strategized what was going to be done in an execution plan, how we leveraged LOD for understanding where were the starting and stopping points between the architect and the fabricator, the engineer and the fabricator, where were we making connections between? You know, a unit that was being built in a different time zone and getting shipped across the country. You know how do you connect plumbing lines, how do you connect electrical lines, how do you power something that's disconnected until it gets on the job site? And how do you know contracts, you know, play into that and that's been one of the things that excites me about.

Speaker 2: 20:11

You know what we're doing at DBA and evolving those conversations, because it's a different perspective that really comes into play and, as we talked about risk management before, that, that's really what that boils down to who can trust, how do you trust what the person before you and after you are doing with that information?

Speaker 2: 20:28

And, as we always talk about it, it's building a right of reliance or reliability on the model so it can really company the contract documents. For the short term, nothing's going to change immediately or overnight in the fact that we have to produce, stamp, sign, seal contract documents. But how can we make sure that the model is part of that deliverable as well and can be utilized in a way that's planned for at the outset and it's not jumping light speed ahead? The model is a deliverable and that's the only thing. We're still going to need drawings to tell the rest of the story. We're going to need specifications to talk about quality, but let's do a better job of relying on that entity that's being created and allow it to be part of the deliverables, and that was something that I think really, that project really helped me understand how we can get ahead and do that moving forward.

Speaker 1: 21:24

I love it. And speaking of moving forward, how do you see modular construction evolving over the next decade? What kind of trends do you see? And how do we? On top of that, how do we merge modularization and BIM and BDC into the upcoming technologies to create efficiency and collaboration and project outcomes?

Speaker 2: 21:44

I mean I have to think it's only going to continue to grow. Some of the other projects that we've done were not only focused on interior spaces. Exterior wall panelization. You see a lot with MEP systems and the racking of those. There's just so many opportunities to have let's just call it a second shift of people working right On the job site. They're able to take advantage of their expertise to pre-build things. While things are going on on the job site, you always talk about an increase of safety, an increase of quality, a reduction in waste of materials. All of those things are valuable and wins for any project that I think any design and construction team and owner want to take advantage of. So if you talk about quality, just speed the market. Increase in safety. Who doesn't want those on their job site as part of their project? It might take a little more planning at the beginning. No, it's not might. It will take more planning at the beginning, but the benefits definitely provide that effort up front. There's a value to that, no question.

Speaker 1: 22:52

So with the increased use of modularization you get the increased safety, you get increased quality, reduced waste which has a sustainability component to it. Do you see modularization potentially building into industry standards like LEED or best construction practices?

Speaker 2: 23:13

Definitely best construction practices, absolutely yeah, it's probably not a stretch to think that there'll be some other governing body that'll come out, just like we've seen with USGBC and LEED, that says these are the best practices and the criteria to do something. I don't know if anybody's taking the lead on that right now, but I wouldn't be surprised that we see something like that. But definitely the fact that those best practices for leveraging prefabrication and modularization should be there for any design and construction firm, because those are certainly things we can take advantage of today and we've seen the realization of the benefits so far, so there'll only be more to come.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Beautiful. So when we look at the AEC industry, especially this year, there's been a tremendous amount of communication and talk about the idea of digital twins and the growth of smart buildings and then ultimately even smart cities. Those that are close to the news will see that there's billions of dollars planned for an investment into at least one smart city. So do you see any integration between these concepts and applying modular construction into those concepts?

Speaker 2: 24:24

I think modular construction is a little bit unique because it depends on the project type, just like different project delivery models or methods lead to different project types. Anything where I think you have owners who are repeat builders and probably have a level of communication I brought my personal understanding on it repetition would certainly be looking to take advantage of that. It's probably not a one-size-fits-all Probably to a fault. We talk about how buildings are all unique, but there's also an art in finding where there's consistency or repetition and being able to take advantage and leveraging that to certain aspects, so it'll certainly become part of it, but I think it'll be dispersed and varied across different project types.

Speaker 2: 25:11

The idea of a digital twin, though, and extending the usability of the geometry and the data that's being provided to an owner post-occupancy and throughout operations, is going to be key and definitely be something. I mean, we're already seeing that move forward right now, and I think we'll continue to see that. I think that's an exciting opportunity for owners, which gives them something out of all this technology that we're talking about. It's not just the opportunities in designing construction, but also post-occupancy. How do you start utilizing that information? You talk about IoT and sensors. How do you move to a more proactive instead of reactive, approach to how you maintain and operate your facilities or whatever that built asset is that you're creating. That's going to be the big opportunity moving forward.

Speaker 1: 26:07

I love it. Thank you for sharing. I think we could do a whole episode on the best practices for owners, the investment that they make into the building information model and that not just providing an ROI during the construction process, but also providing an ROI post-construction.

Speaker 2: 26:25

It just continues to build on one another.

Speaker 1: 26:28

Right. I wonder have you seen any measurements of that in the space? How to measure that upfront ROI, how it provides benefit downstream?

Speaker 2: 26:38

ROI is a tough one because so many buildings are so different Procurement methods and things like that. I was very fortunate to work on the BIM project delivery standard for the Ohio State University and I know they had done some work with another firm when they did a feasibility study on it where it started to track some of the numbers. This was back in 2012, 2013, but they were using some of the numbers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology Some of those NIST reports early on about interoperability and we're trying to benchmark those and really normalize those against some projects that were currently ongoing on campus. I know for Ohio State they found I think it was a 7.1 percent opportunity for cost avoidance on all their construction projects. That was their benchmark that they had seen.

Speaker 2: 27:31

I forget what the overall construction number was at the time, but it was like $16 million of potential cost avoidance that was sitting out there. Again, they weren't saying we're going to save $16 million every year if we invest in BIM, but there's a massive chunk of time and money that if we can plan and build a framework in a series of guidelines around how projects are delivered and how our deliverables are formatted for use, there's a big opportunity for us to take advantage of All the information is there. The design professionals, the architects, the engineers, the builders are giving it to everybody. But instead of it coming in a box of paper and rolls of drawings, let's put a data structure and a geometry structure behind it so, once it's received, it can be consumed and utilized.

Speaker 1: 28:19

Absolutely. I love it. I love seeing that you have the experience on that and you're looking at it from an industry level and impacting and modifying the entire industry for the better. As a final question of the show and a tradition of future construct, if you could project yourself out 25 years and wanted to have any device or technology that would benefit you personally, what would it be and what would it do?

Speaker 2: 28:45

Oh man, If I could be a mind reader, wouldn't that be great.

Speaker 1: 28:50

We're probably not too far away from that.

Speaker 2: 28:54

Yeah, I don't know. If you could have a predetermined notion of what somebody was going to ask from you or what they were thinking to help guide what your response and approach to something was and get to yes quicker, would that be fantastic?

Speaker 1: 29:09

I love it. Cool yeah. What would be helpful for you in terms of getting to? Yes, is that like finding consortium on finding getting the committee to alignment, or is that like working with industry partners?

Speaker 2: 29:29

Yeah, I think it's I mean, if I think back to my project days right, it's getting the right people in the room to make a decision and having a consensus, because one person's perspective might be different than another end user that maybe happens to not be in that room but very likely might know better than the person that's sitting across from you. Having those collective experiences and knowledges to pull from to get the decision making is extremely valuable, and having that collective user experience is what makes things better for sure.

Speaker 1: 30:04

Great, and then having something that would sort of accelerate that or amplify it, so that once you get everybody in the right room so identifying everybody fast enough would be important and then once you get them into the right room, now you know that and you're able to move forwards towards that consensus a lot further.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Yeah, there's probably some crazy downside to that, but watch what you wish for, but that sounds kind of nice.

Speaker 1: 30:27

Cool. Well, I really really appreciate your help and your partnership today, brian, and thank you for your participation. Really amazing to get to know you on the show and look forward to very exciting upcoming updates from the BEM Forum into 2024.

Speaker 2: 30:43

Yeah, thanks for having me, Mark. It was nice talking to you. I appreciate your time. Thank you, sir.