Powerful Pen Transforms Jobsite Communication, Workflow
We all know the pen is mightier than the sword—but in today's increasingly collaborative environment, perhaps the pen is also mightier than the mouse.
"In effect, our contract drawings become living, breathing documents that reflect the most current design,"
Corinne Ambler, Project Engineer, Barton Malow
National contractor, Barton Malow Company has begun using the Trimble Digital Pen Solution to keep an entire project team and its stakeholders informed during the construction of the new 125,000-square-foot Center for the Built Environmental and Infrastructure Studies (CBEIS) construction project at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD.
The four-story CBEIS building will house design and engineering disciplines and serve as a laboratory for sustainability in design and engineering. In the quest for LEED Gold certification, the building will incorporate day-lighting strategies, resource conservation and energy efficiency leveraged to meet sustainability goals, two green roof systems, a traditional rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels and curtain wall integrated PV collectors among other green systems. Designed with building information modeling (BIM) technologies and techniques, Morgan State and the project team has put in place the next generation of sustainable design practices in a highly collaborative environment.
"It only makes sense that we seek technologies and techniques for use in the field that further facilitate communication and coordination," says Corinne Ambler, project engineer with Barton Malow. "The digital pen is the perfect addition, forever changing the way we connect design intent to field construction activities. It's a great way to keep the entire project team on the same page, save time and drive efficiency with almost no extra effort."
Living documents
The Trimble Digital Pen Solution is a mobile data transfer tool designed to speed the transfer of data, such as paper-based construction forms, as-built drawings and building plan markups, into digital documents so that they can be shared with the entire project team. Job site superintendents or project managers use the pen to capture handwritten notes, plan markups, and form-based data in a digital format. Once docked to a computer, the pen data can be uploaded as a PDF, Excel or OneNote file.
"For us, it's like magic," says Ambler. "The first time I tried it, I knew the pen could help us automate and better document design changes during construction of the CBEIS project."
For the CBEIS project, Ambler sought to use the digital pen to record changes made to the multiple 36-inch x 42-inch contract drawings located in the jobsite trailers, which are used to highlight the architect's supplemental instructions and make notes about conflicts, issues or challenges.
Often times, these design changes are reflected on the site contract drawings as sketches.
Ambler says, "Since the design team may issue multiple sketches without ever re-issuing a drawing, there are a lot of sketches that must be registered, tracked and resolved to keep the drawings current and everyone on the same page. It is often times very difficult to keep up with all of the clarifications and requested changes for those of us in the job trailer let alone the rest of the project team, particularly project stakeholders, who may not have the same visibility, severely limiting the collaborative environment that we're all striving to achieve."
Reflections of reality
Within days of seeing a digital pen demonstration, Barton Malow installed the DPS Markup software and purchased two digital pens. Now as changes are provided by the design team, the superintendent or project team member in charge of posting for that day marks the design revisions on the paper documents as usual.
The project team members continue to compile design and owner requested changes and clarifications the same way, with the only change being the actual pen that is utilized. The aggregated data is stored in the digital pen's local memory using a built-in sensor and automatically integrated to the original PDF design file ready for transfer to the CBEIS project website, which is accessible to all project team members and stakeholders.
"In effect, our contract drawings become living, breathing documents that reflect the most current design," says Ambler.
Since putting the digital pen in place, the Barton Malow team has significantly improved its communication methods over conventional ways. Ambler recalls that the owner, architect or other project team members used to have to come to the project trailer to see our version of the most current drawings. "If that was not possible, we would take a picture of the drawing sheet in question and email the image with the changes reflected. Sometimes, it was a matter of trying to explain changes via a phone call," explains Ambler.
The digital pen has completely re-shaped and streamlined the entire data sharing process enhancing the flow of critical information while maintaining the integrity of the data.
"The pen is a bridge between concept and reality, reflecting changes that occur during the construction process with ease, speed and clarity. It saves us time explaining changes while facilitating collaboration and preventing miscommunication or potential re-work down the line," concludes Ambler.
While the use of the Trimble DPS solution is still in the first few months of rollout, Barton Malow expects the pen to play a key role in maintaining the efficiency in which document clarifications and updates are processed and shared across the project. The CBEIS facility is currently on schedule and on budget for completion by early 2012.
For Ambler and the rest of the Barton Malow team, the pen is indeed mightier than the mouse when it comes to communicating site document changes.