Gilbane Building Company Leading the Way with Technology through People First Lean Approach
Providence, RI – January 11, 2018 – Gilbane Building Company was recently ranked as the #2 BIM Giant on the construction ranking according to Building Design+Construction. This ranking is more important than ever as it reflects Gilbane’s continued commitment to raising the bar when it comes to innovative project delivery. Our focus on breakthrough thinking, powered by our people, is pushing boundaries and enabling our high performance teams to provide greater service delivery to our clients – better, faster and safer.
“It’s exciting to see that our Gilbane teams are embracing the Lean mindset, looking for opportunities to raise the bar when it comes to technology, collaboration and innovation. More importantly, our clients are seeing that these efforts improve results – nearly 300 clients in 2017 said we exceeded their expectations with our use of technology,” said Sue Klawans, Gilbane Senior Vice President, Director of Operational Excellence & Planning.
Over the last five years, Gilbane’s VDC team has been evolving in the area of technology and innovation. Advancing at the speed of sharing, the VDC team led a 57% increase in the use of 3D technologies in one year. The VDC team is also leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as 3D surface mapping, laser scanning and virtual and augmented reality to provide a leading-edge technology solution customized to benefit each project’s need.
More and more projects are replacing the traditional shop drawing process with a more seamless design to coordination to fabrication process that reduces gaps in handoffs, leverages the design and planning team more effectively, reduces opportunities for miscommunication and saves time allowing us to deliver projects more accurately.
“Understanding that laser scanning has become a standard operating procedure for Gilbane, our VDC team challenged themselves to provide value in ways that we typically hadn’t done before,” said Rawle Sawh, Gilbane Building Company VDC Director. “Utilizing our point cloud data sets, we’ve been able to deliver slab flatness/levelness studies to our project teams more quickly and efficiently than we ever thought was possible. After tying the point cloud data sets to surveyor benchmarks, we can analyze the FF/FL requirements for that particular slab and provide the analysis in short order. This technology allows us to not only confirm work that has already been put in place, but it also allows us to remedy the floor well before any bottom track, MEP and finishes need to be installed.”
Through the use of new technologies, Gilbane project teams are able to go from ambiguity to certainty faster, making budgets more reliable and improving schedules. This approach ultimately benefits decision makers, helping them visualize their project so they can take action more quickly and efficiently.
About Gilbane Building Company
Gilbane provides a full slate of construction and facilities-related services – from pre-construction planning and integrated consulting capabilities to comprehensive construction management, general contracting, design-build and facility management services – for clients across various markets. Founded in 1873 and still a privately held, family-owned company, Gilbane has 49 office locations around the world. For more information, visit www.gilbaneco.com.