By Jan Stuchlik, PE – Vice President and Principal
MaineGeneral Health will move into their new Alfond Center for Health in about 4 months. The 640,000-square-foot, four-story hospital will house 192 private patient rooms, a helipad, a streamlined emergency department, 10 operating rooms, a medical library and meeting space for up to 300 people. This $322 Million project was designed and constructed using the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) method. We delivered our services as a fully integrated member of the IPD team (even though we are not contractually a part of the mutual teaming agreement) since November of 2010. While IPD offers many benefits to the project team and ultimately the hospital, anyone considering an IPD approach needs to understand the potential shortcomings.
The hospital’s November move-in date is 8 months ahead of the project schedule resulting in large cost savings. This accelerated delivery is a direct result of the collaborative IPD method. The contractors (notably Robins and Morton and ES Boulos) participated in the design with us and helped to sequence the design deliverables to enable construction time savings.
The design and construction is documented in a fully shared Building Information Management (BIM) model. The benefits of the shared model include a more accurate coordination and faster cost estimating. The downside for us was the significantly slower Revit performance. At times, when the shared model was being used by 7 or 8 people from different firms, it could take up to 2 hours to load the model. Sometimes due the increased load, the model would crash after loading, which caused another 30, 40, or 120 minute reload. Firms need to plan for increased bandwidth allocation and time spent reloading the model.
The EDI project team also enjoyed the partnership attitude and culture that developed early in the project and continues to this day. Information (including costs) is freely shared within the team and the relationship between the designer and the constructor, which on many projects becomes adversarial, is a respectful partnership. This was illustrated in our design meetings where we sought the input of the electrical and cabling contractor to continually improve the design and the way the design is documented.
The Maine General project proved the IPD method as effective in controlling the schedule and costs and creating an enjoyable working environment. The shared BIM model has technical challenges and significantly increases the amount of modeling hours, but that can be overcome by thoughtful budgeting.
