Eliminating the Unknown Condition

By: STEPHEN DEVITO, DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, PROCON CONSULTING

The AEC industry today is plagued by problems that arise due to poor building documentation. One challenge is that prior to the start of building alteration projects that do not have trusted as-built building documentation, costly and time-consuming site measurements and validations must be done to verify building conditions. Another challenge is that despite these substantial efforts, the discovery of “unknown” or “concealed” conditions still occur during the construction phase of a significant portion of these projects. These “unforeseen conditions” can be so common that many of our industry owners manage this risk by carrying project “contingencies'' which can often be as much as 1 to 2% of the total construction value and project schedule. 

This situation is frustrating because it represents a cost to discover “unknown” or “concealed” conditions that, for the most part, were previously “known” and “not concealed.”  That is to say, at some point in time l a facility’s systems and materials, which so often are the subject of these discoveries, were installed, measured, and inspected by one party or another.  Why then does this problem seem to occur so frequently? One of the primary factors is that buildings are so inherently complex and ever-changing that it has, to date, been extremely difficult and costly to document and maintain an accurate record of the building, which is constantly changing throughout its lifecycle. Consequently, as the life of a building increases, the quality of its documentation tends to decrease as the building ages.  However, technological advances made in the AEC industry in the last several years offer an opportunity to change this paradigm.

With the advent of 360-degree cameras and construction progress monitoring applications like StructionSite, Holobuilder, Reconstruct Inc, and OpenSpace, it is foreseeable that the ability to document and maintain an accurate record of building conditions throughout its lifecycle can now be achieved using affordable and effective methods. To explain, it is important to understand these construction progress monitoring applications.  These tools work by attaching 360-degree cameras to site inspectors who will take photos during their existing site monitoring walks. Once the walks are complete, the pictures are automatically loaded to a website where they are tagged to drawings by the location on the drawing from which they were taken. Each photo is also time and date stamped. During each subsequent site walk throughout the construction project, the inspector can take a photo from the same location week after week, thereby documenting construction progress over time.  While this method improves construction photo documentation, it also provides automatic and photogrammetric records of as-built conditions, which, if properly maintained through the life of the building, could convey future “concealed” conditions behind walls, above ceilings, below floors, and more, once the project is complete.  These same photo capture techniques and tools can be used by building operators who make small changes to the building during the course of its ongoing maintenance. The next project team can then use these records to minimize the need for site investigation work.  Later in construction, this record would help to avoid the likelihood of encountering “concealed conditions.”

Of course, from a building owner’s perspective, these photogrammetric records could be used to validate and improve the quality of their overall portfolio asset records in several domains such as (1) tenant’s space assignments and lease terms found in Integrated Workplace Management Solutions, (2) equipment warranty information and operating procedures found in Computerized Maintenance Management Systems, (3) mechanical electrical and plumbing system layouts and performance specifications found in drawings, specifications and BIM models, and (4) live performance data found in Building Automation and Energy Management Systems. Often these systems are disparate from one another, and accessing data from each requires separate efforts, and the data across systems is not always synchronized. The opportunity now is to align these domains of data with the photogrammetric records being the “basis of truth.” If properly planned and executed, all of this building information can be synthesized into “Common Data Environments” or, as they are sometimes referred to, “Digital Twins.”  

It is worth considering for a moment an analogous problem and solution that emerged roughly a decade ago that has improved the way much of the population finds valuable information about the built world around them.  Before, if we needed to find current traffic conditions, we would listen to AM News radio for “traffic on the twos.”  If we needed to find information about a businesses’ operating hours or their phone number, we would look in the yellow pages or search their website. If we needed to plan a route to navigate to a location, we would refer to a physical map or use a tool like MapQuest.  While we could find this information previously, it was time-consuming and inefficient because it was spread across different locations, was time-consuming to search, and was not always synchronized with one another or up to date. With the invention of Google Maps and equivalent applications, this information streams into a Common Data Environment in real-time, where it is centrally accessible and constantly maintained. However, Google Maps did not just happen. It required planning and execution to implement successfully, and it requires ongoing maintenance and updates to work properly and be valuable to its users.  The question is, can this type of tool be successfully planned and implemented in our industry, and would it be worth the initial and ongoing investment?

Considering the current cost of poor building documentation in the AEC industry, even if a single percentage point of project contingency were saved on average across all building alteration projects, the cost to plan and implement Common Data Environments, Digital Twins, or “Google Maps for Buildings” could only be a fraction of the savings. The challenge that lies ahead for us as an industry is quantifying the cost-benefit analysis, inspiring investment in such innovation, and then planning and executing an implementable, scalable solution for the entire industry.