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Success Story

Sletten Construction Reduces Project Risk & Increases Operational Efficiency

Sletten Construction Reduces Project Risk & Increases Operational Efficiency

Customer challenge

Sletten Construction Companies is an employee-owned company that was founded in 1928 in Great Falls, Montana. Today, the company has over 400 employees and, operates eight offices in the USA.

Every office has experienced staff of construction professionals, project managers, superintendents, estimators, and administrative staff who provide a full range of services to clients.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) at Sletten Construction Companies

Sletten Construction Companies uses BIM coordination in three divisions:

  • The Industrial division handles construction of industrial, water, and wastewater facilities.
  • The Corrections/Justice division specializes in developing, constructing, and renovating prisons, detention centers, health facilities, courthouses, and related support spaces across the western USA.
  • The Nevada building division works on a variety of projects including a large number of schools.

BIM supports improved project collaboration, communication, decision-making, and quality. The result is greater productivity, streamlined schedules, and reduced project costs.

Historically, Sletten has used Autodesk Navisworks for BIM coordination. While that solution worked well, the team wanted to learn about the additional functionality that Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) has to offer.

Project goals

Expanding BIM Coordination Capabilities with Autodesk Construction Cloud

“We received a demo and were very interested in the version history feature, as well as the ability to view models online with the web viewer. We have many project team members who have never opened Navisworks and don’t know how to download the free viewer,” said Chase Garrett, Virtual Construction Specialist.

When the Nevada building division was tasked with projects for three prototype schools, Sletten Construction Companies decided to try using Autodesk Construction Cloud coordination tools in conjunction with Navisworks.

Sletten reached out to their Autodesk partner, IMAGINiT Technologies who provided training and guidance to the Sletten BIM team for the initial rollout of ACC. With IMAGINiT’s help, the talented team at Sletten was able to get up to speed quickly.

Sletten had a positive experience with their IMAGINiT trainer throughout. Said Chase “Our trainer worked with us for around four hours. He provided an overview of how to set up a job on Autodesk Construction Cloud, compile the models, align them with the coordinates, set up automated clash tests, and more. That’s all we needed to run with it.”

Chase stated “The IMAGINiT team was very fast. We emailed our trainer a couple of times after our session to clarify things or identify best practices for different tasks and he was always quick to respond”.

IMAGINiT conducts regular meetings with the Sletten BIM department and other Sletten divisions to provide support on a monthly cadence. IMAGINiT also maintains communication with Autodesk and Sletten to continually match solutions to Sletten’s desired business outcomes around increased operational efficiencies and reduced project times.

Solution

Autodesk Construction Cloud + Navisworks = Better BIM Coordination

Using Autodesk Construction Cloud together with Navisworks enables Sletten to deliver on its BIM goals of increased productivity and shorter project schedules. Some of the most impactful benefits the Sletten team observed include:

  1. When Sletten teams worked with Navisworks alone, project models were updated weekly with all trade files. If teams made edits, they would not be visible until the following week’s model upload in Navisworks was complete. “With Autodesk Construction Cloud, the model is updated automatically after each new post which means that clashes are identified immediately and can be addressed sooner saving us a lot of time,” Chase said.

  2. ACC’s automated version history with the built-in compare version tool has also been a major time saver for Sletten. With ACC’s built-in version history tool, Chase could easily see which edits had been made. In addition, the version history is accessible via the web. He noted that he no longer has to store the history on his computer or the company’s file storage system.

    “The version history functionality has saved me 30 minutes on mundane tasks every week, for every project, as I no longer have to download and archive previous histories,” Chase said.

  3. Another huge time saver has been the ability to load the latest model data through the ACC coordination tab at any time. This eliminates the need to export each new model update to a Navisworks NWD file—which was a daily function.

    On the prototype school projects, Sletten saved weeks of coordination time by using Navisworks in conjunction with ACC for BIM coordination.

Business outcome

“It took four weeks from the time we had all steel finalized, to the time we signed off on an 80,000 square foot building. On other similar jobs which we coordinated and built prior to ACC, it would take between six to eight weeks. On a four-building school, we are saving two weeks minimum per building, which translates to eight weeks of coordination time saved,” said Chase.

The new approach BIM coordination for the prototype school projects clearly demonstrated the value of using Autodesk Construction Cloud and Navisworks in tandem. Key results include:

  • Decreased project risk through enhanced clash identification
  • Increased operational efficiency due to fewer mundane project tasks associated with project history reviews
  • Reduced project times—schedules cut by 30% to 50%

Conclusion

While it’s often easier to stick with familiar tools, embracing a shift towards communication and collaboration focused workflows delivers significant benefits in the long term. Contact IMAGINiT to assess your AEC technology and identify ways to improve efficiencies, boost productivity, and reduce risk.

Project summary

    Duration & delivery

  • 1
  • 2024-03-21

    Autodesk solutions

  • BIM 360 Build
  • BIM Collaborate
  • Navisworks

    Services provided

  • Assessment of Needs
  • Implementation
  • Training

    Customer industry

  • Construction Design
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