Helm Mechanical’s Lean Construction and Cloud-based Collaboration Improves Outcomes on Highly Complex Industrial Projects

Helm Mechanical is an innovative specialty contractor focusing on the highly technical pharmaceutical, bio-engineering, food manufacturing, automotive, and healthcare industries. For lean construction and cloud-based collaboration, Helm Mechanical adopted BIM 360 within Autodesk Construction Cloud™ to serve as the backbone of their construction management platform to unify data across the project lifecycle, improving communication and collaboration across teams.

Connected Data Puts Information into the Hands of Everyone Who Needs It

As a turn-key contractor, Helm Mechanical looks to bring a value-based approach to transform project delivery. To implement new design, engineering, and construction methodologies, Helm Mechanical adopted BIM 360 as its document management platform to increase collaboration and drive efficiencies to deliver highly complex projects while achieving certainty in cost, schedule, and quality.

With data stored in one ecosystem, teams spend less time looking for information, which increases effective collaboration and communication, reducing project risk and improving quality.

“We struggled with making sure our field personnel had the most up-to-date information in the palm of their hands. Before BIM 360, if you needed information, you would have to go to great lengths. Now, we can access that information from anywhere on the jobsite.”

–Jeff Knoup, VP of Operations

Connected Data Makes Materials Tracking Easy

Helm Mechanical likes to go after highly technical, industrial projects that many firms can’t handle. On these projects, owners want complete transparency and visibility into the project’s progress at any given time. With BIM 360, Helm Mechanical can easily track and reference the number of linear feet of pipe or how many pounds of ductwork is put in each day.

Without BIM 360, tracking the quantity and level of detail necessary on a highly technical project would be a very labor-intensive, manual process. BIM 360 makes tracking materials as they enter and leave the fabrication facility and while they’re inspected and installed not only possible but easy.

Digital Construction Management Improves Accountability

BIM 360 seamlessly connects to Helm Mechanical’s AR technology that they use to conduct walkthroughs of spaces as they develop. With AR, Helm Mechanical can quickly identify design issues before construction, reducing the risk of rework.

In addition to reducing rework, the AR technology integrated into BIM 360 creates a trail of accountability that saves money and ensures everyone is held responsible for their commitments.

“We had one customer building a food processing plant, for which we did a bunch of the sheet metal and piping work and some platforms. We put AR glasses on and walked them around the space. They had previously spec’d out the work, but while walking through it with AR showing them how the space would be used, they discovered that their carts wouldn’t fit under a certain platform, and that other platforms weren’t high enough for someone to be able to reach what they needed to work on,” says Travis Voss, Leader of Innovation Technology at Helm Mechanical.

While this may seem like a small detail, using AR saved thousands of dollars because they could change the design based on what the customer wanted before anything was installed.

Helm Mechanical has developed a reputation for being one of the leading providers of mechanical contracting on highly technical projects. Their reputation is thanks to their excellent team, the strength of strategic partnerships such as the one with Autodesk, and their commitment to lean construction and connected data.

“BIM 360 is a very versatile software. It gives us all the communication with the field that we need, and that one dominant platform where everything resides.”