Lokhorst Accelerates Reporting by 46% with Digital Issue Management in BIM 360
Founded in the Netherlands in 1934, Lokhorst is a developing contractor focusing on construction, renovation, and maintenance for various clients across the utility, commercial, and social sectors. The firm holds itself to the highest standards of quality, sustainability, and safety, and takes pride in working closely with clients to deliver high-end buildings within scope and budget. One of Lokhorst’s primary goals has been to go paperless and maintain their Level 5 Sustainability rating. They wanted to increase efficiency in their delivery process and reduce the headaches that many project stakeholders felt in issue reporting and resolution. With the implementation of BIM 360 within Autodesk Construction Cloud™, Lokhorst eliminated paper-based systems and accelerated speed of reporting.
46%
reduction in issue resolution time
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The Problem
A paper-based QA system created a complicated workflow, leading to several inefficiencies and frustrations for managing issues. Lokhorst had previously used an outside QA firm to help them manage these processes, which required finding and printing the appropriate issue logging forms, having them filled out by hand in the field, then entering the information into Excel. This was a cumbersome process that made it difficult to manage issues promptly, creating frustration with colleagues, subcontractors, and most importantly, clients.
“We needed to digitize and automate our workflows from paper into the cloud,” says Arjan Peeters, Manager Virtual Construction at Lokhorst. “We have a lot of hard copy forms that were not being tracked properly, and the process was more complicated than it needed to be leading to loss of information and rework.”
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The Solution
In order to address the problems and complexities created by paper-based workflows, Lokhorst put in place a form in BIM 360 as a checklist so that every room in the building could be checked for flaws, mistakes, and defects. They chose the construction management platform due to its ease of use and the fact that they could work within a single platform, keeping all their forms and data in a centralised location. They also needed the Cloud functionality to eliminate the need to sync, keeping all data live and up to date.
Project managers and subcontractors would use smart devices to access the forms for reporting issues in BIM 360, simplifying reporting and issue management. This approach also gave teams the ability to include digital photos of the issues, so contractors knew precisely where to go and what to do. Having a digital system also increased the signoff and handover process, giving clients complete visibility into projects.
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The Results
Eliminating paper forms not only reduced the time required to resolve issues by 46% but made resolving them much easier. With a streamlined QA process, teams have access to well- documented issues in a centralised platform, minimizing the risk of rework.
By training teams on using a new system, Lokhorst ensures data integrity through standardisation of the new platform.
“Colleagues are used to printing, drawing, sketching, signing, and emailing to a partner, and waiting for an answer,” says Steffan van Leenen, Virtual Constructor at Lokhorst. “With BIM 360 this process is very different. We mail every question, from RFI to review assignments and have more control over our reviews and RFIs.”
