Miron Enhances Coordination by Modernizing Data Management
For over 100 years, Miron Construction Co., Inc. has offered preconstruction, construction management, design-build, and industrial services to markets nationwide. Always striving to improve the client experience, the family-owned construction firm knew that being able to capture, manage, and retain data would drastically reduce the cost and time spent on each project. After reading that 30% of construction data is lost during the project handover process, Jay Mathes, Miron’s Virtual Construction Lead for civil projects, began exploring ways Miron’s team might benefit from a different data capture and retention approach during the preconstruction and construction process. However, getting buy-in was an uphill trek simply because many of Miron’s superintendents have historically been wary about adopting new technology. Fortunately, Autodesk Build—an Autodesk Construction Cloud solution—"sold itself,” offering a simple user interface and the promise of major efficiency gains in the field.
Achieving Standardization with a Centralized Source of Truth
Working with Build as its “centralized source of truth” was a game-changer. Build enabled the team to make and view real-time project updates across RFIs, Meeting Minutes, and Sheets.
Miron realized an uptick in organizational efficiencies and communication, reducing the number of emails, screenshots, and PDFs and slashing the time spent navigating outside solutions. Teams can now find key project data 25% faster, and meeting minutes no longer need to be on a third-party platform, such as OneNote. Now, many people can contribute to the meeting minutes and even see the assigned action items on their project’s home screen.
These newfound capabilities empowered Miron’s Virtual Construction Team to refine its data management, project management, and field collaboration workflows. For example, when the team began using the Forms feature to standardize and streamline data capture during a new project, the reductions in project risk and enhancements in quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) were immediately evident.
“With Forms, anybody can do the QA/QC process. Previously, all the QA/QC information lived on one person’s computer,” explains Virtual Construction Specialist Kacie Hokanson. “Now we can add extra data, pictures, and issue tracking, ensuring that data carries on through the life of the project and after handover.”
“When we can aggregate the project schedule with the coordination’s schedule, we know everyone is on the same page regarding the time we have to coordinate; this creates a better product in the end because everyone is allotted the proper time to coordinate an optimized system.”
- Kacie Hokanson, Virtual Construction Specialist, Miron
Driving Efficiencies with Increased Collaboration and Coordination
Driving Efficiencies with Increased Collaboration and Coordination Close collaboration is a must when working with a network of roughly 1,300 other companies. Today, Miron is successfully utilizing many features of Autodesk Build and Autodesk BIM Collaborate on projects that require high levels of coordination.
Most recently, Miron leveraged Build on a project for a concert hall with a large design team that included stakeholders from MEP, architecture, and structural engineering firms. Even though the designers and engineers were from different groups, with everything hosted on BIM Collaborate, they could easily collaborate in one environment.
“Having one environment has sped up the information sharing in the preconstruction phase and has created a better product for all the teams,” says Taylor Olp, Virtual Construction Specialist. For example, with the Issues module, Miron and its design and structural engineering partners can identify and resolve clashes early during the design phase. By tracking and managing coordination issues before onboarding subcontractors, Miron can save time and keep projects on schedule and budget.
And with Bridge in Autodesk Construction Cloud, Miron can share models more quickly, saving time and minimizing confusion across project teams. Previously, an average project would take about an hour to download zipped files and then upload them for subcontractors. Now they can automate this process within the design collaboration workflow, and subcontractors are confident they are working with the correct models.
“Now we’re able to focus on what’s in the model versus taking the time to download and upload the models every time there is an update on the architect’s site,” says Taylor.
The Schedule tool is another feature that provides Miron with a faster way to search and view project information. “Anyone who is new to a project and needs to find all the scheduled activities that would impact them can find the activities, on average, in 30 seconds,” says Taylor.
“When we can aggregate the project schedule with the coordination’s schedule, we know everyone is on the same page regarding the time we have to coordinate; this creates a better product in the end because everyone is allotted the proper time to coordinate an optimized system.”
- Kacie Hokanson, Virtual Construction Specialist, Miron
The team also uses the Schedule tool to show the progress and phasing of coordination in Build. “The schedule tool allows us to create a better experience for teams to understand the deadlines and how fast they are approaching,” says Kacie. “When we can aggregate the project schedule with the coordination’s schedule, we know everyone is on the same page regarding the time we have to coordinate; this creates a better product in the end because everyone is allotted the proper time to coordinate an optimized system.”
Miron also continues to leverage Autodesk Construction Cloud as a tool to preserve valuable project information for future client projects. Their goal is to have connected data that lives on to make more informed decisions regarding the next project. “We are always looking for ways to help our teams do their jobs easier while saving time and budget for the client,” says Jay. “Having tangible data easily accessible through software does just that while helping us grow as a company.”
“The biggest thing that pushed Miron towards Autodesk Construction Cloud was integrating all the project documents and having a model-centric project view rather than a 2D document. Also, cloud-based document storage means you always have access to the most up-to-date information.”
- Jay Mathes, Virtual Construction Lead, Miron