Pinnacle delivered Stanford’s new campus residence in 50% less time with Tekla Structures

About Pinnacle Infotech

As an early adopter of Building Information Modelling (BIM), Pinnacle Infotech strongly believes that technology has been a key driver of their progress towards better construction and infrastructure engineering. It has enabled them to offer the best services to architects, engineers, contractors, sub-contractors and consultants across the world.

Their exceptional focus on pre-construction planning and BIM implementation has facilitated Pinnacle to track project timelines, material costs, conflict resolutions and other elements well in advance. The use of technology has led to an overall savings of about 30% of the actual estimated cost for the company thus establishing them as one of the global leaders in MEP designing and detailing services.

By using Tekla we have successfully completed 80% of drawing submissions in just a year which would have taken double the time with a CAD software. The flawless collaboration among stakeholders, reduction in errors, improved building performance and increased work efficiency led to a saving of more than 50% time on this project. Tekla not only facilitated us to get high quality output with less effort but also enhanced the quantity of production in lesser time. In addition to these benefits, the ease of access for maintenance provisions and facility management is also impressive. Timely support from the Tekla Service Team and availability of useful plugins from Tekla Warehouse have been a boon.” 

 - Mr. Bimal Kumar Patwari, Chief Executive Officer, Pinnacle Infotech

Constructing Stanford’s newest on-campus residential building

The precast structure of Escondido Village Graduate Residences (EVGR) - Stanford University’s newest on-campus residential community - is comprised of four 10-storey residential buildings, with wings ranging from 6 to 10 storeys high having a capacity of accommodating 2,400 beds. The design reflects the distinct style and attributes of many of Stanford’s most beloved buildings. Prior to this project, Stanford could only house about 55 percent of the total students in their oncampus housing facilities, which was approximately 9,000 pupils. After the project completion, Stanford estimates an increase in its on-campus graduate housing rate to at least 75 percent. The fully prefabricated structure consists of 14,700 Precast Panels, 1,835,000 SF Residences and 1,025,000 SF Exterior Cladding. Clark Pacific was the Pre-cast concrete contractor who successfully manufactured and erected precast panels in the Escondido Village Graduate Residences (EVGR). They selected Pinnacle Infotech for its expertise in BIM services to develop 3D concrete models, reinforcement models, precast piece ticket drawings, GA drawings etc.

Challenges that were blocking the progress of the project

This precast project had more than 40 people from different geographies involved in various segments to execute the model. It meant that steady collaboration was going to be the most vital to achieve & sustain progress.

Apart from the challenge of uninterrupted and real time collaboration, the project had several others challenges:

Huge Number of Panels with Different Precast Elements:

The precast modelling project involved 2,228 precast wall panels, 5,290 ribbed floor panels, 1,250 beam panels & 4,436 columns. These huge numbers & variety of panels made it very challenging to execute the project within the short & stipulated time frame specified by the Contractor.

Maintaining the Numbering System of Reinforced Panels:

To identify a particular panel as well as reinforcement in the whole project, a numbering system is very essential. In this huge precast concrete project it was very difficult to maintain the numbering system for all the panels as the task was backbreaking and the possibility of error was very high.

Time-Line Challenge:

For the project team, preparing quality shop drawings for all the panels within a short time was difficult. Further, the repeated use of components in precast panels likes embeds, hangers, lifters, couplers, etc. was extremely time consuming which made the completion of project within a stipulated timeline very challenging.

Scheduling, Transportation & other challenges:

Another challenge associated with the timeline was scheduling. It was difficult to get the bar bending schedule in the shop drawing after reinforcement of the panels. The project also had several other challenges which included the requirement of separate and specific environment for drafting as well as model view for avoiding shifting of the model elements with changes in the drawings, and difficulty in calculating the number of panels for site transportation which increased the transportation cost.

“Lotting was the most important feature in Tekla for us, in this project. This option helped us to easily measure lots of group assemblies for transporting to site. Moreover, from this option we calculated the number of units of panels carried by the vehicle and the size of the panel for suitable vehicles.”

Mr. Bimal Kumar Patwari, Chief Executive Officer, Pinnacle Infotech

Tekla - the ‘go-to’ software for greater profitability in precast projects

Besides the path breaking lotting feature, Tekla solution has enabled the project team in several others way:

Flawless Collaboration among various Stakeholders

Tekla Software helped multiple users to work simultaneously & safely in the cloud server across different time zones of the world. The Model Sharing feature offered seamless and error-free
collaboration among the different stakeholders and members of the team involved in the project.

Automating Repetitive Work with the ‘Copy Special’ command

The ‘Copy Special’ command enabled the project team to automate the repetitive work and save time. After completing the reinforcement of one panel, the team could reinforce other panels easily using this ‘copy special’ command. It helped in completing the project within timeline with greater efficiency.

Perform Numbering’ System for altering Rebar model

Working with “numbering” system was a significant part of using Tekla software. For changing the Rebar model, the team had to execute “Perform Numbering” of the particular panel to get the bar mark of the Rebar from the model.

Clone Drawing preparation

By using this feature the project team could create shop drawings for similar panels very easily. It facilitated the team to significantly reduce the time required to generate shop drawings and avoid unnecessary work repetition.

Clearly Marking & Identifying sections of model with ‘Phasing’

Phasing helped to show the entire concrete model with different coloured regions (part by part or floor by floor). This helped in easily identifying a particular section of the entire concrete model.

The List of Benefits goes on

The use of Tekla offered many more benefits to the project team, for instance, ‘Selection’ as well as ‘Visibility Filter’ which enabled the team to identify any object with ease from the entire model. Similarly, Tekla also helped in easily getting the bar bending schedule (BBS) of the Rebars and facilitated the executing team to create custom components for modelling.