Roma Hospital and Ellis Air’s Journey towards Digital Transformation

The major challenge for Ellis Air Conditioning was to build a hospital in a remote location, nearly 500 kms away from Queensland’s Capital City, Brisbane. Logistically, it was difficult as drawings were required to be delivered to the site without delay.

All maintainable assets to be accounted for was one of the main aims in the project. For the Roma hospital, Ellis Air Conditioning took a ground up, holistic change approach in embracing BIM led strategies, leveraging BSI PAS 1192 & ISO 10650 as the foundational workflows, and applying real world application of these via the Autodesk platforms. Ellis Air wanted to achieve a full design to install using Revit design parts throughout the whole process to protect the lifecycle of the model and inclusive metadata (Revit). They also wanted cross team collaboration, and spatial coordination with models via BIM 360 Design, maintaining the single source of truth with no isolated documentation or data.

In addition, they wanted to have connected workflows for design and QA across departments internally and externally via BIM 360 Docs and Assemble Systems, connected workflows with estimation and programming, utilising the early design models to increase accuracy and efficiency (Assemble Systems with Excel integration). One of the other aims was to have a great data management system, comprising of Revit Scheduling of equipment from Engineering to the model, Field to model with Assemble Systems Revit integration and all scheduling for procurement through the Revit model, maintaining the single source of truth for the whole supply chain.

Another goal was introducing mobile devices to access construction information in the field, as part of a standard workers’ toolkit (BIM 360 Docs / Field / Assemble Systems). Ellis Air wanted to adopt a paperless end to end process that would complement design and construction. Business intelligence and reporting via Autodesk integration API’s and PowerBI was yet another objective of the project, besides full utilisation of BIM. In a nutshell, Ellis Air’s goal was to prove that the technology available was ready to be utilised to it’s potential.

Ellis Air utilised the Autodesk BIM360 platform to present genesis of the drawing, through the review workflows, issue creation and resolution all the way to a Constructable drawing that could be delivered to the site at the press of a button. For iOS users on site, the teams received drawings in real-time, eliminating the need to wait for drawings to be delivered as hard copies by hand. Changes that are requested from site could be requested and updated through the platform. Site could have access to direct feedback on the drawings by “pinning” issues to areas in the drawings via BIM360, that required attention urgently or to be ready for AS Built Status.

BIM was crucial to the projects intended deliverables and success. All information required to schedule, procure, build, and maintain the building was stored in the Ellis Air’s own project parameter sets. Data from external models was also visible to our site team on our own mechanical drawings, allowing them to make more informed decisions. For example, by looking out our own drawings on BIM360, our site team could easily see if a wall were made from block, plasterboard, concrete, or any other material.

Fabrication outcomes were delivered using Revit Families.  This outcome ensured that our construction model would allow for design work on the building by future consultants.  Ellis Air was able to deliver the projects with strict and necessary BIM constraints whilst still providing information to Fabricate. Ellis Air utilised the parameters in the software required to create the geometry of the parts to auto generate duct and fitting schedules, and to reduce costly fabrication detailing time. This helped us to deliver Construction documentation to schedule whilst still having the ability to be agile enough, to make any necessary changes to ductwork “Just in Time” to reduce the documentation detailing load.

Since Roma hospital, every project in Ellis Air is internally mandated to utilise Autodesk Construction Cloud. Ellis have built a pathway to BIM Level 3 maturity (LOD 500) as business as usual! In addition, money, time, and materials have been saved by going digital. Generation of paper drawings, collation and delivery costs and avoidable downtime have also been eliminated.

By removing many tags required to deliver traditional Mechanical HVAC detailing, future projects are now earmarked at 1:100 scale rather than the traditional 1:50 scale for their shop drawings.  This essentially means you can fit 4 sheets on 1 resulting in a massive reduction in the number of sheets required. Utilising the 1:100 scale also compliments Architectural workflows for floorplans as well as other contractors thus gaining more efficiencies for their trade and standardisation over the MEP Models.

As the project was remote, Ellis Air could still utilise design staff in Brisbane with full visibility to their client using Autodesk’s Various cloud functions. The BIM360 project hub also served as a repository for all necessary engineering information, documents, photos, and any other files you would typically see on a local server. Last but not the least, Ellis Air also utilised the tools available in BIM360 to recognise their internal processes into ISO9001 Quality Certification.

Whilst it was a huge challenge, the utilisation of BIM360 helped streamline numerous processes within Ellis Air’s business and has proven to be very worthwhile. The simple fact that it could deliver information to our key employees on site faster than ever before provided the team more agility in a design and construct environment, as well as respond to a problem quickly and efficiently whilst maintaining transparency and visibility throughout their entire organisation.

From BIM360 to Autodesk Construction Cloud and very soon onto Autodesk Build, Ellis Air are striving to use all tools at their disposal to generate better outcomes for them and their clients. Many people talk about cost and efficiency benefits in isolation, what we have learnt is that the biggest contributing factor to this in construction is risk mitigation. Mistakes cost time and money. Double or triple handing information, poor timing and accuracy of information, or broken workflows increase risk substantially. If the choice of solutions, and their use, are built around reducing risk in the business, everything else becomes a beneficial by-product.

Ellis Air have realised that workflow connectivity without loss of information or time reduces risk. Also having a paperless society, where everyone has the same, correct, information at the right time reduces risk. Furthermore, having a single source of truth, saves time, and reduces risk.