In this issue, we will explore a transformative approach that can double your compensation per project as an architect or engineer. By integrating proper clash detection and conflict resolution services into your offerings, you can strengthen your relationship with clients, gain respect from the construction industry, and boost profitability. The key tool for this process is Autodesk’s Navisworks Manage, which facilitates clash detection and conflict resolution.

Enhancing Construction Document Detail

To incorporate clash detection and conflict resolution into your services, you need to produce construction documents with a level of detail equivalent to shop drawings. This level of precision allows for the identification of potential clashes during construction. Navisworks Manage effectively identifies these clashes, enabling you to modify the model and eliminate conflicts before the project enters the pricing or permitting phase. This process, known as conflict resolution, minimizes the need for RFIs (Requests for Information) and change orders, ensuring a smoother construction process.

Benefits for General Contractors and Subcontractors

By offering clash detection and conflict resolution services, you provide general contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers with valuable bills of materials. These comprehensive data sets help them reduce material overruns, minimize waste, and optimize profits. Additionally, you can assist in enhancing scheduling, ensuring timely ordering of materials and services to avoid construction delays. General contractors recognize the advantages of clash-free construction documents and have increasingly taken on the responsibility of providing these services, often at no additional cost. However, subcontractors and suppliers, who lack professional licensing, may not deliver the same level of expertise, leading to subpar clash detection results.

The Pitfalls of Suboptimal Solutions

While the responsibility for clash detection often falls on sub-contractors and suppliers, their reliance on off-brand applications and inadequate coordination can create significant challenges. General contractors must grapple with the integration of divergent clash detection results using Navisworks Manage. Incompatibilities between applications can hinder communication and feedback, making it difficult to address and resolve clashes effectively. This fragmented approach to clash detection and conflict resolution presents substantial obstacles and compromises the overall efficiency of the process.

The Architect’s Role in Clash Detection

To achieve accurate and expedient clash detection, the responsibility should lie with the architects and engineers of record. By centralizing all work in a unified Revit environment, architects and engineers can produce more precise and faster results. Instead of relying on disparate applications, conducting clash detection within a single platform streamlines the process, ensuring better outcomes.

The True Cost of Avoiding Clash Detection

Building owners and users do not actually save money by neglecting to pay architects and engineers for clash detection and conflict resolution. The costs associated with these services are still embedded in the project, as general contractors account for them within their General Conditions for Construction. Clash detection is viewed by general contractors as an expense rather than a profit center. Ideally, they prefer to focus on construction rather than investing time and resources into resolving clashes.

The Architects’ Responsibility

It is essential for architects and engineers of record to educate their clients about the benefits of clash detection and conflict resolution. By offering these services, architects can increase their compensation per project by approximately double compared to traditional architectural and engineering services. It is crucial to emphasize that achieving a clash-free building is best accomplished by the architects and engineers of record. By reclaiming this responsibility, professionals can ensure accurate and efficient clash detection, benefiting clients and general contractors alike.

Conclusion

By incorporating clash detection and conflict resolution into your architectural and engineering services, you can maximize your compensation per project while building stronger relation-ships with clients. Utilizing Navisworks Manage and providing comprehensive construction documents, you enable clash-free construction and minimize the need for RFIs and change orders. Architects and engineers must take charge of clash detection to deliver optimal results, as subcontractors and suppliers may lack the necessary expertise. Educating clients about the advantages of clash detection is crucial for the industry to embrace this transformative approach.

Reach out to us for further discussion on how you can leverage clash detection and conflict resolution to benefit your enterprise, clients, and general contractors.

Charles Traylor, Architect, NCARB
CEO and Founder, Archline.com, LLC
5050 Quorum Drive, Suite 700
Dallas, Texas 75254
Telephone: (214) 304-2850 | Cell: (808) 747-4460
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