The Value of Controlling Design

• 18 Weeks Trial

• £26,400 Staff Time Saved

• £114,200 Earlier Issues Identification

ShapeDo was trialled on the £37M Woolwich Arsenal district project. The system was introduced to the project at approximately 60% completion. In this case study, we cover 18 weeks of use resulting in an estimated benefit of £140K due to quick and effective drawing comparisons and better management of design change, technical coordination, and commercials.

Highlights:

• ShapeDo was set up and integrated within 48 hours.

• ShapeDo seamlessly integrated with other Mace systems.

• 550 drawing comparisons were performed on ShapeDo.

• The system enabled pricing of a new building in 2 weeks.

Mace Report

Bengamin Munday, design manger at the project, tells about the change that happend a shor while after implementing ShapeDo: 

“We used to have a design change meeting every Friday. The team would all sit in a room with folders of new drawings after I had marked up the changes with a highlighter. We would pass paper plans around
a table and discuss any changes. The process was so frustrating people stopped coming to the meetings.

Now we can complete a review in 5 minutes over Teams. I’ll open ShapeDo and we’ll flip between revisions, and quickly establish whether we can accept a drawing or if there are changes that we need to address.”

Staff Time Saved

Mace estimates each drawing comparison saved on avg. 30 minutes for 2 staff members in change review time (as compared to Conject+Bluebeam review).
During the case study period, Mace performed 550 version comparisons, resulting in an estimated saving of £26,400*.

Earlier Issue Discovery and Resolution

Design updates tend to come in bulks, and Mace, like other general contractors, used to spend significant time to fully review each drawing. To allow the site-teams and supply chain to continue working, they often circulated drawings and performed in-depth reviews concurrently.
Using ShapeDo, Mace were able to make decisions on potential issues before circulating drawings to the supply chain. Across 238 major drawings revised, Mace estimates they were able to make decisions on 476 details at least one stage earlier in their lifecycle. Based on a sample of these, the average value (to Mace and the supply chain) to be £240 per earlier decision, for a total value of £114,240.

"Using the software mid-project has been incredibly valuable, but we only scratched the surface of what it can do. The value it would have created if used to its full capacity from the start of the project would have been tremendous."

STEVE HAWTHORNE

PROJECT DIRECTOR

Deep Dive: Pricing An Additional Building

One of the buildings was originally designed to stage 4, but was dropped by the client due to budget constraints. The building went through extensive VE, which was priced but ultimately dropped. Later, the client requested a third set of design which was a middle ground between the original scope and the VE.

Prior to the use of ShapeDo, the design and commercial teams would need to spend weeks reviewing and repricing all 150 drawings.

 Using ShapeDo, a DM and CM were able to review ~150 drawings in 2 days, and classify:

• All elements which followed the original stage 4 design

• All elements which followed the VE design

• Additional elements which required repricing

 By being able to quickly establish the drawings that contained changes, the commercial teams and subcontractors were able to accurately and effectively price up the drawings in 14 days.