“If you look at any statistics, we’ve all seen reports that suggest that relative to every other industry—except for hunting, the construction industry spends the least on technology,” Jim Lynch, vice president of construction products at Autodesk, told ENGINEERING.com. “Manufacturing, of course, spends a great deal on technology. Traditionally, the construction industry has not.”
But he says he is seeing a change taking place, as construction firms are starting to embrace new technologies and methodologies to bring architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) into the 21st century and increase efficiency. If you’re reading this website right now (I’m assuming you are?), one of those technologies is building information modeling (BIM).
PARIC using Autodesk BIM 360 Glue to host BIM models in a central location. (Image courtesy of PARIC.)
St. Louis–based construction firm PARIC is one of those companies, which adopted BIM and other approaches less than a decade ago and shortly began seeing the benefits. ENGINEERING.com spoke to Andy Leek, director of virtual design and construction (VDC) at PARIC, to understand how a firm like PARIC was able to make the digitization shift.
From Traditional to Modern Construction
As a commercial construction company, PARIC performs construction management design/build, consulting and general contracting with a focus on vertical projects, such as high rises, hospitals and office buildings.
According to…