Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) with Helix Engineering is a project-management methodology that integrates digital models to enhance your project’s planning, design, collaboration, construction and decision-making. VDC with Helix Engineering:

• contributes to avoiding design conflicts through early clash detection before construction begins
• improves planning and coordination and reduces last-minute changes with greater initial design review and collaboration with stakeholders such as project executives and managers, superintendents, engineers, architects and structural fabricators
• controls unexpected costs by clearly defining the project’s scope, responsibilities and approval processes

Efficient planning and execution are vital. The average change order can account for 5% to 15% of a project’s total cost. A change order can often range from $10,000 to $50,000 for a smaller project and exceed $100,000 for a larger one. It can also add days to months to the schedule, creating even more costs for equipment and labor.

By building and analyzing your project before it is in motion, VDC identifies how to complete your objective with minimal risk, a vetted procedure and the optimal approach to the targeted outcome.

Helix VDC: The Right People Behind It

While VDC offers a powerful platform for precise project management, a tool is just a tool until it is applied by professionals with the skill and imagination to shape a desired result.

This becomes valuable when a contractor, utility service or MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) contractor needs but does not have an in-house VDC team. With Helix as your partner, you gain the cost-competitive resources to save project time and expense, prevent change orders and satisfy your contractual obligations.

Primary components of VDC with Helix Engineering include:

• Building Information Modeling (BIM) with 3D modeling to digitally represent a building’s physical and functional characteristics
• Integrated Concurrent Engineering (ICE) for joining project teams in real time to resolve design, scheduling and construction challenges
• Process simulation with digital scenarios to analyze and optimize project performance before construction begins
• Project Production Management (PPM) that applies lean-construction principles to improve workflow sequencing and correctly allocate tasks

Just a few of your project’s many specific VDC assets include:

• automation of repetitive tasks such as material and cost estimations
• labor efficiency through better task sequencing and resource allocation and lesser dependence on manual calculations and blueprint revisions
• fewer human errors by leveraging data-driven decision-making and automated quality control
• identification of hazards before ground is broken
• support for sustainability certifications (e.g. LEED) through integration of environmental-impact assessments
  safety training using virtual and augmented reality simulations to train personnel in a risk-free environment

Helix VDC: Versatile Technology

As a highly specialized firm, Helix Engineering can provide your project with the elevated attention and focus it requires. We work with you, not just for you.

Once we receive the construction documents, we can model them in 3D and run clash detection with all of the other MEP contractors’ structural and architectural elements.

In supporting each phase of your project, our VDC team delivers high-quality, data-rich models with technology including:

• Autodesk Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) Collection
• Concrete and Point Cloud scanning (Trimble X9)
• Interdisciplinary clash detection utilizing Navisworks
• Knowledge of all MEP systems
• Robotic Total Station (RTS)
• Fabrication MEP
• Revizto collaboration platform

Helix VDC project solutions extend across industries such as public utilities, commercial construction and healthcare, all of which leverage our vast knowledge in HVAC ductwork and piping, plumbing, electrical power and pneumatic tube systems.

By integrating core elements such as layouts, component routing and equipment placement, we enhance the construction process as well as the outcome.

More About Building Information Modeling (BIM)

BIM is a key component of VDC efficiencies. By digitally representing a project’s components through data-rich 3D modeling, BIM creates a referential center for sharing aspects as wide-ranging as geometry, spatial relationships, material properties, structural data and even performance characteristics.

Inherently collaborative, BIM allows stakeholders to see others’ suggestions and changes for the model in real time, reducing the risk of miscommunication and errors. BIM software also can detect potential conflicts among building systems to avoid costly problems during construction.

BIM further supports estimating accurate quantities, costs and scheduling. After construction, facility managers can use the BIM model for building maintenance and operation. Teams can apply BIM models to evaluate efficiency and sustainability factors that influence energy use and consumption.

Using the latest BIM software, our experienced team draws from a large fabrication database to provide diverse and accurate BIM models for Navis coordination, shop-drawing production and fabrication spools.

Helix Engineering VDC in Action

Helix VDC has solved different challenges for wide-ranging clients, facilities and objectives, each needing the best use of time, money, labor and materials.

• ATREO IU Health – New Downtown Hospital
  Modeled and coordinated the pneumatic-tube system
• HARRELL-FISH INC. IU Health – New Downtown Hospital
  Supported the HFI (healthcare facility infrastructure) team with the modeling and coordination of the plumbing-pressure system
• HELM GROUP Chi Health Center Omaha – CC East Expansion
  Assisted with modeling and coordinating the mechanical piping system
• JB ELECTRIC IU Health – New South Support Building
  Modeled and coordinated the electrical conduit and cable tray
• CERONI PIPING LLC Mercy Health Rockford Cancer Center Addition
  Modeled, coordinated and created fabrication-level drawings for the HVAC duct, mechanical and medgas systems
• HARTWIG MECHANICAL Oakview Early Childhood Center Addition & Remodel
  Modeled, coordinated and created fabrication-level drawings for the HVAC duct and mechanical piping systems
• HARTWIG MECHANICAL Elgin Comm. College New Manufacturing Technology Ctr.
  Modeled, coordinated and created fabrication-level drawings for the drain-waste, vent and plumbing-pressure systems

VDC for Project Success & Precision: Contact Helix Today

Helix Engineering defines and reinforces your project’s targeted outcome by putting knowledge, learning and technology behind you in the right places at the right times. Contact us at (815) 714-9776 to further discuss how our virtual design and construction can serve your objective.