How DPR Construction Is Using Assemble for Prefab, Status Tracking, Inventory Management and Cost Control on the Jobsite

DPR Construction started in 1990 when three construction veterans set out to form a company based around the ideas of service and excellence. Very early on they set high standards for quality and delivery, with the goal to provide not only customer satisfaction, but to create something new in an industry that was known for being resistant to change. Their core values reflect the progressive nature of the founders’ thinking: Integrity, Enjoyment, Uniqueness, Ever forward. They wanted to create an ideal workplace and gather likeminded people: people who want to work hard, but who also want to enjoy their work; people who are driven to work on unique projects and who thrive in an environment where they can always strive to reach higher.

Construction Project Management - Assemble Puts Information at the Tip of Your Fingers

In their quest to drive quality and seek new and greater achievements, DPR has long valued the power of technology and software in reaching their goals. Large, complex construction projects require accurate data for status tracking and inventory management and tools like Assemble, coupled with the power of BIM give builders the edge they need to not only get the job done, but manage these projects with ease and fluidity.

A recent DPR project highlights the scope of complexity for completing projects like these:

• $600M
• 24 Month Projected Schedule
• 107 Miles of Strut
• 157K Fittings
• 450K Bolts
• 28,289 Linear Feet of Steel Framing
• 930,453 Square Feet of Drywall
• 622 Doors with over 200 Unique Hardware Sets

Not only did DPR need an easy way to track all this material, but also to track the status of installation (and thus, project completion). To achieve this, they leveraged Assemble’s ability to coordinate with the BIM model and provide up-to-date visualization of the total project status, including a color-coded 3D wireframe of the build. This customizable build overview gave them the power to assess construction progress at a glance, highlighting problem areas and facilitating quick decisions and solutions on manpower allocation and material issues.

Digital Tools Improve Construction Management and Elevate Quality

DPR cites a number of vital features of Assemble, and how this application is crucial to construction project management. The software, linked to the BIM model, provided flexibility in sorting and viewing information, with the power to group and filter specific data and customize their visualization of project status. 

Assemble’s “offline” feature also gave DPR the ability to bring the software’s power to the worksite, even when wireless connectivity was a challenge in the metal frame structure. This gave superintendents the ability to track the work onsite, then sync with the main server once they could connect back to the cloud, keeping the status tracking true to actual conditions.

This feature was also critical during framing inspections because it gave supers the ability to walk with inspectors and track issues and completions, making the process paperless and vastly improving their accuracy and status visibility. Digital issue and completion tracking was a vast improvement over what had previously amounted to an “educated guess” on the part of superintendents, and this enabled a much more precise and comprehensive billing process for DPR.

Prefabrication was another area where DPR found great value in data integration. Worksite supers were able to schedule strut prefab and door installation based on jobsite progress and need, and Assemble automatically gave fabricators in the warehouse visibility on scheduling priorities. As pieces were completed, they were tracked based on delivery or completion status, and these data points were also color coded and could be mapped back to the original model.

The flexibility of Assemble also gave DPR the power to work with vendors who rely on other data systems, mapping to Excel and creating easy-to-read spreadsheets for those vendors and providing them with accurate information based on the most recent model.

Finally, Assemble is easy to use. When it was first brought to the project, some of the superintendents resisted learning and incorporating the new tool, but once they saw how easy it is and how much power and accuracy it brings, they were able to pick it up very quickly and integrate its use into their workflow.

Assemble has become an invaluable tool for DPR, giving them the power to tie the BIM model to physical, real-world values and increase visibility on status and materials management. Once it was initially implemented on one phase of a project, other team leaders within DPR were able to quickly see how it could help them, and its use is spreading at a rapid rate to other projects in the company. DPR also highly values the customer-driven focus of the Assemble team, praising their helpfulness and responsiveness in updating and customizing the tool, striving to make it work perfectly for the client’s needs.

DPR presented on using Assemble from start to finish in preconstruction at Autodesk University 2019. For best practices used to provide all information necessary for coordination, ordering, fabrication, and installation, as well as start to finish creation of prefabrication build sheets, with workflows from BIM 360 to Revit for model coordination listen to the full session recording.

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