Bowen Engineering is a national contractor headquartered in Indianapo- lis, Indiana with a focus on industrial and municipal markets including water/wastewater plants and power plants. As a self-performing gener- al contractor, Bowen Engineering completes approximately 80 percent of the work on its projects, with HVAC and electrical subcontractors being the main subcontract scopes. As the Manager of Corporate Controls at Bowen Engineering, Jared Redelman works with the com - pany’s Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) team and is responsible for finding and implementing new technology and processes that will improve the company’s performance. Avoiding Delays, Downtime, and Rework A majority of Bowen Engineering’s work takes place in existing facilities that are already packed with infrastructure making it difficult to find a viable route to install new utilities. The work is often installed in very tight spaces, and it can be difficult to accurately verify tie-in points and avoid clashes with existing ele- ments in the facility. Through pre-planning efforts, Bowen Engineering does its best to con- firm all tie-in points and field routing prior to releasing the fabrication of materials. Crews take field measurements, review shop drawings/ models, and any other information available to ensure proper installa- tion of the new work. While this process has proven effective most of the time, issues still arise from time to time such as clashes, missed tie-in points, or work areas that are too tight for the trades to install the work. When any of these issues occur, it leads to increased downtime for the crews, possible delays to the project, and often additional money being spent in rework. Mixed Reality Meets Construction Redelman has had his eye on the Microsoft HoloLens since it was first introduced in the construction space in 2015. He got his first glimpse of Trimble Connect for HoloLens and the Trimble XR10 for HoloLens 2, at a conference in early 2020, where he was able to see first-hand how the holographic technology brings the models out of the screen and provides users the ability to engage and interact with design data more intuitively. Redelman knew a mixed reality solution would help his team visualize their designs and drawings in 3D while on the jobsite and thought this technology could significantly help the company’s pre-planning process and workflow. Throughout 2020, Redelman and his colleagues at Bowen Engineer- ing worked with local Trimble distributor BuildingPoint Midwest to purchase and implement the Trimble XR10 with HoloLens 2 – and they haven’t looked back. Having the ability to walk through a jobsite Bowen Engineering Levels Up Its Game with Mixed Reality By Jordan Lawver
and view models in real-time before construction even begins has been a game-changer for Redelman’s project teams. “We put on the XR10 with HoloLens 2 and right away noticed that one of our T-posts was hitting a valve and needed to be shifted over,” said Colton Motz, project engineer at Bowen Engineering. “It looked clear in the model, but when we walked the site overlayed with the model and could actually see it and touch it, we could see right away that what was in the model wasn’t going to work.” Bowen Engineering is primarily using the mixed reality technology as a visualization tool to walk job sites and see the designs and drawings in real time so they can identify any clashes or constructability issues. This capability is especially helpful in pipe detailing because it gives their project teams the detail and the perspective possible only when they are onsite and before they start the work. As it turns out, Bowen’s use of mixed reality technology has paid dividends almost immediately. Detecting Clashes Early On a recent power plant project in Missouri, Bowen Engineering had to run new piping and add structural steel supports to an existing building. Walking the site with the Trimble XR10 and accompanying Trimble Connect software, project engineers found a clash between the existing structural steel in the facility and a valve in the model. Since the clash was caught before construction had begun, they were able to adjust the model, validate that the environment was 100 per- cent accurate, and avoid the entire expense and hassle of correcting the clash during construction. On another municipality project in Indiana, the Bowen Engineering team was working on a pre-engineered metal building that included HVAC ductwork designed to run along vertical steel columns. Once the building erection began, the Bowen Engineering VDC team vis- ited the site with the XR10 to ensure that their design would fit in practice. After walking through the building, they noticed a few con- flicts between the ductwork and the structural steel. As one example, there was ductwork designed to run directly next to the vertical steel columns on the exterior walls of the building. When the steel ele- ments of the building were modeled, the model didn’t reflect some of the small steel supports that ran at a 45-degree angle from the vertical columns back to the exterior walls. By using mixed reality technology they identified that the ductwork, as designed, was go -
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october 2021 csengineermag.com
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