December Meeting

Technology in Practice

The December session of the Pillars Leadership Program began our transition from learning about entrepreneurship and economics to topics which affect our daily practice as much as your morning cup of coffee or filling out the weekly timesheet. The topic of the month was technology and was a welcomed discussion to this group of Millennials. We sought out to determine how technology impacts these three stages within our profession: design, fabrication and construction.

We began the afternoon with a presentation on sustainability along with a tour of the shiny new JE Dunn Corporate Headquarters from Jenny Bloomfield, director of Sustainability. We learned about their efforts to be more sustainable in the workplace and their current status to be awarded LEED Gold certification. Next, we heard a presentation from Eric Hall on how Dunn leverages the power of BIM to provide better buildings to owners and operators. We followed this up with a discussion on the contractual issues of BIM and IPD with Colby Cox, counsel for JE Dunn.

After some (truthfully) interesting dialog, we headed over to the A. Zahner Company where Bill Zahner gave us a tour of their office and fabrication facility. We saw firsthand how they collaborate with design teams to take digital concepts to fabrication shop drawings and send them directly downstairs to a fabricator, robotic welder or CNC router.

The final stop of the day was to the Kansas City Performing Arts Center for more discussion and a construction tour hosted by Casey Cassias and Amy Slattery of BNIM, Kyle McQuiston of JE Dunn, and Greg Litterick of SEA. We quickly understood how fast technology has progressed since the design team began construction documents. At the time, BIM software was not sophisticated enough to calculate the complex curvilinear forms and loads placed on the structural frame from the cable glass. After the bid documents were prepared, BIM technology evolved to a level that JE Dunn could reproduce the 2D construction documents into their own BIM model to be used for hosting 3D fabrication submittals provided by the subcontractors for collision detection against the 76 other subcontractors involved in the project. We’d like to thank our hosts for taking time out of their schedule on a crisp, clear December day to show us around what is surely to be an icon in the development of downtown Kansas City.