A commercial construction site is a series of scheduling bottlenecks and productivity pitfalls waiting to happen. If material deliveries are delayed, workers can be left standing around with nothing to do. Subcontractors—from the drywall team, to the electrical crew—can inadvertently get in each other’s way if they’re working against the same deadlines.  Meanwhile, ever-changing conditions on the jobsite mean that even the most carefully laid plans are constantly being rewritten.

Autodesk BIM 360 Plan, a new web service and mobile app, aims to help eliminate many of these headaches by providing production planning software that incorporates Lean Construction practices with an easy-to-use, highly visual interface.  It’s a fresh, new, and cloud-enhanced way to evolve from today’s tedious manual processes involving spreadsheets and other forms of documentation and collaboration.

BIM 360 Plan helps contractors build reliable work plans through cloud and mobile collaboration. Image courtesy of Autodesk.

As a result, construction contractors can increase the reliability of their project work plans, and reduce waste associated with overproduction, excess inventory, and task rework—all of which helps preserve project profits.

“As the construction industry explores and adopts new approaches to project delivery, Lean Construction is emerging as the best practice for project execution,“  said Jim Lynch, Vice President, Building and Collaboration Product Line Group, Autodesk.  “BIM 360 Plan can help customers conduct these lean practices more efficiently”.

DPR Project Superintendent, Brad Marshall using BIM 360 Plan to manage the production planning process for University of Arizona Bioscience Partnership Building in Phoenix, AZ.  Image courtesy of DPR Construction.

Easy, Mobile & Collaborative

Simple to learn and intuitive to use, BIM 360 Plan helps a wide range of team players—from superintendents and crew foremen, to project engineers—to quickly and easily create and update their production plans and then get back to the job at hand.

The BIM 360 Plan interface allows the user(s) to view/create their work plan in either list, gantt, or swim lane modes.  Image courtesy of Autodesk.

Web and mobile access puts BIM 360 Plan wherever work gets done, from the trailer to the field. This “anywhere, anytime” access provides real-time visibility into production planning commitments, timelines, and hand-offs.

Each BIM 360 Plan subscription includes access to the companion iPad app which allows the user to login and download their designated project plan for use on the go.  Image courtesy of Autodesk.

Not only does this replace the manual process of entering data into spreadsheets to create weekly schedule updates—it eliminates the time and effort required to distribute the information to project stakeholders.

BIM 360 Plan also enables continuous improvement by tracking and reporting on key performance metrics. Users can drill down to see metrics for a specific phase, location or trade partner on the project.  The idea is that BIM 360 Plan will bring lessons learned into the master schedule process to better define the schedule itself.

BIM 360 Plan automatically tracks the projects Planned Percent Complete (PPC) percentage (total number of tasks divided by the tasks that have been marketed “complete”).  Image courtesy of Autodesk.

Availability and More Information

Autodesk BIM 360 Plan is currently available via an Enterprise or Project Based subscription and available in English only.  Click here to download the BIM 360 Plan iOS app for iPad (requires subscription).

For more about Autodesk BIM 360 Plan, check out these podcasts with Jarrod Krug and Tom Feliz:

How the new Autodesk BIM 360 Plan relates to other Autodesk BIM 360 products.

Whats the common thread for BIM 360 family

What is Autodesk BIM 360 Plan?

What is BIM 360 Plan

What problems does Autodesk BIM 360 Plan help to solve?

What are problems BIM 360 solves

Where can I learn more about Lean Construction?

More Lean Construction Resources

Summary

Summary