McCarthy implemented Bluebeam software solutions to streamline project coordination and communication on the St. Jude Medical Center Northwest Tower project
Newport Beach, Calif. (September 8, 2014) —McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. recently received a Bluebeam eXtreme (bXa) award during Bluebeam® Software’s 2014 Bluebeam eXtreme® Conference in Los Angeles, Calif. The award was presented to McCarthy for “taking digital workflow to the extreme” on the St. Jude Medical Center Northwest Tower project. Located in Fullerton, Calif., the new state-of-the-art healthcare facility is a collaboration of the design-build team of St. Jude Medical Center, Petra-Integrated Construction Strategies (Petra-ICS), McCarthy and Taylor Design.
According to Bluebeam, the bXa awards program provides an opportunity for tech-savvy project teams to showcase how they are leveraging Bluebeam solutions to work smarter and without limits. The 2014 submissions competed within five categories for two awards: a bXA, which recognizes the ultimate eXtreme project, and an Award of Excellence.
Honored with a bXa in the healthcare project category, the St. Jude Medical Center Northwest Tower project team was recognized for effectively using Bluebeam solutions resulting in a significant time and cost savings. Bluebeam Revu® was initially used early in the project’s design and coordination phases to create an electronic planroom complete with all the basic design and construction documents. As the team adopted more advanced features within the software, the planroom evolved into a fully hyperlinked central hub of information that included submittals, RFIs, coordinated models, schedules, forms, interactive virtual mock-ups, Bluebeam Studio live quality control punchlists, exterior and in-wall coordination, interior build-out and interference wall plans, mock-up lessons learned and documentation, and location specific links to photos.
All members of the project team in the office and field collaborated and increased efficiency by using Bluebeam. “Project superintendents from McCarthy and subcontractors initially opted for a paper set of plans, but after one week of exposure to the electronic planroom, they found it much easier to use Revu on their computers, iPads and mobile Kiosks in the field,” said McCarthy Assistant Project Manager Tyler Kirk. “The planroom was also available on the cloud where it was shared with subcontractors and designers and synchronized to the various networks, field kiosks and iPads giving the entire project team immediate access to complete, up-to-date and reliable information.”
The new facility at St. Jude Medical Center consists of a four-story, 200,000-square-foot hospital wing connected to an existing tower on the first and fourth floors. The project also entailed construction of a 20,000-square-foot central utility plant, a 215-car parking structure expansion and re-routing of major site utilities on an active medical campus. Built to replace a seismically noncompliant tower, the Northwest Tower is designed to meet California’s strict seismic requirements for both the structure as well as its contents.
Scheduled to open in November 2014, the project was completed 10% under the original budget and five months early, despite $12 million in added scope and a 9 month externally induced project delay associated with the entitlements.
About McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.
At McCarthy, we’re just getting started. For 150 years, McCarthy has been building communities across America, both by constructing essential projects communities rely on, as well as by helping those who need assistance. Knowing how to build from preconstruction through completion is a tradition that will continue as McCarthy endeavors to advance the value of its expertise and deliver the highest quality, job-site safety and ultimately, the best final project costs. McCarthy is ranked the largest healthcare builder in California(ENR California, July 2014). In addition to Newport Beach, McCarthy has offices in San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.; St. Louis, Atlanta; Collinsville, Ill.; Portage, Ind.; Kansas City, Kan.; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Dallas, Houston; and Albuquerque. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned. More information about the company’s history is available online at www.mccarthy150.com or by following the company on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.