How EAS Connects Data to Improve Its Prefabrication Process

Environmental Air Systems, LLC (EAS) provides a fully integrated approach to mechanical, electrical, and building automation requirements. As the company grew, sharing project data had become disjointed, leading to rework and missed opportunities. BIM 360 within Autodesk Construction Cloud™ lets EAS easily connect model data between its tech tools to save time and cut costs while delivering higher quality projects to clients.

Lack of Interoperability Between Design and Construction Management Solutions

EAS is one of the largest end-to-end MEP modular solution providers in the United States. The company uses a fully coordinated approach to offsite fabrication to deliver multitrade prefabricated assets to improve project delivery.

Longtime users of Autodesk, EAS used Autodesk Revit to share design files across stakeholders. However, they experienced interoperability issues between Revit and their construction management solution, Procore.

EAS was looking for a new solution to seamlessly connect model data to Revit, which led them to BIM 360.

“Procore was very limiting. Using Revit, you need to print the model to PDF, and then you have to pull it into Procore, which is clunky and cumbersome”

–Bill Bullock, Vice President of MEP Engineered Solutions

Implementing A Connected Construction Management Tool Quickly and Effectively

EAS’ end-to-end process means that the designs they engineer are also manufactured, shipped, installed, and serviced by their team. With so many stakeholders working on an asset, EAS needed to minimize downtime in learning a new solution.

“We made it a gradual transition, giving everyone the training and the tools that they needed — from designers to project management to quality control,” Bullock said. “BIM 360 was very easy to implement, and it’s been easy to use. We were up and running in a month.”

BIM 360 has significantly improved the way EAS organizes its documentation. When EAS’ teams communicate or ask questions about the model, every team member can see it in real-time and understand and resolve issues quickly.

“The model integration is one of the key features for us, giving instant updates on anything that might have changed. Our old method caused delays that cost time and money, meaning our teams might have to work overtime or do rework.”

–Bill Bullock, Vice President of MEP Engineered Solutions

Increasing Collaboration and Engagement across Project Stakeholders

With BIM 360, EAS can streamline communication across the entire fabrication process by aligning project teams with one solution to share project data in real-time. Production teams can access models from the shop floor via tablets to view submittals, documentation, specifications, and other information within BIM 360. EAS designers and project managers can create an RFI on the spot and tag the model, getting fast answers to their questions.

“Designers spend more time on value-added tasks that drive greater impact on our projects instead of tedious processes,” Bullock says. “The instant push of changes to the floor keeps projects moving forward and saves time for everybody.”

EAS relies on BIM 360 to connect design to construction, using off site fabrication to bring more certainty in cost, schedule, and quality to their projects. With the data provided through BIM 360, EAS can track what percent of the project is complete and keep teams on schedule.

“In addition to quality, schedule is a huge metric for success,” Bullock says. “Being able to track productivity in real time ensures we have the entire picture of our schedule, costs, and efficiency. BIM 360 gives you all the data that you need to have ultimate success.”

EAS’ goal is to standardize and automate as many steps of the fabrication process as possible. And BIM 360 makes this not only easy, but possible. With ownership of its data, EAS can quickly model and replicate projects, improving efficiencies and providing more predictable project outcomes to drive future growth.