News
Ahead of Schedule: 3D
December 8, 2010
| Movies can charge more for putting 3D in the title, but in our case it's relevant. How does a contractor squeeze a 10-month job into four? Forget the cast of thousands on site—burn up the computer chips instead. A few days ago, J.C. Cannistraro started a big project for MIT?s real estate arm with more BIM than brawn to install all new HVAC and Fire Protection systems by April. |
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| We snapped Bill Fitzpatrick, Richard Fish, president John Cannistraro Jr., and Dean Allaire talking through the $9.6M job they started last Monday at 640 Memorial Dr. Usually, they?d have 10 months for this gut renovation. But since sanofi-aventis recently decided to lease nearly half of the 220k SF, the delivery time has been moved up dramatically. Knee deep in BIM, Cannistraro?s 3D drawings enable the 300-person firm (founded by John Sr.) to walk onto the job site with pre-fabricated parts and all the measurements they need to install them quickly. BTW,John Sr. is also famous for the homemade pasta he whips up at the Watertown HQ. |
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| BIM gurus Jim Fitzgerald and Phylis Brunet are creating the 3D models and schedules on the $58M of work it's doing on MGH?s new $500M patient care facility. For instance, they've been installing nearly 50 sections of air-handling equipment in the 40k SF, 30? high mechanical room. Each section, as big as a tractor trailer truck, has to get through a narrow passage on a construction site that abuts MGH?s constantly revolving main door and busy ER. Without BIM, the delivery and installation of 200K linear feet of plumbing piping and 800 HVAC sections would be next to impossible. |
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| Neil Johnson, Bill Lyons, and Wentworth Institute student Joe Mecke are part of the company's mentoring program that keeps fresh talent and new ideas circulating. Neil, the operations manager, is a 25-year industry vet. Bill, the plumbing division manager, has 38 years with JCC.Some of their work includes the $13M mechanical office/lab job Cannistraro is doing on Genzyme?s new 186k SF Biologics Support Center in Framingham, which relies on the feeds for boilers, chillers, heat exchangers, etc that Cannistraro pre-fabricates in its Wilmington shop. |
