Stories

18 Years of BIM

The industry has evolved in the last 25 years since DPR was founded. Building information modeling (BIM), however, has been a part of DPR since the early days of the company. As a long-established leader in virtual design and construction (VDC) and BIM, we know that it's not just the technology alone, but the smart use of technology that can help the right project team deliver predictable results and improve project efficiency.

We used an early version of BIM in 1997 on a project in the Bay Area for basic site logistics, visualization and construction sequencing to identify time/space conflicts.

Ten years later, DPR achieved a major breakthrough on Sutter Health’s Camino Medical Group Mountain View campus, which completed in 2007. Camino was the first DPR project to use a combination of BIM, integrated project delivery (IPD) and lean methodology.

On the Camino project, the team's strategic use of BIM on the 250,000-sq.-ft. outpatient medical center resulted in an estimated cost and time savings of at least $9 million and six months over the traditional CM-at-risk approach. Since then, the benefits and services of BIM have continued to evolve.

Now, almost ten years after the start of the Camino project and 18 years since we first started using it, we use BIM on 85% of our projects before work even begins in the field.

*This blog post is part of a series that celebrates DPR's silver anniversary and focuses on 25 great things from the company from over 25 years. Here's the last one.

Follow #DPR25 on social media to learn more.