BIM Forum Boston recap: Gilbane inspires with collaboration challenge

I recently attended BIM Forum in Boston, which is an AGC-sponsored event that brings together some of the top Architectural, Engineering and Construction firms from across the US.  The focus of this forum was “Optimizing Design with BIM.”  The sessions ran the gambit.  It was everything from taking a page from Aerospace for Simulation Design to predictive analysis—even designing Cinderella’s castle in Revit, which won Disney an AIA TAP award for Design.

One of the sessions that really stood out to me was from Gilbane.  The focus of their session was Collaboration and how we are going to change the way we design and build in the future.  It is not going to be by doing what got us to our state today, which are siloed, interoperable procedures for building.  They discussed ways in which they are using technology and project setup to collaborate effectively.  One of the interesting spin-off conversations that came about after their session on the networking floor was, if you’re going to leverage technology to collaborate more effectively in the field, how do you find trade partners who are up to speed with BIM and can run at the same pace as your project teams? 

A few of the construction professionals that I spoke to freely admitted that this is a challenge; this is something we are struggling with, being able to find trade partners who are able to run at the same pace as our BIM teams.  I did speak with one particular contractor who said that this is part of their secret sauce, meaning this is something they use as a competitive advantage.  I wanted to pose this question to you, my blog followers.  I’m sure this is not unique to those at BIM Forum.  What do you do to find trade partners who can run at the same pace as your BIM teams?  Or is this even a challenge you’re facing in your geographical area? I’d love to hear how you solve this challenge and invite you to comment and share with the audience what it is that you do to partner with, find, train and to continue to build relationships with qualified trade partners.