The Boldt Company was faced with a big challenge. On a recent project for a large healthcare company, the GC was responsible for not only building a new ground-up OSHPD III medical clinic, but also with creating a modular + prefab playbook for all the provider’s future clinics. The project team would have to make multiple high-stakes decisions to keep the project on budget and on schedule, while simultaneously creating a proven roadmap for similar projects going forward.

It was a challenge that was custom-made for Boldt’s Estimating and Preconstruction Manager Patrick Whaley. Whaley had recent and relevant experience meeting this particular owner’s high expectations. In fact, he was part of a study commissioned by the client to standardize and productize healthcare construction with the objective of increasing speed-to-market and quality. The study, conducted by Boldt, Boulder Associates (architect), Mazzetti (MEP design engineer), and Mark III Construction (modular component designer/manufacturer), compared modular “pod” components with prefabricated “kit of parts” components for both a restroom and an exam room.

The case study was so successful that the Owner hired this same team to build an MOB (medical office building) that would not only become its most modularized + prefab health clinic to date, but also would serve as the pilot project for the Owner’s clinics going forward. 

In addition to creating the Owner’s playbook for future MOBs, the collaborative team was also charged with delivering a project of exceptional value.

Whaley, who had used the Join collaboration platform on 11 previous projects, knew that getting this specialized project team on the same page meant getting them into Join. “On the first day, we generated 100 items (or ideas) to go back and price,” he says. “It was a lot to really start to process in one day, but it got everybody pulling in the right direction, from Day One, on how to drive value.”

Whaley says that the team, working under an IPD/TVD contract, used join from napkin sketch through closeout. The results?

⊲ Transparent, real-time communication

⊲ A simpler TVD budgeting process

⊲ A happy (“over the moon!”) client and new health clinic template

An additional plus for using the collaboration platform was greater transparency for the project architect, Boulder Associates. Jessica Edwardson, AIA, Architect III, says that preconstruction can often be an adversarial exercise with the general contractor focused on cost and the architect focused on design intent. “By putting the options in Join,” she says, “you begin to feel comfortable with the direction you’re taking because you can actually see all the options on the table and evaluate them objectively and dispassionately.”

Read more about this successful project here.