MCAA’s 2021 MEP Innovations Conference provides more than just education towards BIM and VDC, it approaches every aspect of members' operations that interacts with digital information. With the construction process adopting digital workflows, it is important to understand the impact on businesses, including productivity gains and time saved due to new tools.

“There has been a fundamental shift in how construction works today in the movement from paper to data,” Bob Snyder, CEO of Binsky & Snyder, said. “You might be able to compete with lower margins and higher risk today by sticking with paper-based processes, but when our company leaned into it and embraced a digital transformation, we started finding that we could do more, communicate better, be safer and work on a wider variety of projects.”

To address this change, the MEP Innovations Conference has sessions on processes beyond BIM and VDC. Breakouts have been developed on topics including fabrication, estimating, project management, safety, operations and service. These sessions focus on solutions for those just getting started, as well as those at the cutting edge.

For example, education geared towards project managers ranges from beginner sessions like Model Viewing 101 for PMs and VDC 101 for PMs, to more advanced topics like Aligning VDC Team with Project Schedules, an Inside Look at a Contractors’ Tech Stack and Managing Change Orders. For people with fabrication focused interests, there are beginner sessions like Fabrication 101 and much more advanced sessions like Increasing Your Spooling Productivity 5x and Going Beyond Paperless which will showcase a contractors’ digital implementation in their fabrication facilities.

All of these new tools and strategies are built on processes. In one of the most important sessions of the conference, North Mechanical’s Rod Foley and MEP Innovation Lab’s Jonathan Marsh talk about how to document processes. Tuesday’s opening general session called Understanding the Process Before Buying the Solution talks about not only the importance of establishing and documenting your process, but how it is important to keep it flexible as new tools are brought in. 

These highlights are just a few of the 100-plus sessions at the MEP Innovation Conference. Visit the MEP Innovations Conference website to learn more. Register here.