Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/117518
directly creating 638 new jobs. This required widening and reconstruction of 1.5 miles of Johnston's NW 62nd Avenue, and state grants and other funds were raised to cover the $7 million project. Foth saw an opportunity to cost-effectively minimize corridor delays, increase pedestrian safety and reduce the roadway's carbon footprint by proposing a nontraditional intersection solution based chiefly on a series of four multi-lane roundabouts, rather than a traditional approach consisting of signalized intersections. But this would be the first such use of roundabouts in all of Iowa, and Johnston officials were dubious. "Basically, we met with the client and stakeholders, and they said, 'No,'" says Blaine Buenger, Foth senior technology manager. "Then, upon the conclusion of our presentation, they said 'Maybe.' And then they surprised us by taking a road trip to Carmel, Indiana, where roundabouts are commonplace. And when they came back, they said, 'Yes.'" This was good news, of course—Foth designers were certain that roundabouts were the right solution. But the approval process, combined with grant requirements and project timelines, now dictated a brutal schedule; from conceptual to final design of Iowa's first multi-lane, multi-roundabout interchange in just under six weeks. "It seemed unachievable," adds Buenger. Buenger coordinated the use of Bentley's GeoPak design software, with modules specialized for 3-D design of roadways, drainage and other project-specific tasks. Foth also transferred concepts from mechanical design—Foth has a large mechanical-design division—to this civil project. "We applied 'lean practices' from the manufacturing and mechanical world to a civil project," says Buenger. "The idea is meant for factory lines and other manufacturing processes, but the basic idea is to take the waste out, and we felt we had no choice but to do that here." An example of this is the meeting protocol enforced throughout the project. "We held two stand-up meetings every week, focused on a visual task board," explains Buenger. "The board helped everyone on the team know what others were working on and when tasks needed to be accomplished to keep things moving. We used Microsoft Visio and OneNote to create and publish the board, and we also used OneNote as the central repository for design standards, project notes and links to project documentation. It really worked for us; the meetings were brief, focused, and we were able to capture the information they generated." 3-D design is, in a sense, a crossover from mechanical design. It's been a staple of complex manufacturing for decades and is largely responsible for that industry's staggering productivity gains. And 3-D design is becoming standard in architecture as well. But application to site work—and infrastructure tasks such as stormwater management and roadway design—still is new. Surfaces were created in discrete solutions specialized for drainage and roadway tasks, and assembled into one model using Bentley Systems' Data Acquisition tools. Though it takes more design time, relative to 2-D design, having one model available as a reference early in the project facilitates multiple timesaving practices in mid and late design phases. The following are examples: was able to use designers and consultants from their entire global network and call on outside consultants as needed. The single reference model enabled virtual onsite measurement using tools similar to interference and clash-detection routines used in 3-D manufacturing and plant design. the design work. Rather than putting designers or specialists to work separately on renderings or models for use in presentations and approval applications, the Foth team could simply use views of the actual model. Information taken from 3-D surfaces, together with Bentley System's OnSite electronic field-book system, minimized staking and use of paper documents on the job site. M A R C H 2 O 1 3 / W W W . G E O P L A C E . C O M 19