6-Dimensional Modeling:
The Workflow Dimension
To download a printable PDF of the full White
Paper on this topic, click here.
In every industry, people are striving to deliver more with higher quality at
lower cost. To do so, many industries have turned traditional ways of doing
things upside down — they have engaged in huge paradigm shifts to reinvent their
business processes. The driver for successful reinventions can always be traced
to better alignment with workflow.
We define workflow as the total flow of functional operations that allow an
organization to execute its mission, the systems and processes that provide the
optimal path to success. The more efficiently any organization executes its
workflow, the more successful it will be. New technologies may allow workflows
to be redesigned for greater efficiency.
In today’s building industry, the workflow of building users is the last
parameter taken into consideration during the design-build process, if, indeed,
it is considered at all. Buildings are designed and built with little or no
reference to the workflow that the building will house. Such a building will
almost inevitably be unsuccessful, where a successful building is defined as one
that facilitates the workflow of its inhabitants. (We are making an important
distinction here between the success of the building and the success of the
process of building it.) Buyers accept successfully completed unsuccessful
buildings because that is the way it has always been — but it doesn’t have to be
that way!
A few pioneers are breaking the old paradigms, and the results of their work
serve to emphasize its importance. Take the work of
Gensler, a global architecture,
design, planning and consulting firm working with clients to support their
strategies and improve business performance through design excellence. Gensler’s
whitepaper, These Four Walls: The Real British Office, explores the effect of
workplace design on productivity, job satisfaction, recruitment, and retention.
In one of the case studies cited, a client states that since moving into new
offices designed by Gensler, staff retention has improved 150%. Since the cost
of turnover is variously estimated as 30% to 150% of yearly salary, such a
reduction will add significantly to that company’s bottom line. Gensler, in
fact, practices what we call workflow-driven design for office spaces. This
whitepaper, which examines such designs in the UK, cites a
British Council for Offices (BCO) estimate
that building construction, building operation and staff salaries are in the
ratio of 1:1.5:15. Another BCO paper cites
an estimate that a 2% to 5% increase in staff performance can cover the total
cost of providing their accommodation. In fact, the Gensler whitepaper estimates
that, accumulating the impact of workflow-aligned design on job satisfaction,
recruitment and retention, the potential productivity increase is on the order
of 19%.
The principle of designing to workflow extends to all manner and nature of
building, as well as to the surroundings of the
building. The trend toward requiring developers to design Master Plan
Communities (albeit fairly primitive and with little feedback from the users when finished) rather than racks of housing acknowledges that a community has a
workflow, a sequence of interrelated activities that take place within it, and that designing to that workflow improves quality of life in that
community, which in turn gives greater value to the community and consequently
to the developers’ profit line. Leaders in educational reform are arguing that
school design can impact educational outcome as much as curriculum design.
Innovative healthcare leaders are pointing to the impact that facility
design can have on outcomes in
their industry. This realization that the ability to execute soars when form follows function is repeated again and again in multiple sectors of
our society. The eventual wasted cost of ignoring this principle is incalculable, as is the impact on the non-profit sector, which is called on to mitigate the results of dysfunctional design.
So why are buildings not designed from the workflow out — a design/build process
driven by 6-dimensional modeling? Real 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-dimensional models
(as described below) are
readily achievable today at modest cost using existing technologies and building
on legacy applications where it makes sense to do so. Real 3- and 4-dimensional
models are used today in a few industries, such as the design and manufacture of
airplanes and petrochemical plants. Some firms are beginning to understand and
apply 5-dimensional modeling. But true 6-dimensional modeling requires a
paradigm shift in the approach to construction, and there, we suspect, is the
sticking point. As other industries are achieving success by partnering with
their clients, the building industry must learn to build for their clients’
workflows.
N-Dimensional Modeling
Model: a schematic or mathematical representation of a real system that accounts for its known properties and is used to simulate a process, predict an outcome or analyze a problem
Dimension:
measurable size or magnitude; Cartesian coordinate;
aspect, feature,
characteristic Parametric design:
a design process driven by the application of parameters and constraints that represents objects through vector geometry |
Controlled
by construction
= lowest initial, highest lifetime
cost
Controlled
by workflow
= highest
value,
lowest
lifetime
cost
|
Design
Build
|
The 20th Century Way:
1-dimensional model = planar
representation or verbal description
2-dimensional model = CAD
plan
3-dimensional model =
Extruded CAD or isometric view tied to Cartesian coordinates along X-Y-Z axes,
created and displayed by raster technology
4-dimensional model =
3-dimensional model with a Bill of Materials (BOM)
|
- Fixed dimensions (size and coordinates)
- Closed system
- Static
|
