Collaborate. Create. Deliver.
SSOE has the ability to execute projects in a number of delivery models, understanding that your project requires a method aligned with your specific business drivers—whether that’s schedule, cost control, quality assurance, or other identified conditions that will maximize your success. No matter which delivery method is selected, we bring together the people, process, and technology to provide an integrated solution that meets your business objective and gives you the competitive advantage needed in today’s marketplace.
People
Every firm says it’s their people that make them unique. Where SSOE differs is our systemic approach to collaboration based on the five behaviors of a team, as outlined in Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. This framework provides the structure to bring diverse viewpoints together to achieve something amazing, including not only our own team members and partners, but most importantly from you as our valued client. These five building blocks of a successful team include building trust, promoting healthy conflict, driving individual commitment and accountability, while focusing on a shared vision of team success rather than individual success. It’s simple, yet challenging—but incredibly powerful.
Here are just a few of the differences you’ll experience when working with SSOE’s people:
Diverse expertise, cross-discipline design collaboration, and coordination with contractor and trade partners for construction: As a multidisciplinary design firm with expertise in a wide range of industries, SSOE seeks to close the gap of less integrated delivery methods by engaging in upfront collaboration with construction partners to improve constructability and avoid errors in the field.
The Big Room concept: Our focus on collaboration has led us to place a priority on co-location of resources on larger projects—whether physically or virtually—to encourage frequent and real-time collaboration between team members, both inside and outside the organization. This real-time collaborative approach has proven to be a more efficient and synchronized way of working together that bypasses the delays often associated with iterative design reviews.
Process
Our focus on a collaborative culture has a tangible impact on every step of our process—it’s not just something we say we do.
Here are just a few of the differences you’ll experience when utilizing SSOE’s processes:
A less sequential process: Even in more sequential delivery models, SSOE looks for ways to make processes more concurrent. For example, strategies like our modeling, which incorporates fabrication-level detail into piping models—eliminating the process of recreating a new model for fabrication.
Design criteria development: Regardless of the design method you choose, SSOE’s standard practice is to hold an Interactive Planning (IAP) session that brings, at a minimum, design disciplines and you, the owner, together to identify the most important strategies to success. We also utilize production planning sessions, which foster individual accountability and create detailed, predictable workflows to define the critical path and successfully meet deliverables.
Target Value Delivery (TVD): We frequently employ a process by which the collective team and partners define the formal conditions of satisfaction of the project and set a target cost below industry benchmarks. Once established, the target cost cannot be changed—challenging the team with practical constraints to drive innovation, avoid scope creep, and deliver better results.
Design reviews: Our teams make the most of technology by leveraging an interactive model for cross-discipline design and owner reviews. Screenshots from within the model capture action items and provide accountability among team members to show tangible progress.
Accountability-based scheduling: When SSOE is involved, production and pull planning techniques are used to drive individual accountability between all design and construction partners.
Technology
Our collaborative culture consistently drives the ways we innovate and engage technology. Rather than substituting technology for the human touch, we focus on how technology can enable an enhanced, more collaborative process.
Here are just a few of the differences you’ll see in the way SSOE leverages technology:
Making reality capture accessible to every project: Reality capture, or laser scanning, can significantly improve the speed and accuracy of collecting as-built conditions when working in existing facilities or developing a topographical map for a new site. SSOE brings an advantage to our clients through our expertise in short-range, long-range, and drone / unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) scanning techniques. We have our own short-range scanner and drones in-house, making reality capture an option for smaller budget projects.
Multidisciplinary model integration: We coordinate all design disciplines within one model, fully leveraging the data storage capabilities to automate as much of the process as possible. Higher-level detail in the model often eliminates steps down the road for the fabricator and construction personnel, resulting in significant time savings.
External model integration: We enable use of the same model for design, fabrication, construction documentation, and occasionally estimating. This eliminates hand-offs, reduces waste and cost, and compresses schedules when compared to the industry standard of recreating models at the various project stages.
Better use of BIM: SSOE fully leverages the data capabilities of BIM through standardized coding, allowing important reporting, data, and cost / material estimating to be pulled from the model. This not only automates and enhances formerly manual processes, it can also be carried forward by the owner to be used in the operation and maintenance of the process or facility. We have also invested in proprietary plug-ins and enhancements to standard software to increase efficiency and accuracy. Additionally, our enterprise agreement with Autodesk ensures access to the latest technology and the most valuable input into its development.
Innovative construction solutions: We work with general contracting partners to identify creative, cutting-edge vendors to specify unique building materials that can provide significant cost or schedule advantages, including modular solutions for both process and structural steel.
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