Interview with Mark Clayton by John DiLoreto, April 5, 2005

Mark worked at CIFE as a research assistant from 1991-95 and received a Ph.D. in 1998 in Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is now Executive Associate Dean, College of Architecture, Texas A and M University.

Q: What did you learn about Virtual Design and Construction while at Stanford?

A: What they’re doing with 4D CAD now was just originating while I was there. Ray Levitt and Martin Fisher really took off from 2D, then 3D. A lot of the focus when I got there was in AI (artificial intelligence), expert systems, object-oriented programming. A lot of the progress, as I see it, has been on a lot of non-graphic applications, such as automated construction scheduling software with OARPLAN. The challenge was to integrate that with CAD and graphics. I got involved as a CAD expert, quickly found a niche being a 3D modeling expert at CIFE in ’91, teaching CAD at Cal Poly for 4 years.

Never worked on VDT, but it’s a very cool idea, even though it’s not what people think it is. VDT is a simulation of the communication and social interaction of a design team. It’s about a virtual team.

The phrase we used was “integrated distributed intelligent CAD.” Intelligent meant AI backed up design decisions. Distributed meant running across a wide network. Integrated meant connecting multiple disciplines or professions. That’s as close as you can get to virtual design.

Virtual design and virtual construction have been mixing and interweaving ever since. In the 10 years since I left CIFE, I look back with real pride on CIFE and what we did there. In some ways, the industry still hasn’t caught up.
At least it was live and ran without crashing during orals running on four computers.

One thing emerged: Andrew Arnold, who was looking at providing design services on the Internet. Not an objective in my dissertation, but an accidental result of using IP to communicate among DEC, Silicon Graphics and Sun machines.

Mosaic came out in 1994 and we all had our own personal web pages by the end of that year. In my orals, I used Mosaic as the tool for demonstrating the results of the AI system. It was really acting as an application server, before such a thing had invented or the term had been coined. We still don’t have application services for design services in the industry.

Q: What motivated your interest?

A: I was in computing and architecture. I was interested in connecting AI systems with CAD/computer graphics systems. They had expertise in AI that I needed. They had industry support from DAC companies, such as AutoDesk, Bentley (MicroStation).

Q: What are you doing in your job now that relates to Virtual Design and Construction?

A: I’m still in the research field. I love architecture. The construction and design industry is really fascinating and wonderful. I believe the industry is very inefficient and provides far below the quality that it could. So I just want to make it better.

Being in an educational environment, especially in a research oriented school like Texas A&M gives me the chance to contribute, improving the industry. I think Stanford gave me a lot of insight into productive avenues for that improvement.

Q: Describe your successes and some issues in your job that relate to your use of Virtual Design and Construction.

A: There are several things that have arisen. I’ve worked with a student that was interested in 4D CAD. He developed a set of web-based 4D CAD and abilities to spot errors in scheduling, as his dissertation. He is now on the Texas A&M faculty. Another kind of work is closer to VDT, a Ph.D. student who has collected over 70,000 records of communications of participants of design teams. He’s analyzing that data to develop better models of the design process.

Another project we’re doing is a web-based communications tool for critiquing design. The notion is that expert systems can capture or express explicit knowledge, but tacit knowledge is harder to get across with a computer. So he is looking at using chat and exchange of graphic files to support the exchange of tacit information.
These are projects that relate to VDT in that we’re using computer tools to develop empirical evidence to understand how people make decisions.

One last thread that came from Stanford for me was defining the scope of our interest as the life cycle of buildings, a broader scope than architects, engineers, contractor, land developers, builders, planners, facility managers tend to consider. So, I think there’ the potential to create very large cost benefits and quality benefits from this very broad and integrated perspective. That is the hallmark of CIFE.

Q: Any suggestions you have for prospective or future Stanford students.

A: I can only say that it’s a great place to study. One lesson to watch out for and understand is to understand the economic value and consequences of the tools and techniques that they will teach you.

We talked a lot about making a business case for the projects we were working on. I have to mention Paul Teicholz, (CIFE) director while I was there. His perspective on the life cycle of building and economic aspects of innovation was crucial for all of us.

Interview with Mike Williams by John DiLoreto, March 19, 2005

Mike came to Stanford prior to the founding of CIFE, receiving his Ph.D. 1985. He received an Engineers’ degree and then a doctorate in Civil Engineering. After graduating with the doctorate, he worked for Bechtel R&D in San Francisco, which became an initial corporate sponsor, and he started to participate in CIFE in its beginning. He is now CIO of Parsons-Brinkerhoff, an Engineering company with 10,000 employees worldwide that develop roads, transportation and large structures.

Q: What did you learn about Virtual Design and Construction while at Stanford?

A: Involvement started at the beginning in the period from 1984-1991.

Q: What motivated your interest?

A: Concern in the industry about the Japanese. Concern about companies doing research in construction technologies to be more competitive, my interests from a professional perspective – management technologies with 3D CAD, already begun in at Bechtel.

CIFE is also a forum for discussion and debate about tools, usage in planning — not a one-way flow.
Demonstration and lectures were motivating. Not successful selling internally was also motivating. The 3D CAD market is still maturing.

CIFE took it to the next level.

CIFE also provided ongoing relationships and opportunities.

Q: What motivated your decision to try to get a job in this area?

A: I wanted to make things better; do something relevant; to contribute.

It was a huge concept that we all try and sell in our organizations. You can’t do it by yourself. We in industry need the support of the university to effect change.

Q: Why do you think you were hired?

A: I was hired to the CIO position of a huge company with the past year. I wouldn’t have been able to join the ranks of senior executive without the perspective given by combination of operational experience and vision of possibilities learned from CIFE experience.

Q: What are you doing in your job now that relates to Virtual Design and Construction?

A: As CIO (of) 400 people, keep ship afloat and going in the right direction. The work includes conventional IT stuff, maintenance, and procurement. One group challenges the status quo ITG (Innovative Technology Group) with new way of doing things. A challenge is to manage the rate of change and the level of tension by design.
Describe your successes and some issues in your job that relate to your use of Virtual Design and Construction.
I have an opportunity to speak with the voice of the university to effect change in the industry. Vice versa, I can speak about what’s relevant. I see and what to help manage the constructive tension between the way things have been done, how they could and should be done in the future.

I think a lot about 4D simulation. To me, the essence of VDC is managing distributed teams of people, all contributing to common goals. Concepts of improved coordination, communication collaboration are applicable not just for a product. The mechanism to increase efficacy of distributed work groups is important, no matter what they’re working on.

Q: Any suggestions you have for prospective or future Stanford students.

A: There is a dynamic that happens within each person and their individual careers. There is a constructive tension that has to be balanced. You need to get your hands dirty, work in operations. People who can manage change will be valuable in the future.

I’m proud and appreciative of our relationship with CIFE. My group now manages the relationship with CIFE, as a member.

Interview with Wendi Li by John DiLoreto, March 7, 2005

Wendy graduated from the Construction Engineering and Management Master’s program in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2004 and is now Project Engineer for Webcor, Inc. in San Francisco.

Q: What did you learn about Virtual Design and Construction while at Stanford?

A: It all started when I took Prof. John Kunz’s class at the Center. The quarter-long course introduced the concept of Product, Process and Organization, which is now called “POP.” For each of the POP areas, we had a tool to apply to the problem. The Product was a 3-D model. The Process was a 4th-dimension scheduling module that interacted with the Product. And the Organization module modeled design and construction teams, their roles and their interactions.

The Center’s industry members also offered projects with real-world examples. Representatives from Disney, Webcor and others came to provide details of their cases. Our initial goal was to establish objectives for how to use the POP tools.

My involvement with the Webcor project led to a 5-day internship during Spring Break. We worked with a field-oriented superintendent on a specific problem (a steel vs. concrete roof design). We used the model to work through the tradeoffs of time, cost, etc., and we gave a company-wide presentation of our findings. The presentation included a real-time demonstration of the Virtual Model running on a PC. We excited company management, as they could really see the virtual building process.

Q: What motivated your interest?

A: I enjoy having to come up with innovative solutions to actual problems. Being inherently interested in technology, it’s great to have fun toys to play with.

Q: What motivated your decision to try to get a job in this area?

A: While at Webcor as an intern, I got to see a company atmosphere that was open minded to using high-tech solutions. This orientation set them apart from other companies in design and construction.

Q: Why do you think you were hired?

A: They were excited about the virtual design process and how the tools could be of practical value…and they needed a project engineer.

Q: What are you doing in your job now that relates to Virtual Design and Construction?

A: I feel really fortunate to be able to apply everything I learned in POP modeling tools to my current situation. Our current project is to rebuild the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, which involves a myriad of challenges, including access and egress, multiple sub-contractor crews, staging, site logistics, coordination of specialty trades. These tools will help minimize costs and avoidable errors, and will reduce the risk of not meeting the scheduled opening date for the museum and aquarium.

Q: Describe your successes and some issues in your job that relate to your use of Virtual Design and Construction.

A: We have successes by using the virtual modeling program every day. We use it in scheduling meetings, as it provides practical daily value for planning.

However, these are new tools that have just been developed. We get to work first-hand with the software developers to help realize improvements in the program, while we are using it. We can make practical and useful suggestions about our needs and put them to use right away. It is both challenging and exciting to use such an emerging technology.

Q: Any suggestions you have for prospective or future Stanford students.

A: CIFE exposes new students to an emerging technology that will become much more widely used in the future of civil engineering and the field of design and construction. It is a chance to get hands-on experience with early tools that are otherwise not out there yet. Students would benefit from opening themselves up to opportunities that will open doors because the technology is at the forefront. It is the most cutting-edge technology in design and construction.