Price Building Services Avoids Costly Rework, Increases Productivity with Mixed Reality Technology

July 19, 2021

Tonia Steciuk

Price Building Services is a UK-based mechanical services company established over 20 years ago with a successful record of trading within the construction industry. Its core business is mechanical building installations, but the company also provides mechanical and electrical combined packages across various sectors from residential to commercial to infrastructure works.. With over 250 people on its team, Price Building Services are well positioned for future success.

Challenge
Rework can be costly in the construction industry. According to this report from Research Gate, the direct costs of rework alone often account for up to 5% of the total cost of a construction project.

This is something Nikolay Vasilev, Head of Technologies at Price Building Services, was looking to avoid. With a focus on implementing the company’s “Methods of Modern Construction,” Vasilev wanted to improve efficiency and quality across their projects while reducing resources and reducing the need for rework. He also wanted a solution to help with setting out services and builders works quickly and efficiently.

“We wanted to be spot on every time because it's frustrating when you install all your services and then find a clash and have to tear them down and then reinstall them at your cost,” said Vasilev.

Solution
Price Building Services was already using a Trimble FieldLink and a Robotic Total Station for setting out its pipework, bracketry, supports and builders works on site. Vasilev was pleased with the accuracy and ease of use of these solutions and was able to significantly increase the speed of setting out.

In conversations with Trimble about new solutions, he heard about the Trimble XR10 with HoloLens 2 and immediately requested a demonstration of the technology. This mixed reality solution enables people to visualize full scale models in a real-world context by bringing models out of the screen and providing users the ability to visualize and interact with design data more intuitively. He decided to purchase the Trimble XR10 with HoloLens 2, which comes integrated with Trimble Connect for HoloLens software, a cloud platform enabling stakeholders across a project to coordinate all of their different types of design files together in a common location.

“After getting my hands on the Trimble XR10 with HoloLens 2, I was really impressed with the technology,” said Vasilev. “We do the design and coordination and BIM for our clients, and being able to check the model to make sure that it is clash-free is an enormous benefit.”

Results
Using the Trimble XR10 with HoloLens 2, Vasilev and his colleagues are able to modernize their methods of quality control and clash detection. They are able to easily detect clashes with ductwork, pipe work, heating, drainage and more with the Trimble XR10.

The combination of Trimble Connect for HoloLens and the XR10 enhances the company’s quality control workflows by determining how models match as-built environments and quickly identifies clashes in models. The Trimble Connect software enables Price to visualize issues quickly and clearly communicate to other stakeholders for expedited resolution.

In addition, the Trimble XR10 gives small companies like Price Building Services the confidence to work on large projects because they know that they literally have photographic proof of quality control when they hand the project back to the client.

Vasilev plans on investing in a second Trimble XR10 in order to spend more time using it for quality control and to continue to avoid costly clashes. “By detecting clashes, we are avoiding problems further down the road where we have to remove services and reposition them. There’s a big benefit in cost and time savings by being able to show the client specifically where any problems might occur and fixing them before the actual work is started.”

^{Trimble would like to thank Nikolay Vasilev and Price Building Services for sharing their customer experience.}