Side Story: Business Software

Case Study

Known for its innovative culture, Ellerbe Becket was able to significantly accelerate its design work on the Seattle Seahawks Stadium and Exhibition Center by standardizing on the Autodesk Buzzsaw online collaboration solution. Ellerbe Becket served as lead architect on the project, which began in 1997 and was officially completed, one month ahead of schedule, with a series of gala public celebrations and sporting events in July 2002.

"With Buzzsaw, we saw a 30 percent decrease in the time spent managing information flow. On a job like the Seahawks Stadium and Exhibition Center, that translates into a time saving of about 18 hours a week," says Kelly Kerns, project leader at Ellerbe Becket. "The benefits don't stop there; we saw them throughout the project. For example, assembling all of the information for a progress print without Buzzsaw can take four or five people a full day; but with Buzzsaw, it takes one person less than an hour."

Ellerbe Becket used Autodesk design software, AutoCAD and 3ds maxTM to create and document the design of the stadium, but they were also looking for a new way to improve the distribution of the design information. When design work began on the stadium, online collaboration was a nascent technology and overnight delivery still the de facto standard for exchanging drawings and other critical information between design professionals on construction projects. Seeking a more effective way to communicate among team members, Ellerbe Becket saw that the power of the Internet could be leveraged for better internal communications.

In 1999, Ellerbe Becket made the leap to online collaboration with the Autodesk Buzzsaw service. Not only did Buzzsaw allow architects to share drawings and other files with the entire project team, but just as importantly, the service provided excellent security and enabled team leaders to manage and communicate more efficiently on projects.

"One of the more significant challenges on the project was that we were building right on top of the old Kingdome site," says Kerns. "We had to design and build the exhibition center first, then complete the Kingdome demolition, then build the stadium on the old footprint and tie it into the exhibition center. The timing of all of that and the design complexity meant we had a lot of scheduling and procurement issues. Bringing Buzzsaw into the project minimized the number of hiccups that can slow progress, which translated into increased productivity, a better product and more value for the client."

"The Seattle Seahawks Stadium project shows the tremendous progress that the building design and construction industry has made over the past few years with online collaboration," says Bradshaw.