The Year in Infrastructure 2008 - (Page 160) Lifetime Achievement – WinneR John (Jack) Hallman General Motors Corporation Jack Hallman recently retired from a 40-year career at general Motors Corporation, where in his final role he served as director of Global Capital Projects. Hallman began and worked for many years in GM’s manufacturing area, spending the last decade in construction management of GM manufacturing facilities. As competition in the auto market stiffened, GM adopted “lean manufacturing” to build vehicles quicker, better, and with less waste. When he first moved into this area of responsibility, he was told that construction couldn’t be lean because every building was a one-off and the contractors were innumerable and ever-changing – it wasn’t like building the same product over and over. But Hallman chose to view these facts as challenges, not obstacles. He was sure that lean construction was possible, and that the elimination of waste could apply to any business, no matter how complex. Because of his innovative and forward thinking, Hallman became a leader in driving GM to lean techniques in construction. bE AwARd wINNER in the field began, there were few surprises and fewer changes required. The mantra at GM became “Trust the model, build to the model,” and the results were remarkable. Hallman was also a leader in moving toward the implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) design-build projects at GM. Lean construction, 3D models, and BIM were used on major projects that include the 1.2-millionsquare-foot Lansing Delta Township Assembly Complex, 740,000-square-foot Flint Global V6 engine plant expansion, 300,000-square-foot Pontiac plant expansion, and 300,000-square-foot Fort Wayne plant expansion. The new construction paradigm yielded outstanding return on innovation. For example, at the Flint Global V6 engine plant, design and construction were completed almost five weeks early and with zero change orders due to increased coordination. The project provided real project metrics that 3D BIM can deliver projects faster, better, safer, and at lower cost than conventional 2D paper-based approaches. An enabler of lean construction, Hallman found, was 3D design. In a sense, no building was a one-off, since it could be virtually built and rebuilt as often as necessary. And with a virtual model of a facility, issues such as constructability and buildability could be addressed so that when construction WinnEr 160
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