Mark III Construction (M3) has implemented STRATUS company-wide to standardize how fabrication is coordinated and communicated throughout the lifecycle of a project. For customers, this means fabricated components are sequenced, tracked, and delivered to match construction schedules, reducing lead time surprises, minimizing rework, and keeping crews productive on site.
What is STRATUS?
STRATUS is a fabrication software that streamlines the flow of information from virtual construction to manufacturing and field installation. M3 has experienced steady growth in MEP and framing prefabrication efforts, and has committed to significantly increase the overall percentage of material processed through industrialized construction (IC). To support its significant growth, M3 needed a reliable way to easily and efficiently process a vast amount of information.
How M3 Has Implemented STRATUS
Over the past two years, Lorenzo Petrini, Product & Innovation Manager, and Micah Burdick, BIM Manager, have worked closely with both manufacturing and VDC teams to roll out STRATUS across the company. After thorough testing, live projects, and daily use in the manufacturing facility, STRATUS proved to be a reliable and effective system for coordinating fabrication work across all five of our trades.
Benefits and Effects of STRATUS
After the rollout, M3 improved its fabrication workflows to create a lean, well-oiled machine that can sustain more volume, support future growth, and ultimately deliver greater value to our customers.
By importing our models directly into the platform and building custom reports tailored to each trade’s production workflows, M3 has been able to:
- Eliminate long detailing/drafting times – resulting in a cost-effective, faster, and more reliable VDC process.
- Track revisions across the board more efficiently – no more papers to track down and substitute with the latest revision.
- Create, expand, and maintain a production rates database – to provide our Operations team with the data needed to push for more data-driven decisions.
- Expand visibility across the board – all internal teams can access our dashboards to see progress in all jobs and scopes. We keep a license available, upon request, for clients to have access to the same information.
- Increase proactive communication across multiple divisions – keeping all teams informed of progress and actions made, which prevents issues.
- Drastically reduce material waste – thanks to the nesting capabilities in the workstation app to track work packages.
As of today, M3 is the only contractor in the US that uses STRATUS on all trades: sheet metal, plumbing, piping, electrical, and framing. Our next goal for the platform is to develop a better way to process multi-trade products like overhead racks, wall panels, and PODs. As more capabilities become more available for use, M3 will provide even more transparency to our customers.