Walbridge Case Study

• Quality issues caught before rework
• Owner approvals resolved in weeks
• Subcontractor payments verified faster

Walbridge needed a way to unify the reality capture, point clouds, BIM models, and schedule data that were previously siloed across multiple separate systems on the General Motors switchyard project in Mexico. With teams and stakeholders spread across the site in Coahuila and Walbridge's headquarters in Michigan, keeping everyone aligned on design, progress, and change order impacts through disconnected tools was inefficient.

The team also wanted virtual reality capabilities that would let remote stakeholders visually tour the project and identify quality deviations without traveling to the site. Reconstruct's Visual Command Center met these needs by combining site documentation, designs, and the project schedule into a single platform, giving stakeholders anywhere in the world the same visual access to the project as the on-site team.

The General Motors switchyard and transmission lines project in Ramos Arizpe involved coordinating a 25,000-square-meter scope spanning CFE switchyard construction, transmission line installation, and substation upgrades, with stakeholders split between the Mexico site and Walbridge's Michigan headquarters. Reality capture, point clouds, BIM models, and schedule information lived in separate systems, making it difficult to get a unified view of project status.

Without a shared visual platform, identifying quality deviations early and looping in the right stakeholders took longer than it should have. The team also lacked a way to give remote participants, including the owner, a virtual tour of the site to review design and progress questions without an in-person visit, which slowed down decisions on issues like design changes and signage approvals.

Before adopting Reconstruct, Walbridge managed reality capture, point clouds, BIM models, and project schedule data for the General Motors switchyard project across multiple disconnected systems. There was no single platform tying this information together, which made it harder to compare as-built conditions against design intent or track progress consistently.

Remote stakeholders, including Walbridge's headquarters team in Michigan, had no way to visually tour the site or review quality issues without traveling to Ramos Arizpe in person. Communicating about design questions, progress updates, and the impact of change orders relied on separate conversations and static documentation rather than a shared visual reference.

Using Reconstruct's Visual Command Center gave Walbridge's team an early-warning system for quality issues on the General Motors switchyard project, including fire protection and access door conflicts and HVAC equipment placement mismatches that were caught and resolved before they became costlier downstream problems.

The platform's reality-to-BIM overlays also sped up communication with the project owner. A window wall design change that might otherwise have required extended back-and-forth discussion was resolved within weeks, and external signage design, review, and approval were handled entirely remotely rather than requiring site visits.

Reconstruct's historical documentation additionally gave Walbridge a reliable record for validating equipment deployment timelines and verifying subcontractor work before authorizing payment, while also informing planning on future projects. As Miguel Perez, Project Engineer at Walbridge, put it, Reconstruct helped the team execute the project more efficiently, catch quality issues quickly, and improve communication among all participants.

Walbridge is a design-build construction company. On the General Motors switchyard and transmission lines project in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico, Walbridge used Reconstruct alongside its own project teams to coordinate work between the site and its headquarters in Michigan.