A Critical Review of Methods Used to Determine Productivity of Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Systems Coordination Baabak ASHURI 1 , Saman YARMOHAMMADI 2 , and Mohsen SHAHANDASHTI 3 1 Assistant Professor, Economics of the Sustainable Built Environment (ESBE) Lab, School of Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology, 280 Ferst Dr., First Floor, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332; e-mail: baabak.ashuri@coa.gatech.edu 2 PhD Student, Economics of the Sustainable Built Environment (ESBE) Lab, School of Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology, 280 Ferst Dr., First Floor, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332; e-mail: saman.yar@gatech.edu 3 PhD Candidate, Economics of the Sustainable Built Environment (ESBE) Lab, School of Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology, 280 Ferst Dr., First Floor, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332; e-mail: sshahandashti3@gatech.edu ABSTRACT Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) systems coordination is a process during the pre-construction phase through which the proposed location and route of each system components are specified. The MEP coordination process has significantly changed due to utilization of Building Information Modeling (BIM). There is a gap in knowledge regarding productivity measurement of MEP coordination team. Moreover, there is a need for research to enhance our understanding about important factors affecting productivity of MEP coordination. The main objectives of this research are: (i) to document approaches for conducting MEP coordination using BIM, (ii) to identify metrics for measuring productivity of MEP coordination; and (iii) to identify factors affecting MEP coordination productivity. A questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve these objectives. The survey show that the most frequently used metric for conducting MEP coordination using BIM is square feet of coordinated area per total coordination hour. Moreover, experience level of MEP coordination team members is the top factor that significantly affects MEP coordination productivity. The findings of this study indicate that construction industry lacks a systematic procedure to record information to track, measure, and compare MEP coordination productivity across different coordination projects. INTRODUCTION Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) systems coordination is a challenging task during the pre-construction phase of complex building projects (Riley et al. 2001; Korman 2009). In general, coordination is conducted after engineers complete MEP systems design including equipment requirements, system components’ location, and component routes in the building (Korman and Tatum 2001). After completing the designs, the coordination process begins by holding meetings between the representatives of the general contractor and specialty trades (e.g., HVAC dry, HVAC wet, plumbing, fire protection). Through these meetings, the 2D drawings of different MEP systems, developed by engineers, are sequentially compared and overlaid on a light table to detect spatial conflicts and interferences. To 777 Construction Research Congress 2014 ©ASCE 2014 Construction Research Congress 2014 Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Georgia Tech Library on 09/16/16. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.