What You Need to Know About Virtual Design Centers

Credit: Builderfinish

Builders who use virtual design center (VDC) technology find it a great tool for helping customers choose options. A VDC can take the place of a physical design center or enable buyers to make selections prior to their design center appointment.

“More than half of buyers can’t visualize their homes based on traditional drawings,” says Tony Hardebeck, president of Cornerstone Custom Builders, West Lafayette, Ind. A VDC lets buyers view online 3D images of their home and populate those images with different products from the builder’s options catalog — from faucets to tile to appliances and surfaces.

Many builders use a technology provider such as Builderfinish or CG Visions to set up their company’s VDC. The builder works with the provider to assemble an online database of key design components and options, many of which are drawn from manufacturers’ Web sites. The database includes realistic representations of specific items — from plumbing fixtures to cabinets and surfaces — which can be automatically assembled by the buyer in a 3D model. If the buyer doesn’t like a faucet design or a countertop color, they can choose another item and immediately see how it will look.

The technology can be a great time — and money — saver, according to interior designer A. Lynn Chittenden, a personalization specialist with Greystone, a national company that builds housing for the elderly. Chittenden says that a year after Greystone started using VDCs in conjunction with its physical design centers, in-person design center time spent with buyers declined from about three hours to one hour or less, and there were fewer mistakes. “People can review their actual finishes and can even invite family or friends who live in a different city to go online and discuss the choices. If this saves four to five mistakes [over the course of the project], we have paid for the technology.”

Then there’s the issue of space. Colleen R. Mallon, director of marketing with Alexandria, Va.-based housing provider Goodwin House, says that her company wanted to build a physical design center for a 160-unit project, but there was no room on the site, and local retail space was too expensive. The creation of a virtual design center solved both problems.

Builderfinish CEO Don Eugenio says creating VDCs has gotten much easier in recent years, because manufacturers such as Moen have made descriptions, specifications and images of their products available online. Such information now lets him create a VDC in as little as half a day.

The Future

While the VDC’s customer-facing advantages are obvious, the biggest payoff from this technology may come from integrating it with other systems. That has certainly been Hardebeck’s experience. At a time when most builders are scaling back their business, Cornerstone Builders’ revenue grew by 39 percent during 2006 and 34 percent in 2007. Such growth reflects high-quality work, good construction systems and a strong local market niche, but Hardebeck says that his company’s embrace of VDC technology helped him take advantage of market opportunities by making his processes more efficient.

Hardebeck’s VDC, which was created by CG Visions, includes advanced building information modeling software that automatically updates his production and back-office systems when the customer makes a selection. “Because selections are in a digital format, they can be tied to almost any business process, including purchase orders and construction scheduling,” he says. “Having a virtual design center tied to advanced back-office systems really contributed to our success.”

The efficiency brought about by VDC technology has put Hardebeck in a position to launch a new, semi-custom building company, whose homes are competitively priced with those of local production builders. “We launched Wade Homes to provide custom homes with a defined set of packages that allow us to provide custom homes [priced] within about 5 percent of the local production builder in the second home market,” he says.


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