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Ariana Alvear – BDC 40 Under 40
Ariana is an outstanding young professional in construction. She immigrated from Ecuador, earned advanced degrees in engineering, is a published academic author, and an award-winning engineer. She has put these skills to work as a senior project engineer for Boldt and an innovator in our Integrated Lean Project Delivery (ILPD®) process.
Originally from Ecuador, Ariana transferred to the University of Texas at Austin to complete her Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering, then relocated to San Francisco, where she earned her a Master of Science degrees in Engineering and Project Management at Berkeley.
After working in the construction industry for about 10 years, she joined Boldt, where she saw an opportunity to put her Lean Construction expertise and passion to use.
Ariana exemplifies the best of highly trained construction engineers and the best of implementing her knowledge in complicated construction projects. Her skills are central to the delivery of our primary construction process, ILPD® (Integrated Lean Project Delivery). In this process, she applies Lean tools to a collaborative, integrated project environment.
In her current role Ariana is a key team member on the ILPD team and runs training and onboarding sessions for Choosing By Advantages (CBA) for all trade partners. This program teaches our partners to use and create visual tracking tools in the construction process.
She has created and implemented tools for tracking systems used to identify problems in the construction process which ultimately improved productivity. At Boldt, she has worked on our largest and most complex projects, including Sutter Health’s California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and as a key member of the preconstruction team for the new USCF Zuckerberg Research and Academic Center.
Ariana is one of the most highly trained engineers in our northern California office and her skills are an asset to the company and customers. She administers the development of projects through Lean Construction’ presented case studies and has co-authored articles including “Integration of Lean and Information Technology to Enable a Customization Strategy in Affordable Housing” and “Formwork System Selection Using Choosing by Advantages.”
She has presented at numerous conferences including “Installation & Supply Chain Management: Leveraging Production Data to Support the Field.”
Ariana is one of the most highly trained engineers in our northern California office. Her skills are an asset to the company and our customers. Her high-level expertise is central to the delivery of Boldt’s primary construction process, ILPD® (Integrated Lean Project Delivery). Through ILPD she applies lean tools in a collaborative, integrated project environment. Her first project with Boldt was a 13-story hospital with over 1 million square feet. She managed and optimized the workflow for casework and millwork and implemented interactive tracking maps to improve field coordination and visibility through Autodesk BIM Collaborate.
Ariana was a key member of Boldt’s Design/Build project for the UCSF Research & Academic Building at Zuckerberg San Francisco General. In her role as Project Manager, she was involved early on with project selecting and setting up the DB team utilizing Autodesk Takeoff. Ariana trained the team in the decision-making tool Choosing by Advantages (CBA) and ran the selection process sessions for all trade partners. through CBA implementation. She also led the roll out of BIM 360 with the team for use in RFI and Submittals, helping pave the way for the Boldt to evaluate and roll out the Autodesk Construction Cloud. She provided metrics and reporting to UCSF, team leaders, trade partners, and design consultants as well as production scheduling, logistics, in-person, and virtual Big Room facilitation, pull planning, and last planner session.
In her current role as the Production Manager, Ariana is a key team member on the ILPD team for Stanford Medicine and Sutter Health’s Cancer Center (SMSHCC) in Oakland. She is responsible for building a production strategy that ensures a predictable and streamlined workflow through a simple and structured process. This involves switching from the traditional planning, to “pull” or “takt” planning, creating a visual work structure for each trade.
Ariana manages multiple scopes from buyout to planning and execution. She implements use-tracking tools to ensure work progress is made visible and aligned with the cost incurred. One such tool was Assemble from Autodesk, allowing Ariana to break down the different key scopes into a construction-ready form. She has created and implemented tools for tracking systems used to identify problems in the construction process, improving productivity. Ariana oversees the implementation of The Last Planner System. Her role requires continuous collaboration with the field personnel to create the work structure and control the execution of the plan. At Boldt, she works on our most complex projects: Sutter’s Van Ness & Geary Hospital in San Francisco, the UCSF Research & Academic Building at Zuckerberg San Francisco General, and currently Sutter Health’s Cancer Center) SMSHCC) in Oakland. Currently, Ariana is supporting SMSHCC in the implementation of Autodesk Build and lending her expertise to help vet use cases for newer Build Tools, including Work Plan and Progress Tracking.
Ariana is a published academic author with several other academics on the following papers:
• Eder Maranez; Iris D. Tommelein; and Ariana Alvear, “Integration of Lean and Information Technology to Enable A Customization Strategy in Affordable Housing
• Eder Maranez; Iris D. Tommelein; and Ariana Alvear, “Formwork System Selection Using Choosing by Advantages”
She is a member of Chi Epsilon, the Civil Engineering Honor Society, the Lean Construction Institute, the American society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and earned top honors in Seismic Design Competitions.
About The Boldt Company
The Boldt Company (Boldt) is a leading professional construction services firm with customers across the United States and is a subsidiary of The Boldt Group. Founded in 1889, Boldt is a fourth-generation family and employee-owned firm headquartered in Appleton, Wisconsin. Boldt is recognized as a pioneer in Lean construction and in the industrialized construction space. Boldt operates 18 offices across the U.S. that serve customers in healthcare, power, industrial, education, automotive and commercial markets.
