Building information modelling gains pace
The take up of BIM (building information modelling) is gaining pace, and more and more people are coming to appreciate its benefits first hand — as Dominic Thasarathar explains.
During these dark economic times, AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) sector companies are increasingly turning to building information modelling (BIM) as a means to improve project performance, gain competitive edge and offer new value-add services to clients.
Once the preserve of the design community, BIM has experienced explosive growth in recent years — spurred on by Government, pressure from clients for more predictable project outcomes and better performing assets and, ironically, the increased levels of competition and more onerous financing conditions that the downturn has brought.
Rather than needing to be persuaded of the benefits of BIM, growing numbers are making it a mandatory requirement. Should you be one of them? What can this new way of working offer to those in the building services sector?
Gaining ground
The last few years have seen a significant increase in BIM adoption worldwide, including reassuringly strong uptake throughout Europe. According to research by McGraw Hill Construction, in 2010 over a third (36%) of the Western European AEC industry reported having adopted BIM, closing the gap on the 49% adoption rate in North America (2009).
Architects, unexpectedly, given BIM’s heritage in design, were found to be the primary adopters (47%), but engineers (38%) and contractors (24%) were catching up. And those who have adopted BIM so far are already reaping the rewards. Three-quarters of Western European BIM users report a positive perceived return on their overall investment in BIM versus 63% of BIM users in North America. In both markets, according to the McGraw Hill report, those who formally measure it report a higher return on investment than those who base their argument only on perception.
Unlocking the potential
BIM is a technology-enabled process for designing and delivering building projects. At the heart of BIM is the notion of the model — a digital representation of the real-world physical asset that evolves as the project develops and serves as a hub for collaboration and co-ordinating project execution. At the simplest level, this model represents the physical information associated with the asset in a graphically rich 3D environment — a far more intuitive platform for coordinating physical geometry than traditional 2D. BIM software supports a highly collaborative, transparent and integrated approach to designing and delivering built assets for all parties involved in a project, from architect to contractor to equipment supplier.
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| The volume of information available from building information modelling has implications way beyond the design stage of a project. |
The immediate payback is often a significant reduction in the level of rework compared to traditional delivery, with, for example, early clash detection making it possible to identify, redesign and mitigate what might traditionally be costly real-world errors.
Supported by the technology, project participants might manipulate this model in different ways. A contractor might use the model to undertake ‘virtual construction’, identifying the optimum way of constructing the asset prior to committing to step on site. A supplier might use it to identify how best to navigate a piece of heavy plant within the building, identifying pinch points and maybe having a corridor widened before it’s built. An HVAC contractor might use it to segment a system for optimised offsite fabrication and onsite assembly. An owner might use it to ensure the design best supports the needs of their operations and maintenance teams.
But physical geometry is just the beginning. Increasingly BIM models are being used to manage non-physical information and support modelling across non-physical dimensions.
What does that mean?
Well think, for example, of project cost, schedule, energy performance, carbon performance, whole-life cost, and health and safety. Project teams are increasingly turning to BIM to help optimise an asset by rapidly analysing and synthesising across multiple dimensions. With the trend towards ever-more complex projects and more demanding performance criteria from clients, this ability to rapidly and accurately ‘optioneer’ in the virtual world reduces the burden on project teams and, arguably, makes the most challenging projects more financially viable.
BIM isn’t just for new builds either. Across Europe, renovations now account for a significant proportion of all building jobs. Using technologies such as laser-scanning and photo-grammetry it is possible to accurately capture the real world and use this as a basis for BIM-based renovation, retrofit or upgrade projects.
As the level of adoption grows, BIM is arguably becoming a universal platform for the storage and manipulation of project and asset information. It is this open-ended capability that is opening new opportunities for companies to offer value-add services.
Jumping on board…
With a significant enough uptake in BIM, it is now possible to identify some key benefits of BIM-enabled projects.
• Greater predictability and less risk — the practice of optimising and dry-running in the virtual world before committing to the real world reduces unknowns.
• Greater efficiency — access to accurate, complete and timely information enables a project’s processes to run more quickly and more effectively.
• Produce better assets — as the asset is increasingly being rigorously modelled against multiple dimensions to find the optimum design.
There is one other benefit that has more recently emerged — the repository of highly structured information built up over the course of a BIM-enabled project. The information might be used to more efficiently ‘seed’ the owner’s business systems for asset and facilities management, but is also a potential source of competitive advantage for the companies that generated it. Reusing project information is nothing new, but applying technology to that reuse might just open the ability to compete across time by going back and learning from past project mistakes, continually improving your processes and improving your bidding with more accurate bids.
Clearly, awareness and demand for BIM is increasing and will continue to do so. Adopting an offensive strategy and actively pursuing the benefits of BIM-enabled working may just be the thing that differentiates you in this new age of austerity.
Dominic Thasarathar is senior industry programme manager for construction with Autodesk.
