Business Information Modelling (BIM)

Less documentation, more information

The Government Construction Strategy was published by the Cabinet office on 31 May 2011. The report announced the Government’s intention to require: collaborative 3D BIM (with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic) on its projects by 2016.

BIM-enabled working allows this information to be shared by different project participants and also between different stages of design, construction and operation.  For example, an engineer is able to use information sourced from the architect to prepare energy calculations or a contractor can check the coordination of contributions from different members of the project team.  Programme and cost information can also be captured using BIM.  Most importantly, BIM has the potential to allow information about the use of the building to be collated and held in formats useable by the operators of facilities – enabling buildings and other assets to be used and maintained efficiently.

It offers enormous gains in saving in cost and time, much greater accuracy in estimation, and the avoidance of error, alterations and rework due to information loss. But adopting BIM involves much more than simply changing the software we use. To achieve all the benefits it offers, everyone in the architecture, engineering and construction industries will have to learn to work in fundamentally new ways. BIM is a whole new paradigm.

BIM is the marriage of a technology and a set of work processes.

A majority are now aware of and using BIM on at least some of their projects (54%), 42% said they were just aware of BIM, and 4% were neither aware nor using.

Regardless of where they are now, in a years` time 86% expect to be using BIM on at least some of their projects - and that number increases to 97% in five years` time making BIM universal and routine assuming good intentions are realised.

Indicative data on BIM adoption by region suggests prevalence in London, the North East, Northern Ireland and Wales. The area with the lowest rate of BIM adoption appears to be the East of England.

80% of respondents produce 2D models, and 70% 3D. 74% said that they have adopted collaborative techniques and this collaboration extends to sharing models (56% said they had shared such models with design team members outside their organisation, 45% have shared across different disciplines.

63% believe BIM will help bring about a 33% reduction in the initial cost of construction and whole life cost of built assets.

57% believe BIM will help bring about a 50% reduction in the time from inception to completion for new-build and refurbished assets

39% believe BIM will help bring about a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment.

Less than a third believe that BIM will help create a reduction in the trade gap between total exports and total imports for construction products.

The acceleration of the development of information exchange standards and protocols will assist the adoption of effective ways of BIM working.

Platforms such as The Project already provide the necessary online collaboration software required by BIM and is used extensively throughout the construction industry.

For more information, or to discuss BIM further please contact Graham Howarth on 01924 580999

 

Sources: 
http://www.bimplus.co.uk/
http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/