Build Magazine August 2015

Build Magazine 40 he building industry is on a tight deadline; by March next year, the UK Government requires all cen- tral government infrastructure pro- jects to be achieving Level 2 BIM capability. After this date, any companies competing for government contracts will need to employ the fully collaborative project delivery practices described in the BIM Level 2 mandate. Early returns indicate that BIM [Building Information Modelling] can offer companies complying with it’s guidelines a wealth of ben- efits; in fact, recent NBS research showed that of those firms adopting BIM, 59% have seen cost efficiencies, 56% have seen an improve- ment in client outcomes, 51% have increased the speed of delivery, and 48% have achieved an increase in profitability. But these companies have also learned there are additional considerations that must be addressed to maximise the potential of BIM Level 2 from a longer-term perspective. Collaboration at the heart of BIM The nature of BIM brings all project stakehold- ers together at the start of a project – client, consultants, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers – allowing input from each specialist to be factored into all decisions that concern them. In other words, to maximise the opportunity that BIM presents, the project is built digitally before ground is broken in real life. To do so, you need to compress the collective input of all the project stakeholders at the start of the project. So how is this input captured in practical terms? A BIM project consists of a loose federation of interrelated, do- main-specific digital models authored and/or informed by the assembled project stakeholders. The more de- tailed and coordinated these models, the more accurately they simulate the finished project. In turn, these infor- mation-rich models also automatically generate many of the project’s required deliverables, including plans, details, specs, quantity takeoffs and other documents, typically as PDF datasets numbering into the thousands. And as with manufacturing, the more prototypes you build and test, the better the end product. Therefore these mod- els are in a constant state of refinement as the team strives to optimize form and function, eliminate construction waste and minimize operating costs. With each iteration comes another batch of file-based model derivatives for distribution, review and input by the team. The benefits of BIM are well documented. Less publicized, but acknowl- edged by many of its early practitioners, is the obvious by-product: an expo- Adapting to the BIMWay of Working for Longer-Term Value By Allen Preger, Co-Founder and VP Global Accounts, Newforma T