Mathew Beard gave a talk on Building Information Modelling (BIM), which he said could be described as Better Information Management as buildings and modelling were only some aspects of BIM. BIM could be used for any infrastructure project from a railway down to a simple dwelling.
The aim of BIM was to maintain a dataset describing a project from concept, through build, use and end life. Indeed some of this information could be used to inform the design of successor projects or the recycling of material used in the construction.
BIM is a system involving people, processes and technologies all of which collaborate in achieving a common goal. Information is created, processed and handled using standardised methods - 'created once and used many'. Traditional methods created specifications and drawings which would be re-written and re-drawn as they were passed between specifiers, designers, suppliers and builders, which had the potential to introduce errors and give a limited view of the project.
BIM allows the production of a full 3-D model, which can reveal conflicts and accessibility problems at an early stage. The same model can be used to analyse such things as ventillation, heating and lighting requirements and, potentially, costs and carbon content. It can accurately produce documentation such as Room Data Sheets and Schedules, which are time consuming to produce manually, usually by junior staff yet 'signed-off' at a higher level.
As BIM becomes more widely adopted data for component items will be available in a common format. That means that when a designer selects a particular item all of the associated parameters can be incorporated too, such as size, weight and design standards.
In the UK BIM is defined by BS 1192. It is expected that it will be adopted globally under an ISO standard. From April 2016 the UK government will require BIM to be use in all infrastructure projects that it funds. It is anticipated that build and through-life costs can be reduced by 33% once BIM Level 2 is adopted and the time from concept to commissioning of a project is expected to be reduced by 50%.
BS 1192 defines eight 'pillars of BIM'. Perhaps the one that most engaged the audience was number six 'Government Soft Landings'. This was explained as being the concept of having a smooth handover of the project, ultimately requiring the builder to assist the asset owner to achieve the design performance or accept responsibility for any shortfall.
The talk closed with some thoughts as to how BIM would be needed as a component for future ideas such as Smart Cities and Smart Networks.
I must say that this is an area of engineering that I have had no involvement except as an 'end-user' (i.e. I've worked in buildings, driven on roads etc.). In many ways BIM is following methods that have been adopted in other industries, enabled by the ever-wider adoption of digital data. Obviously areas that involve mass production were early adopters, while infrastructure projects are invariable 'one-offs' if for no other reason that the ground works are always unique. Traditionally buildings approximate to the design. I once worked in a building that was 'identical' to several others on the same site. We couldn't find the promised data port that was part of a standardised grid layout. It turned out that it was the other side of the wall. The data port was in the right place, the wall wasn't.
It will be interesting to see if BIM will lead to standardising component interfaces in the building industry - why for instance are the mounting holes for electrical pattress boxes not in the same place?
Are the targets expected by government achievable? If they are BIM will greatly benefit us all.
For this non-specialist it was a most interesting and thought-provoking talk.
http://www.atkinsglobal.com/en-GB
http://bimtalk.co.uk/
http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheB1MLtd
