Construct IT Autumn 2008 Members' Meeting

in conjunction with buildingSMART
 
Summary (2 of 3)
John Reekie & Martin Smith (Lumenicity) followed the facilitated workshop by presenting honest observations and challenges based upon their experience of working within major construction clients. Martin introduced Lumenicity, as providing a new and fast approach (without baggage) to assist industry with BIM. He then discussed understanding what clients want and identifying clients as they are different in nature. John then presented the scope to influence and cumulative cost of the project/facility life cycle in relation to decisions made early in the project lifecycle has most influence and the cost ratio through the project/facility life cycle. He also stated that realising the full benefit requires the integration of BIM with ERP and while data accumulates exponentially, how much of this is actually information? Building on the thoughts presented by John, Martin discussed investment in terms of the return cycle and the critical points for fixing the cost of the facility and the time to market in the facility becoming operational. He continued in presenting the benefits of BIM in that by integrating the phases of outline design, construction and operations, this can fix the cost earlier in the lifecycle and bring the time to market forward, thereby increasing the payback to the client. Next, John discussed who 'fully' understands BIM, i.e. from a client's perspective do we mean a 'Building' or 'Business' Information Model, and whether clients understand information technology before covering the expectations of clients in that value is different to cost by bringing benefit into the equation and change is expensive and difficult to maintain. Again, the current economic climate was raised in terms of clients wanting more for less, which in turn provides the opportunity for the industry to become more efficient and to be value adding. Martin concluded the session by discussing that in order to encourage clients to invest in BIM then there needs to be a simple and consistent message in business terms together with honest success stories of how to do it and the lifecycle benefits. The challenges of the lifecycle benefits of BIM through the pre-project, project, and post-project stages were presented. Several issues of discussion were raised which included that the main financial benefits are in the pre- and post-project stages and this is where the business case needs to be focused; the challenge is at the post-project stage of maintaining the data/information and the client cannot be trusted to do this; the difficulty of going from ERP back to BIM.
 
Following lunch, Paul Markovits (ASite Solutions Ltd.) and Nick Nisbet (buildingSMART; AEC3) presented the recent 'Build London Live' (BLL) event which took place in June 2008. In 48 hours, more than 300 designers in 12 teams across 4 continents created astonishing designs. They used some of the most advanced design software available, collaborated across the Internet, used open standards to share information, and demonstrated how building design should be carried out in the 21st century. Paul began by discussing why BLL was organised in relation to using technology on projects and not seeing a shift towards IPD, saving opportunities at a global scale through interoperability, complex projects using a variety of applications, and to demonstrate getting involved in digital collaboration and BIM. He then outlined the objectives of BLL to demonstrate the power of digital collaboration and BIM, show the potential of cost and time savings, create a learning experience to introduce BIM to a wider audience and promote the dissemination of BIM skills. These objectives were to be achieved through a hypothetical BIM design challenge to deliver a full BIM through digital collaboration, in 48 hours, for a site on the Greenwich Peninsula. Paul went on to discuss obtaining sponsorship for prizes, judges, etc. followed by the competing world-wide teams from Chile, Finland, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, and USA. He covered BLL taking the teams (people) through the process and putting no prescription on the tools to be used with the exception of interoperable BIM being delivered through a collaborative environment for which online training was provided. Once everything was set up, the brief was released on 24th June 2008 over the collaborative environment for a mixed use scheme to comprise an hotel, office space, conference facility, retail and entertainment, dwellings, car parking and public open spaces. Following the brief being released, Paul described that concepts, planning, and structural analysis models began to emerge very quickly, with HAVAC, time and cost analyses soon following. The models were also accompanied by several bi-products including: renderings; sales brochures; walk through tours of the construction sites; deformation, constructability and environmental analyses. In terms of deliverables, 1200 drawings were produced accounting for 3GB data - 1.6GB of which was IFC model data - along with receiving both press journal and industry body attention. It was concluded that the event did meet the objectives with 300 people across the globe delivering a full BIM model in 48 hours, 100 applications being used together with web-based sharing and public involvement, etc. and all in all BLL 2008 was successful. Paul and Nick concluded by announcing that plans are underway for BLL 2009 which is to go beyond the design stage into construction and operation. Discussion from the session focused around input into the organisation of BLL 2009, the automation of the judging process for BLL 2009, why there were no UK teams involved (2 teams had signed up but withdrew due to the management culture of their organisations), transferring custom content (objects) from one application to another - although vendors say there is not the demand but it is being created, capturing the experience/learning/good practice, transferring the process to a commercial project/application, useful to see the transfer of the structural model to the fabricator's model.
 
Next, Simon Gillis (Revit Technical Sales Consultant, Autodesk) and Adam Matthews (Business Development Manager, Autodesk) presented Autodesk's view of collaboration as a strategic tool for integrated project delivery. Following a brief introduction to Autodesk and their digital innovation technologies in evolving the design process, Simon began by presenting a brief video of BIM in practice through the One World Trade Centre case study, which demonstrated the vision for going through the whole BIM process. Following the video, he echoed previous comments made through the day in that the tools are available but there are bigger issues to address that are holding up the progress of BIM up, i.e. the industry. He went on to discuss the global trends impacting design such as digital life, globalisation, infrastructure boom, and climate change (the main driver). Simon then raised the challenges of redefining design, improving project delivery and sustainability along with the opportunities for technology to be a catalyst for change by experiencing designs before they are real with digital prototyping through BIM. The concept of BIM along with that of 'Big' and 'Little' BIM was presented in terms of the scale of BIM through the project lifecycle. He went on to raise further issues of the output of BIM being perceived as merely visualisation although this is a simple bi-product and BIM provides much more, the vision to provide intelligence regardless of where the information was originally authored, and the cost influence on design process change and the need for information earlier in the process. Finally, he discussed keys to IPD such as involvement of ALL project team members in design meetings, facilitating (digital) collaboration, creating a culture of trust and sharing, setting up contract mechanisms that enable open collaboration, communication of design ideas through 3D visualisation, etc. Adam followed by presenting industry challenges of change being inevitable in the design process and 3D facilitating the communication of change towards construction/the supply chain. He then discussed some of the industry benefits of BIM that have been documented (e.g. US construction research of $15.8bn being lost annually due to lack of interoperability and KPIs on the value of BIM) along with the market drivers of integrated working through BIM (e.g. US General Services Administration - National 3D-4D-BIM program). To conclude, Adam put forward a number of questions for discussion. Firstly, he asked if we agree on the value of modelling and that it supports integrated working then what can be done to make BIM happen in the UK? This led to discussions around such issues as the industry is not doing it therefore it does not know enough about it. There is no convincing business case in that the industry does not believe the figures currently being reported, BIM is a heading which is about managing information, there should be a shift away from 'Building' towards 'Project' Information Modelling. Following on from the first question, he then asked how do we encourage integrated practice? This led to a number of issues being discussed including the act of BIM being a people and process activity - NOT technology, BIM needs to be simple and obvious in terms of ROI, the perception of purchasing software being the answer to the adoption of BIM, the 'little' scale of BIM is being used but this is not at the larger scale The approach in such countries as Norway, Sweden and US is to go ahead and do it without 100% guarantee. Whereas in the UK it appears that there needs to be 100% evidence before considering adoption. ... more>