BIM Business is Big Business; Embracing Inevitable Implementation

What if you could improve productivity throughout your whole project life-cycle by implementing a digital model for efficient project collaboration?

Amidst all of the arguments about whether or not it is cost effective, policy could eventually dictate that Building Information Modelling is implemented on all centrally-procured public projects.

Plausible suggestions have been made that the adoption of BIM on all projects could save the government in excess of ￡400m per year, as BIM can reduce wasted time, money and unnecessary risks from projects through meticulous planning. It creates unprecedented visibility to share in real time by collating nano information relating to a project and sharing live updates with relevant parties. This helps to significantly reduce planning collisions and reworks; saving huge amounts of money in variations and additional labour.

It is widely accepted that digital applications dictate the future of the construction industry and BIM is a pioneer of both design and the implementation of long-term facility management. BIM’s evolution will thrive off the inevitable evolution of the online environment and its’ capability to host unprecedented amounts of raw data. The government are already advocating the clear processes and the engineered technology significantly lowers any risk commonly caused by human error or oversight.

It is no wonder that we are encouraging a higher demand for BIM, as the governing bodies are using it to target the number one spot in the international construction leagues by increasing the speed of delivery; reducing NET spend; decreasing emissions; and improving the export operations to be more profitable.

However, in the meantime, there is a lot of ambiguity over whether or not the implementation is worth the extra cost because it doesn’t have a clear direct return on investment, as it can be difficult to know how many costly mistakes are avoided. In fact, the lower value projects often carry a lower risk anyway, so it can be difficult to demonstrate any profit or saving at all. That being said, rather than trying to justify the increasingly-prominent process costs, it is more logical to embrace the process and consider the spend as an investment in the future of your company and in your market. Unfortunately, some of your peers will still be resenting BIM 2 when we are studying BIM 3 & BIM 4... even BIM 8; but no amount of resentment will stop the compulsory implementation and evolution of business information modelling.

Decision-makers at Land & Utility Surveying companies should not entertain playing reactive because the implementation is inevitable and largely logical. The best strategy is to invest in using BIM offensively and reallocate your marketing budget towards understanding, documenting and pioneering the BIM benefits, as well as where you particularly excel in managing it.

To be clear, you cannot escape BIM because it makes sense to invest in BIM, so this will become an expectation, if not a compulsory policy, that clients & governing bodies will become accustomed to, just like the CSCS card for working on site. However, the only way to truly guarantee to positive return on investment until they figure out a way to lower implementation costs, is to pioneer it and expose your expertise by innovative implementation. BIM is designed to increase your productivity and if you are able to articulate this to your market, then not only will it put you in a position to attract new business opportunities, but it will also enable you with the capacity to manage extra contracts by creating processes that waste less time.

• BIM allows for ultimate real-time collaboration between everyone concerned with the project, including site management; facilities management; general contractors; engineers; architects; fabricators and many more
• With digital simulations offering life-like representations of the entire project, you can now say goodbye to 2D & paper plans that failed to encapsulate the vision and risked misinterpretation. This level of product-presentation can drastically increase sales opportunities as well.
• BIM can deliver a model for every phase of a project’s life-cycle, from the inception through to the construction and even including the building’s future demolition.
• BIM’s innovative technology will help you calculate the step-by-step process of the design, the construction and the facilities management, so there is little risk for miscommunication and overlapping of works.
• Concise planning capabilities and the ability to automatically update information in real-time will save time and speed up the labour process, saving further money and time.
• BIM is the most effective program for communicating anything regarding the project. There is no need for confusing lines on a piece of paper when you can present an accurate, like-like view of the proposed project.
• BIM has calculated strategies surrounding sustainability and can integrate the best processes at design stage. It has the capability to identify and flag any conflicting issues that could otherwise be costly and problematic. The detail includes energy use, waste management, water management, daylight occurrence and the building orientation.

It only takes a few of these benefits to help us to understand why it is an important development for the construction industry. Not only does it control and organise important information for entire project life-cycles, but it also drastically reduces risks that could otherwise be costly. I think that we will see a CSCS effect with BIM and eventually it will become more and more difficult to find work if you don’t embrace it as a beneficial USP.

Be BIM compliant; Showcase innovative benefits; Invest in future BIM strategy; Invest in BIM delivery process

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