The Intersection of BIM and Smart Buildings

[The Role of Digital Twins]

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

It was in the early twentieth century when Henry Ford — through the Batch Production System (BPS) — reduced the time it took to build a car from more than twelve hours to just two hours. Since then, the automobile industry has seen multiple disruptions and innovations. Now a new car can come out of an Assembly Line every 3 seconds.

The product itself — which is the car — has evolved from a modest mechanical marvel to a complex intelligent system, comprising an array of technologies, electronics, and materials.

Initially, the automobile industry was driven by Mass Production, Lean Methodologies, and Globalisation. However, with the advent of industry 4.0, the future of the automobile industry is hinged on data-led manufacturing.

Industry 4.0 has disrupted every sector and industry today, likewise.

Data, they say, is the new oil, today.

Products are increasingly becoming servitized.

I mean when you purchase an iPhone today, you just purchased a piece of service from Apple.

When you purchase an Electric Vehicle (EV) from Tesla today, you just got yourself a piece of service that is continuously being monitored and analysed remotely for improvements and maintenance.

Even MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) services in the aviation sector rely heavily on data for predictive maintenance and analytics.

So, it becomes obvious that the focus — for these sectors — is the final product, which is otherwise a service.

While the process that produces these products is very vital, the attention is more on the user experience with these products than it is on the process.

So my question is this: why is the construction sector seemingly stuck with figuring out what BIM is and what BIM is not?

Designed by vectorjuice on Freepik

First, I will start by admitting that the important role BIM (Building Information Modeling) is playing in the built sector cannot be overstated, considering the disintegrated manner with which an average project is delivered.

As a process that harnesses the inputs of the major stakeholders on a project, one of the most important outcomes of BIM deployment on a project is an accurate BIM Model.

With the BIM model, the entire delivery process on a construction site can be simulated, and all potential sources of wastes and inefficiencies can be eliminated ahead of time, through virtual simulations. The built assets are also analysed extensively during design, and everyone’s input is captured more cohesively.

This is a great leap from the disjointed delivery approach that is found in traditional project delivery in the built sector.

The reservation I have with the current attention on BIM, however, is that we tend to focus more on eliminating wastes during the delivery process and focus less on the experience within these facilities. This is not to say that the former is not important.

So, I will put it in another way, we have become more facility-centric as an industry, and less user-centric.

By user-centric facilities, I mean facilities that are designed as services, leveraging Data Analytics to capture and improve the end-user experience — just like in sister industries.

These are otherwise referred to as Smart Buildings.

Let’s take it back to the Automobile sector.

For servitized vehicles to work, there are three major components: the physical entities in the real world, their virtual models, and the connected data/view that ties the two worlds together.

This is, otherwise, known as Digital Twin Architecture.

So, the theme of this article is that the intersection between Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Smart Buildings is Digital Twins.

Source: https://job-wizards.com/en/digital-twins-doubling-the-potential-for-innovation/

From sister industries, advances in digital twin capabilities have been driven by four key technologies:

1. IoT & Big Data — The proliferation of sensors on assets or components combined with connected systems allow organizations to gain detailed insights into live performance.
2. Advanced analytics — Through Machine Learning, this data can be used to predict and simulate the future condition or deterioration of the asset in question.
3. Computing Power — Cloud-based technology vastly improves the affordability and availability of the computing power required to run large-scale digital twin models for these industries.
4. Accessibility — Where previously a digital twin may have been locked in the control room of a factory or organization, this data can now be accessed from anywhere via mobile devices.

Bringing it back to the built sector, it becomes obvious that an accurate BIM Model, otherwise known as a Record Model is just a starting point for Digital Twin implementation and real-time feedback from the end-users of a facility.

So far, I’ve traced the important role that BIM plays in the built sector, as well as how Digital Twin is being implemented in sister industries. I’ve also established that the point of intersection between BIM and Smart Buildings is Digital Twins.

But what exactly is a Smart Building?

Designed by dr.digitex on Freepik

According to James Sinopoli, Smart Building Technology is the process of conceiving, designing, constructing, commissioning, and operating buildings, leveraging technology to optimize the goals and objectives of the built environment.

From the definition, it becomes obvious that there is a process side to Smart Buildings, which entails a BIM Workflow. But to complement that process, technology needs to be leveraged to optimize the goals and objectives of the built environment.

Talking about technology. here are some technology systems you can find in a Smart Building:

1. Energy and Comfort Systems: such as HVAC Systems, Smart Lighting Systems, as well as EPMS.
2. Entertainment Systems: such as Audio and Video Distribution Systems, Gaming Solutions, as well as Virtual/Augmented Reality.
3. Security Systems: such as Access Control Systems, IP Surveillance Systems, as well as Cybersecurity Systems.
4. Communication Systems: such as Teleconference Systems, IP Telephony Systems, as well as Digital Signage Systems.
5. Utility Systems: such as Healthcare Systems, Irrigation Systems, as well as BMS
6. Lifestyle Systems: such as Social Media, Wearables and Smart Gadgets/IoT Devices
7. Control Systems: which is the overarching platform that unites all the other systems.

Taking a deep look at this, it becomes clear that a Smart Building has both structural and technology components.

In other words, Smart Buildings have both hard and soft sides.

So, how do we capture all these in a BIM Model?

Even more importantly, how will the BIM Model be converted to a Digital Twin that communicates with the Smart Building in realtime?

Going back to those enabling technologies that had made Digital Twin implementation possible in sister industries, you realise that we have the infrastructure in place already.

1. The first enabler is IoT and Big Data. Most of these technology systems are IoT devices, which can be accounted for in the BIM Model, and linked to the Smart Building with sensors.
2. The second enabler is Data Analytics. There are already some platforms in the industry that analyse the data coming from these devices in a unified way, and offer actionable insights. Such a platform as Mindsphere from Siemens is a good example.
3. The third enabler is Computing Power. These platforms — including Facility Management Systems (FMS) are all cloud-based today. This drastically improves computing power, as well as affordability and availability.
4. The fourth enabler is Accessibility. Being cloud-based, these insights can be easily accessed from mobile devices from any part of the globe.

It’s safe to say that as an industry — the built sector — we are just getting started. BIM is just the entry point, but it provides a good source of data.

However, the Digital Transformation of the built sector is way beyond BIM and all the other emerging trends that tend to focus on the efficient delivery of facilities.

These are just prerequisites to the main issue, which is the servitization of built assets for an optimal end-user experience.

In essence, for us to deliver truly Smart Buildings, Digital Twins will serve as the point of intersection between where we are today and the future that we wish to see.

Listen to the podcast here.

About the Author

Onyema Udeze is the host of The Blaze Podcast.

He is the co-founder of Blaze Inc., a fast-rising startup, based in Nigeria that is tackling the inefficiencies in the built sector through numerous channels; such as services, and interactive contents.

He is also a Founding Director of ‘BIM Africa Initiative’, which is a pan-African, membership-based, non-profit organisation that is charged with BIM Awareness and Implementations across Africa.

He is the author of the book Essentials of Smart Building Technology, which is currently available on all the popular e-book stores.

He is an Instructor at Linkedin Learning.

He is an Autodesk Certified Professional for Revit Architecture, Mechanical and Electrical.

By profession, he is an Architect. But he has a vast interest in Technology Solutions in the built sector, especially those with relevant applications across Africa.