Myths and reality about BIM: the opinion of the CEO of the engineering company

- There is a lot that has already been written about BIM, both standing for and against it, and we would like to know more about your opinion based on many years’ experience.

- My experience in implementing and developing BIM in a large design company is a little less than 10 years. At the same time, I would like to point out that despite the fact that we have already invested a lot in the development of BIM, not everything goes as smoothly as we would like it to go, nevertheless I definitely remain a strong supporter of BIM. I think we are on the right track and it is BIM that opens for us a whole lot of new opportunities for development.

My opinion is concise: with BIM - it is not tomorrow anymore, without BIM - it is certainly yesterday.

- How was the implementation of BIM going in your company and what were the difficulties you faced?

So, our company is quite a big one, with about 370 employees now, and we started implementing BIM in 2014. It really makes sense to look back at the long way we have come. At first it was very challenging. Not all the specialists were fond of innovation, there was lack in competence, the processes were not set up properly, and there were too few leaders ready to implement. Moreover, as it always happens, we had last-minute deadlines and there was no time left for BIM, when we needed to meet a project schedule just a month or two later .... Another thing – to be honest, probably the leadership team lacked managerial skills at the initial stages.

- Could you please tell what factors would you consider a priority for the implementation of BIM to be as effective as possible?

Well, the first point is that I absolutely support the idea that the competent and steady leadership of the top management is crucial. Anything will hardly work without this.

Furthermore, you will definitely need a BIM manager (BIM leader). Someone may think that specialists will somehow sort it out by themselves (I’ve heard such opinions from some of my colleagues), - but believe me, it is not going to happen.

Another one of my points - it is important to understand that BIM requires investments and rather big ones, which need to occur on a regular basis. BIM is all about constant development. Once you start working with it, you will not be able to stop. It was not easy, but we got through the hardest part of development in the course of 5 years. Fortunately, thanks to the level we’ve reached with BIM, we were able to receive government support. This allowed us to make an even bigger advancement in BIM development.

- Is it true that the use of BIM reduces the cost and time spent on design?

It is definitely not true, especially at the initial stage. Design becomes more labor-intensive and therefore more expensive. It is important to understand here that the main investment in the development of BIM is not the purchase of computers and software licenses, and not even one-time training for specialists, but the fact that the projects suffer losses in the next year or two. We keep records of labor costs for each project, and if I see losses in result, I understand that this is an investment in development.

But in general, it is not really that pessimistic financially. In fact, when people master BIM tools and when you get BIM programmers in your team and start using automation tools, then you begin to win both in terms of labor costs and in terms of time-consumption in comparison with 2D design.

- Is there something else that is important for the successful development of BIM in the company, from your point of view?

What is really essential for the development of BIM is a well-functioning BIM team and the creation of BIM infrastructure in general. BIM is about the team! We have a whole separate BIM department consisting of BIM managers, BIM coordinators, BIM masters and BIM programmers.

Regarding BIM infrastructure, it is the foundation for the knowledge and information, because BIM is an array of information which is important to systematize and accumulate, this is our distance learning system, which allows our specialists in different cities to improve their knowledge of BIM tools, and of course the BIM library of templates, families, scripts, plugins, etc. Obviously, it is difficult for small companies to create and develop such a system on their own, therefore, for example, we already have experience of giving access to other small design organizations to use our system for a fee. This strategy also pays off our development.

- It may seem unreasonable to go through all these difficulties for such a long time period. As for you, what are the real benefits of using BIM design for a contractor company?

Despite all the obstacles, we will readily keep developing BIM in our company. As for my vision of benefits:

1.??????The first thing why BIM is worth developing is high quality. If you don’t want to feel ashamed in front of the customer during architectural supervision and pay for builders’ alterations, then BIM helps a lot with a function of periodic checking and correction of collisions. Nevertheless, I will notice right away that BIM does not exclude errors happening due to the poor qualification of the engineer, but it excludes errors resulting from the lack of attention. The engineer should be an engineer, BIM does not replace professional knowledge, it is just a convenient and modern tool.

2.??????Communication with the customer and in the team. Especially nowadays not all customers are engineers, not all of them can read drawings, and moreover not everybody understands what exactly they need at the initial stage. We use Agile methods in our work, and this is where BIM helps us a lot. Every week we try to hold meetings with customers, show them what we have on our 3D models. The customer can see it right away, have a clear vision and tell us what he/she likes or not. We fix the details here and now according to the customer’s desire and do not have to change everything at the moment when most of the work has already been done. Plus, in this case no "technical misunderstanding" arises within the team itself.

3.??????Opportunities for remote work. The first time we realized this was when Covid was spreading and we moved everyone to work from home. As a result, our performance was not affected at all. It is hard to say what would have happened if we had worked in 2D at that time, but I think it would have been much more difficult and tricky. Now we have employees working remotely from different cities, from different countries - and there’s a feeling that a person is just in the next office. This is our new reality.

4.??????For us BIM is an opportunity to operate in many markets, in all countries around the world.

5.??????The list of benefits can be endless, really. I will just add one more thing to it. BIM is an opportunity to move on and introduce other new technologies: virtual and augmented reality, 4 and 5D, 6D, laser scanning, artificial intelligence and, I think, much more in the future. But probably it makes sense to write about it separately.

And finally, is there anything you wish to say to your colleagues?

Well, I am not claiming that both quality and remote work are impossible without BIM, obviously, everything is possible, but it's definitely easier with BIM. To work in BIM or not, whether to invest in such development – it is up to everyone to decide for themselves. I do believe that whoever doesn't start today will hardly start ever. As for our company, we are always open to cooperate and ready to support our colleagues in professional development. Please, do not hesitate?to contact us.

Best wishes,

Grigory Kuzmich, CEO of ENECA group?