Cross-Discipline
Integrated BIM… Integrated with What?
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Building information modeling (BIM) is a technology driven phenomenon sweeping the AECO Industry. Prior to the current down turn owners were clamoring for increased efficiency and productivity in the planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance of facilities and the infrastructure that supports those facilities. Many viewed BIM as a Panacea, and rushed to implement BIM programs. Institutional owners like the General Services Administration (GSA) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USCA) at the federal level, state officials in Texas, California and Wisconsin and a myriad of private owners adopted BIM guidelines of varying quality. In the rush to adopt BIM those owners overlooked the need to marry BIM to effective lean business processes and to develop integrated agreements and procurement processes that actually support and enable the use of BIM on one hand and lean construction processes on the other. BIM alone can increase efficiency and productivity for a few industry stakeholders. But Integrated BIM will, eventually, allow owners to leverage digital assets by connecting real time web-based information about building components, supporting infrastructure, building systems, as well as maintenance and operations programs. The graphic below visually depicts the correct balance between BIM, lean construction processes and the integrated agreements and procurement processes required to support those innovative new tools.
Integrated BIM… owners want it, how do they get it? Too often, owners – even sophisticated owners – have no idea how to procure effective BIM services. Further, too few constructors, designers, consultants and trade contractors understand BIM. Between cryptic BIM requirements in RFPs and cumbersome BIM guidelines owners seeking BIM seem to be confusing designers, contractors and trade contractors about what BIM is and why they want it. This article explores some – though by no means all – of the challenges to procuring an effective Integrated BIM. The AECO community must recognize the long term value of investing in Integrated BIM and deploying the collaborative and integrated processes necessary to procure Integrated BIM services.
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by: James L. Salmon, Esq
The current best efforts at BIM result in something called a Federated BIM model which is an amalgamation of models created on disparate software platforms by a series of disparate entities bound together, at best, by an integrated agreement related to a single project. Few of the entities involved – be they owners, contractors, designers or software providers – are prepared to work together cooperatively and collaboratively. The software tools are not interoperable and cannot, generally, share BIM data on a cross disciplinary basis. Once cobbled together the Federated BIM Model is most often leveraged by constructors, both general contractors and trade contractors, to increase the efficiency and productivity with which they deliver their services. The occasional windfall is pocketed by the entity it falls too and others are simply frustrated by a series of strange new business processes.
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Designers are particularly disillusioned with BIM as it calls on them to modify their business models, invest in new software, hardware and training and to accept the same fees for more work, at least the first time around. Even designers who recognize the
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