UK wants

In reference to the UK economy, the government’s chief construction adviser Paul Morrell used the popular refrain ‘up shit creek without a paddle’. He explained how the government was looking for ‘paddles’, and in his industry BIM was the paddle

BIM: what your government wants

The message is out: Building Information Modelling (BIM) will be mandated on all UK government building projects by 2016. AEC Magazine reports on what that means for the construction industry.

BIM: what your government wants

Whatever your view of data that is of use to manage the facility The UK undoubtedly has world-class Building Information after hand over. design in the AEC space and the governModelling (BIM), it seems To do this the client must be very specific ment considers that this should be part of that the UK Government about what the deliverables are and the an integrated offer of construction, as has bought into the vision hook line and government is currently defining what opposed to the traditionally fragmented sinker. As a result by 2016 all major projects information it wants at each stage of design approach to design and construction that carried out with public money will have to and construction and in what format. These we have suffered from for far too long. have a BIM-relevant process and data deliv- protocols will not stipulate a specific BIM Mr Morrell typified the UK approach as ered in additional file formats. system or proprietary file/database format. being “the least possible work, at the last

The BIM mandate is to be phased in over Mr Morrell is a great speaker and frames possible moment at the highest cost” and five years beginning this summer. At the the decision for mandating BIM by going that clearly is not fit for purpose. moment there is no preconceived notion as back to first principles. For the UK that We now need to take leadership at delivto a limit in the value of projects that it is started with the financial crash of 2008. ering projects that “modernise the world”, not applicable to, but with such a major cli- David Smith, chief economic reporter at the he said. This means we have to do the basics ent demanding a change in working meth- Sunday Times, ran an article at the time well and be able to repeat it — a major chalodology the idea is that it will become the stating that, according to the UK Treasury, lenge. Mr Morrell cited the London industry-wide norm for all projects. Herein it would take until 2031 - 2032 to get back Olympics as an example of how it could be lies the fear for the vast majority of archi- to borrowing figures that were previously done. However, he tempered that praise by tects that have not yet bought into a 3D col- known as prudent (40% of GDP). That saying that other countries do the same, laborative approach. would only happen if a generation of exces- more frequently, citing a major road repair

Both Autodesk and Bentley ran BIM con- sive debt could be wiped out — and this in Japan after the tsunami, which only took ferences recently. Autodesk repeated its was before the problems in the Eurozone six days — less time that the project scoping excellent day of talks from the investigation would take in previous year, although this time the Autodesk messaging was stronger and the ‘warts ‘‘ Mr Morrell typified the UK approach as the UK. Mr Morrell said that the UK still takes a “very 19th centuand all’ presentations seemed being ‘the least possible work, at the last ry” hierarchical approach to to have less warts than before. Bentley’s first BIM event possible moment at the highest cost’ and projects, where everyone knows their “place”, but diswas smaller and not necessar- that clearly is not fit for purpose putes are commonplace and ily 100% about BIM, with an example of the benefits of Generative Components ’’ data is not shared, is lost in the process and ultimately not delivered to the client for thrown in and a comprehensive description countries kicked off. downstream use. Because of this, Mr of the Bentley product suite, which actually In a reference to the popular refrain ‘up Morrell sees BIM as being a way to fix the was very useful. shit creek without a paddle’, to describe a process as it forces collaboration and data

Both events shared two industry speak- hopeless situation, Mr Morrell said that the sharing and turns the hierarchy upside ers, chief construction adviser to the gov- government was looking for ‘paddles’ and down. ernment Paul Morrell and chief informa- that BIM was a big paddle. On top of that, clients are fed up of getting tion officer, Business Systems, at URS Scott However, despite this healthy dose of buildings that do not perform as they were Wilson and chair of the BIM working group cynicism, Mr Morrell does believe that original specified to do. In some studies, Mark Bew. While Mr Morrell put the gov- there are opportunities through mandating 40% of new buildings still miss their origiernment’s decision in context, Mr Bew BIM. Population growth is demanding nal efficiency targets. It seems very little spelled out the process of deliverables and investment in infrastructure globally. Many thought is given to maintenance in the the timeline for standards, guides, classifi- of these projects will need to manage and design phase, increasing the cost throughcations documentation and delivery, com- efficiently use finite resources — offering out occupancy. This can equally be applied monly referred to as the B/555 roadmap. potential work for UK companies. to existing ‘as built’ assets — with 25 milWe are living in a world of “too little cash lion homes in the UK needing energy retroMorrell’s home truths and too much carbon”, according to Mr fitting by 2050. Paul Morrell’s guiding statement is that Morrell. We have to “think our way out of Mr Morrell admitted that the government BIM is not about a specific technology or these new metrics of design and try new needs to build but has no money and that product, but a process to give clients all the ways of working”. the industry wants to build but has no

work. That should lead to a “great moment technology from a vendor for BIM software. events, many still admitted to being there of change”, according to Mr Morrell, who The process has to be open and observe the out of fear. On current margins and with urged the industry to take full advantage. various BS standards. However, the group has current work levels, the cost of buying new carried out benchmarks on BIM technologies software, hardware and training is simply

The government sees BIM as a way to and if significant benefits were not seen then not an option for them, but they fear their drive efficiency during the economic the technology would be retested. clients will demand BIM more out of heardownturn so that UK companies are Mr Bew believes we are very much at the ing the buzzword than actually wanting the best placed in five to 10 years time to thin end of the wedge when it comes to fully deliverable. compete on the international stage. “BIM is understanding the working processes that Similarly, in the US I have met architects hard” recognises Mr Morrell. “But never will be required in four years’ time. who are told by the government to use Revit, mind how hard it is to build a digital model The first move is the mobilisation of the but all the client wanted was 2D drawings. and to get all the uses out of it and to get the industry to consider the task in hand, then This clearly puts a huge economic strain on systems to talk to one another — it must be in phase 1, the early adopters deal with the many practises. surely easier than what we do now, which is cultural issues, derive consistency through Education and mandates cannot be just a 1:1 model, out in the wind and the rain, experience and become familiar with the for one side of the equation. loaded with risk.” ‘packaging’. Here COBIE, a US spreadsheet I have said it before and I will say it again:

Previous governments have tried to push formula, is the main BIM deliverable on top one of the main benefits being sold here is the industry to change its ways, most of traditional drawings. the advantage of silo removal and collabofamously with the 2004 Latham and 2008 Phase 2 will take us to the five-year mark ration; but the core BIM tools from the variEgan reports into driving construction and will include delivering a data repository ous vendors do not play well with one industry efficiency improvements, and of some kind with COBIE enriched data on another. It took 20 years to get 2D CAD sysspending 20 million in the process. But live projects. tems to sort out data sharing and most of it nothing has changed. Mr Morrell decided that, in order to change a business you ‘‘ The government sees BIM as a way to was done by reverse engineering Autodesk’s 2D DWG standard. Now the software comhave to change its drivers, not just preach to them; so the decision to adopt BIM moves the drive efficiency during the economic downturn so that UK companies are panies have an opportunity to sell a completely new CAD system or enhanced capabilidebate from preaching to prac- best placed in five to 10 years time to ties to the same customers ticing. Now, both clients and practitioners have to change compete on the international stage again (at a hefty profit) and in the process data interoperaand Mr Morrell’s task is to build the structure to support this with steering committees from within Phases 3 and 4 call for web data and pro’’ bility is going to be bombed back to the stone age. COBIE is a lowest common denominator the industry, meaning that the private sector cess driven deliverables, with a possible ISO — it is the ‘I’ in BIM but not the geometry. is assisting in deriving government policy. standard for BIM. Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) are too

However, Mr Morrell did admit that this Mr Bew’s roadmap looks to be very com- limited and not guaranteed to be anywhere move to BIM was akin to JFK’s ‘We are going plicated, as one would expect with such a near 100%. to the moon’ speech — we have a destination, Herculean task and there is no single ‘file’ The UK is a nation of builders and but still have to work out a way to get there. that will do the job. BIM will mean that data designers. This was a great opportunity to is ‘filtered’ out of various systems depending get the software vendors to actually work Mark Bew on the requirement. together and improve a problem that everyMark Bew, chair of the BIM working group, one can see coming. At the moment it seems is the ‘details man’ in the drive to get UK Conclusion the only way to remove the problem of practicing BIM in the next four years Mr Morrell makes a great case and I think interoperability is for everyone to use the The working group actively chose to not most people agree that the industry could same system. define what BIM is; but to work out what the work together better. Heads needs to be As such, architects I have talked to are needs of the government were in mandating cracked together in order to change the cul- worried about a) investing in the wrong sysBIM. It was decided that BIM is all about ture of the industry, and perhaps this latest tem until a dominant player comes to the data and where data could be shared, and move by the government will be the one to fore, and b) investing full stop. commercial targets. achieve that. However, talking to a few In the meantime we will keep watching The group is not allowed to specify any one architects at the Autodesk and Bentley and seeing how the roadmap develops.