Doing your research when selecting BIM technology

Going out to choose new technology can be an intimidating process. The most important thing is to understand your needs. Determine what problems with your current processes you’re trying to solve and ensure that the technology, products, and services that you consider are real solutions.

The key to making BIM work for you is that its implementation should add value and improve efficiency right across your operation. This section gives you some quick tips to make sure you have the best chance of selecting the most appropriate tools and platforms for your business. Vendors use the term platform to describe their BIM products and that’s what software is: a platform for building on, taking off from, or creating something new.

With new technology, you have a lot of decisions to make. To ensure that any new systems you implement are useful, consider these key tips:

• Research. Investigate each possible alternative before committing to anything. Use vendor websites to find out the key facts that may affect you, such as cost, training options, or file formats. Make sure you differentiate between the promises of sales brochures and the details that directly apply to your business and your office.
• Ask the people you trust. Everyone is in the same boat. Rest assured that every office and every business (no matter the size) is at various stages of BIM implementation and must make its own decisions. Benefit from the knowledge and experience of peers and contacts across the industry by asking them for advice. Certain information brings a commercial advantage, so some people may be reluctant to share confidential plans, but you’ll find that most are vocal with their opinions.
• Compare features against cost. Focus on the essentials. Remember that software with the most bells and whistles isn’t necessarily the best option. For your needs, you may only want simple functionality or a cheaper, very specific product that offers an ideal solution.
• See whether you can demo. Ask whether you can test-drive products, services, and other technology before you buy. Ensure that you use the demo time efficiently, carrying out real tasks and recording metrics like time and ease of use.
• Be prepared to change later. Don’t constrain yourself to one option too early. Think about what products you may want to link and integrate with other systems and technology, especially existing processes that are important to you.

Using BIM technology to your advantage

As with any new technology, think about the benefits it can provide in replacement of existing processes. For example, compare how you currently determine the energy efficiency of a building with the various tools, software, methods, and guidance available. Look at the many CAD modeling programs that offer in-built tools for determining environmental performance, often to demonstrate meeting regulatory requirements. As part of BIM, you can combine this data with briefing and performance specification, location-based factors, environmental consultancy, and product vendor values to refine energy-efficient design of buildings.

Any technology used as part of BIM implementation should provide the following key benefits:

• Find additional convenience or efficiency. If you’re struggling to locate information when you’re searching for it or your current technology is slowing down your working processes, look at alternative tools.
• Do everything faster. You live in a world obsessed with having the answer yesterday. Instead of complex calculations and measurements, you can run reports and take-offs from CAD and specification software faster than ever before and make automated processes more efficient, tailored to your workflows.
• Access knowledge and information. The Internet and digital publishing has opened up a wealth of linked and updated information such as building codes, manufacturer and vendor data, specification guidance, and best-practice method reports. Alongside proprietary information, you can build your own digital library of BIM project data. Find opportunities for using digital library content, such as learning from an error or achievement in a previous project and adding that knowledge back into the office database.
• Combine data. A critical aspect of BIM success is the ability to bring together multiple strands of data into one report. This may be for the purposes of clash detection; for example, working out where pipework collides with a concrete wall.
• Increase communication between team members. BIM technology should make cooperative work easier — for example, coordinating the delivery of landscape design based on information from civil, structural, architectural, services, environmental, and landscape design teams.

Encouraging people to use something new

In order to ensure that BIM has the best chance of success, you need to give people the best chance of understanding what it can do for them, at their desks, every single day. You need to prepare positive and effective training that will support users, not only to understand BIM as a theory, but through the inevitable changes to working practice and processes. In the next section, we discuss change management. Chapter 14 looks at change and implementation in more detail.

Put yourself in the position of someone handed a new electronic device without warning. You’re told this device will make work easier, make your day more efficient, and help you to communicate with project teams. However, you’ve received no instructions and no training. You’re not even sure how to turn it on. What would happen to the device? Would you try to work things out for yourself? Would you believe what you were being told about its potential? That’s what BIM can feel like for busy people who keep hearing about it but aren’t kept in the loop.

Noticing common issues and themes

You can position BIM implementation as a direct response to the concerns and problems flagged by your colleagues, but start with the obvious things. There are likely to be common themes about a particular program, office equipment, or Internet speed that can be relatively easy to solve but can provide huge benefits and cost savings.

These different concerns need various approaches to finding solutions:

• Systems that are obsolete or obsolescent: Some of your systems will eventually fall into obsolescence, or become obsolete.

  • Obsolescent describes something passing out of usefulness. Some vendors use planned obsolescence to encourage buyers to upgrade to the next product, including some technology manufacturers.
  • Obsolete means something no longer in common use, generally because it has been replaced by something better.

  This issue can be relatively simple to resolve, because new versions of systems and software may be available that your organization has never considered or deemed too expensive. Investing in these advanced releases can have a significant impact on productivity. Look for free updates to software or support fixes that will upgrade system performance.

• Frustration at time wasted: This concern could have multiple causes not related to technology at all, but often they’re simple factors such as Internet speed or delayed system computing power. Contact the relevant system providers and vendors to see whether you can make performance gains by changing configurations or settings.
• Duplication of effort or having to rework mistakes: This issue is the very kind that BIM implementation aims to solve. Aim to change internal processes to coordinate information more efficiently and avoid repeated errors from project to project.

• No access to project information: This is a traditional problem in many offices. Finding critical data about the performance of a system or vendor data about the supply of a product can be difficult, especially if other teams are working on the project. High-quality BIM objects carry hundreds of properties for this kind of data. Properties refer to characteristics that can be assigned to objects to reflect specific information — for example, technical data or functions for designing, calculating, or constructing the object. Note that the terms parameters and attributes are also used in BIM platforms and construction information. Collectively, these bits of information form a property set.

  Because objects are information in their own right, this additional content is called metadata, which is data used for the description and management of documents or other containers of information or the data content. Literally meaning after data, this term just means to describe a level of abstraction from the information held in each object.

A good way to review your requirements is to run through an imaginary perfect process and record it. Take a large sheet of paper and in one color draw out each stage of how things should work together and approximately how long tasks should take. Now compare this with your last project by adding real timescales and actual project tasks to the diagram in a different color. This exercise can provide a clear visual representation of where problems occur.

Investigating how BIM can help your team

You should be able to explain in your own words what’s wrong with the technology and processes your business uses on each project prior to BIM implementation. Many of the issues are obvious and BIM can create change in lots of ways directly in your office. However, the ideal is to consider BIM across the entire project timeline.

Here’s a list of the benefits of BIM that will underpin all future project work in your organization:

• Prioritizing health and safety: Keep site safety in mind constantly. BIM implementation must reduce the number of construction site fatalities by improving site planning and operation. BIM should encourage safer construction and fabrication methods.
• Reducing the need for changes: Build everything digitally first, long before ground is broken on-site. Many BIM platforms provide clash detection functionality to highlight building issues, especially between coordinated information from multiple teams.
• Improving design and construction quality: Don’t believe anyone who says that BIM removes the element of design from the built environment. Use the power of the BIM platforms and related tools to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Overall, you can improve construction quality because BIM best practice should resolve every detail. Consider everything from a contractor’s point of view.
• Prefabricating: After you design each element and define quantities, you can consider prefabrication far earlier in the process than ever before, such as pre-cast concrete or pre-welded steel. Think about the opportunities for off-site manufacturing and design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA), speed of construction, site safety, and build quality.

Starting with what you already have

Everyone has to start somewhere. Some of your existing systems and processes will survive the advent of BIM-focused procedures, but you’ll need to replace others or evolve them to meet the demands of a progressively more informed industry. To determine the quality of what currently exists, you can run a series of investigations.

An understanding of your technology and internal systems is important, but never lose sight of the bigger picture. BIM isn’t about software, and its cost shouldn’t be an obstacle to implementing BIM processes and improvements. The research you do now ensures that you’re investing in the right software and platforms, which can make the wider change management process far more successful.

To define and analyze your processes and systems:

• Identify hardware and record the specification, age, and performance of the machines.
• Review software, including its version number, update process, and its usage if possible.
• Recognize up-front costs and the cost of licenses or subscriptions required.
• Understand infrastructure, including Internet service provision and the server arrangements your company data is built and stored on. Consider that external companies and data centers may provide storage.
• Categorize basic devices such as phone systems, which can still be integral to even the most online, agile, and efficient of modern offices. Consider finding an alternative to the fax machine.
• Include off-site tools such as company laptops or mobile phones that form part of your wider network of connected devices and business systems.

You may feel confident conducting this type of systems research yourself, or you may be part of a company where a business systems team collects and manages this data on a regular basis, saving you some work. If not, you can employ consulting companies to do various levels of systems analysis for a fee.

Investing to make long-term savings

You can understand that some investment is necessary for any business development. Often an upfront cost, investment in BIM can also include time, resources, ongoing costs, and other overheads. For any outgoing budget for systems or resources, you want to see a return on investment as soon as possible. Now that a great deal of BIM case studies and reports are displaying benefits and efficiencies, you may feel additional pressure to demonstrate savings and profits early. However, realize that BIM is a long-term investment. You may be able to show that BIM is an immediate advantage to your business but the real benefits are more likely ongoing and gradual. You may need to convince senior finance staff that the time and money required for BIM will affect processes they’re not necessarily ever likely to be part of on the ground. By making these process changes on the shop floor, you’ll see larger efficiencies.

You need to justify the cost of BIM implementation to the business. Some companies consider passing on the cost of their BIM implementation to their clients or to increase fees related to specific projects that are using BIM processes. Think carefully about how doing so affects your commercial advantage; for example, when tendering against other businesses. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes — would you think it was fair that investment in making a profitable service better was directly passed on to you? You may write off the cost as part of business income development. Consider the options for capital allowances in your region. Grant assistance programs may also be available to contribute to the costs of BIM implementation.

Involving everyone in BIM

Although focusing on the impact of BIM on your personal situation and everyday processes is important, keeping every member of the project team, from client to end users, in mind when developing BIM strategies and implementation plans is beneficial. Here are a couple of short sections that contain tips for engaging everyone at all levels of your organization.

Avoiding the hype

New and shiny ideas that take hold in the industry can heap pressure on companies to stay relevant and appear ahead of the curve. The requirement to demonstrate sustainability led to a huge amount of green-wash, inflated credentials about how sustainable companies were. Green-wash could be found across the built environment sector, from contractors indicating how much of their material was recycled to product manufacturers demonstrating sustainable sourcing of timber or responsible water use. You’ve probably noticed exactly the same thing happening with BIM and this type of overblown hype has been dubbed BIM-wash, the unrealistic statements of how BIM-capable a company is.

BIM-wash and posturing about BIM competency has a negative impact on trust and relationships across the design team. More and more clients and employers are asking for BIM at its various levels but not understanding what they’re really asking for. Tenderers such as designers, contractors, and consultants are claiming to be able to deliver against the requests to win the job — creating a maddening loop of vague requirements and subsequent failure to deliver. Based on this confusion, many of the most popular BIM tools and software platforms claim to be the ultimate BIM solution or to provide a dedicated answer for your particular discipline. The topics you’re trying to solve with BIM tools may include

• Existing slow or poor systems (for example, file storage or email document exchange, full memory, making the most of cloud services)
• Lack of communication (for example, between members of a team, between multiple teams or between multiple companies)
• Need for additional data and metadata (for example, searching for who added the information and when)
• Issues with collaborative working (for example, wanting to combine multiple information sets into one connected, federated model, and running clash detection reports)
• Ability to update information as required (for example, changing a property like a door size globally across all views and documents)
• Quality and speed of visualization of the project model (for example, producing high-quality, realistic rendering of the project)

Finding out what’s best for your organization

People give opinions and reviews of BIM tools, platforms, and software systems all the time, especially on industry blogs and in magazines and journals. Keep an eye out for objective reviews rather than paid advertisement features and gain as much information as possible before making your selections. Read through all you can to determine which ones fit your organization’s needs the best.

As you can see, BIM tools have some obvious and not-so-obvious benefits. You can organize a number of ways to compare and contrast functionality between software vendors.

If you arrange the following types of sessions, you can also increase user engagement and generate enthusiasm. Here are some good ideas for how to increase awareness and shared knowledge of BIM software and supporting systems:

• Have existing users in your organization demonstrate some software. Doing so can be very informal and inexpensive. You can plan a Q&A session as part of this demonstration and ask colleagues to submit questions in advance, allowing you to filter and consolidate concerns or queries.
• Invite an external vendor to provide a continuing professional development (CPD) session over lunchtime. Sometimes these sessions can turn quickly into sales presentations, so clarify your agenda with the sales representative and say that you’ll discuss costs or licensing options outside of the group meeting.
• Arrange a site visit to another office or company that uses the software. Paul has previously arranged one of these sessions and he found it much easier to organize with a company that works in a different sector or discipline to avoid any competition or privacy issues getting in the way of what’s just an open investigation. If the company seems reluctant, offer to sign nondisclosure agreements about anything that colleagues see or discuss. This is a great strategy when you’re gradually rolling out BIM applications between multiple offices. After the first implementation, you always have a very relevant case study to learn from that can produce excellent cross-office communication and team-building.
• Book meeting time for internal review and brainstorming sessions. The collective wisdom of the group provides good insight into the implementation, beyond what you’ve already considered. Others may be able to share personal experience or suggest software and tools that you haven’t encountered.

Discovering free tools

Alongside a variety of licensed proprietary software, many BIM platform vendors are part of an organization called Open BIM (an initiative of buildingSMART) or the BIM Vendor Technology Alliance, so they’ll provide free tools too. You can especially find free software for viewing (not editing) model content. Some of these tools are industry specific, whereas others are more generic and made for non-designers:

• Open BIM viewers, designed to allow navigation of a range of open file formats including Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), BIM Collaboration Format (BCF), and gbXML
• Clash detection model-checking software, interrogating model information, and change control reviewer apps for managing revisions
• Proprietary viewers to review architectural or MEP content designed using specific BIM platforms
• Viewers with the ability to add comments, record screenshots, and embed model information into presentations
• Mobile device model readers to explore BIM visualizations as walkthroughs on tablets and smartphones, such as the augmented reality (AR) model viewer
• Virtual process engineering viewers

You can find some software and services offered on a freemium basis. The freemium model limits access to certain aspects or sets restrictions on usage in the free version, but you can unlock additional features for a premium charge. Some of the free versions of software offered using this business model can often be suitable for certain sizes of practice or certain commercial uses. You can use freemium models as a good way of trying out some services without committing to the cost of the full application, particularly for online services like virtual conference and meeting tools or file storage and database providers.

Data theft is a bigger commercial risk than it’s ever been, and security of your data has become a paramount concern. In any CPD sessions, demonstrations or trial versions, make sure that you’re maintaining standard data protection and data security policies throughout; for example, not using live customer data or project content. As the industry moves into an increasingly mobile and connected working environment, you need to ensure that smartphones, tablets, and devices are secured and don’t provide an opportunity for someone to steal personal or confidential data. During the investigation phase, colleagues may want to download applications and trial versions of software. Centralize this process to maintain anti-virus and anti-spyware protocols.

Realizing that BIM will shake up things

You may hear BIM termed a disruptive technology, meaning that it has the potential to dramatically affect the construction industry by upsetting traditional processes and wiping out some obsolescent systems altogether. You can only ensure that your business is prepared for what you already know:

• You probably use an electronic key fob to open your car but, like the vast majority of people, use a metal key to open your front door. Smart homes will begin to resemble the on-board electronic systems of cars more and more as the Internet of Things and embedded sensor technology become commonplace.
• Product manufacturers will continue to develop new materials to provide greater efficiency in manufacturing and high performance or energy benefits in use, such as aerodynamic paint finishes, ultra-thin but efficient insulation, or very lightweight but immensely strong cladding panels.
• 3D printing has moved from a craft peculiarity to a potential solution for the mass production of housing or infrastructure. The advancement of robotic engineering will automate many manual and labor-intensive processes across the industry. See Chapter 20 for more information on the future of BIM technology.

Don’t expect to do the entirety of BIM implementation yourself. You may feel incapable of doing certain facets of BIM implementation and that’s perfectly reasonable. Maintain a positive and enthusiastic overview of the entire process, no matter what hurdles you encounter. Some things will fall into place very quickly, but you may feel like you’re facing a brick wall with other aspects. Demonstrating the benefits of BIM while subtly indicating that existing processes are in need of drastic review can be difficult.

Recognize that BIM is a disruptor with the power to completely transform construction and the built environment and you’re on your way! In fact, you’re just getting started.