Chapter 13
In This Chapter
Evolving a BIM strategy
Undertaking an honest review of your current situation
Governing the process
Responding to new documentation
So you’ve won over some key decision makers and they’ve asked you to make a case for BIM, but just what does having a BIM strategy really mean? How do you justify investment in BIM technologies, software, hardware, new room layouts, or even new staff? What’s the real benefit to the company and how quickly can you demonstrate return on investment (ROI)?
When the UK government looked to adopt BIM, it had to demonstrate how BIM would result in significant cost savings, increased project value, and improvement in carbon performance, all through more efficient access to shared information about built assets. Perhaps you’re a BIM manager or BIM coordinator and it’s now down to you to make the case for BIM and set out your strategy. In this chapter, we explore where to start and what you need to consider to get going.
Before you start, ask yourself: What is your company trying to achieve with BIM? Perhaps you want to produce better coordinated designs and assist with budgeting and pricing. Maybe you want to improve decision-making processes through better visualization of the end deliverable and what-if scenarios. Do you want to move away from paper-based handover documentation and produce digital health and safety files and operation and maintenance files? Maybe you want all the above. Unfortunately, no one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf approach exists. Each organization and project is different, and therefore your digital journey and strategy is unique to you.
In the next sections we examine some important strategies, including what to pre-plan, how to embed BIM into your everyday work, and how not to focus too much on technology.
Know your benchmark and your starting point in terms of both capabilities and which key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to measure success against. Here are a few areas to review and consider before you can figure out which strategy is right for you and your organization:
If any of these areas aren’t up to scratch, make sure that you bring them to the table early and make use of your internal BIM champions to support you in your endeavors. Refer to Chapter 12 for help in identifying your BIM champions.
To go from having no BIM strategy to it suddenly becoming part of everyone’s jobs, you need to manage everyday expectations. Your first BIM project is unlikely to be transformational; getting it optimized and embedded will take trials and refinement. So remember that implementing BIM is a marathon not a sprint.
Barack Obama spoke about change in his election campaign. Winston Churchill said: “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” Both Sir Michael Latham and Sir John Egan, in their respective reports, made recommendations to change construction industry practice. However, with human nature and social behavior being what they are, people often stick to what they know best. That’s all very well, but would humanity have put man on the moon if people hadn’t pushed the boundaries? Can you imagine life without the Internet? The fact remains that to really innovate, people need to adapt and change. Change is inevitable, and unless you’re willing to be open to change, things can become stagnant.
Understand that embedding BIM into everyday work life requires both time and patience. In the next sections, you consider when the change transition needs to take place and where to start on your journey.
BIM is more than just software; rather, it’s a combination of technology, processes, and people. The latter component is a bit of a paradox. For example, people can be an organization’s biggest asset but create the greatest barrier to BIM implementation. An organization provides a wealth of collective knowledge. With knowledge comes power. But knowledge also brings preconceived ideas about how you should do things. After all, you’ve always done it that way, right?
We aren’t advocating change for change’s sake. The wheel is round and has been that way for a long time. It’s been tried, tested, and acknowledged as the best configuration over many generations. However, the industry is moving into a new digital age, and therefore you need to reevaluate how you or your organization currently does things. Change doesn’t have to be instant, it doesn’t even have to happen overnight, but any change will benefit from a timely start.
When the industry changed from the manual drawing board to CAD systems, many a designer threw pens out of the cart in anger. On this occasion with BIM, you hear the sound of frustrated designers slamming the computer mouse down in anger, as the construction industry goes through a similar learning curve and change process, but more fundamental is the cultural change. Perhaps, just to add insult to injury, a lot of change is happening at once, when you consider new plans of work, new classification systems, and a move toward cloud-based storage solutions.
BIM brings about fear of the unknown as an organization develops the necessary adjustment to meet objectives. You can hear the gnashing of teeth and the plaintive cries: “What if I’m not up to it?”, “This is a waste of time!”, “What impact will this have?”, and “What’s all this costing?” These are all legitimate feelings and concerns, and recognizing the training that staff may require in order to gain confidence is important. Some companies are leading the way at the cutting edge of BIM implementation. Others, however, are at the start of that journey and moving in the right direction.
Although technology plays an important part, at this point in your BIM project don’t get too hung up on the particular software vendors or software application. People get caught up on the tools and not necessarily the processes or what the tools are actually generating. Take a step back and evaluate the process and what deliverables these tools can help you with.
Software is just a tool that requires:
Inputs + A process or use = Output
For example, think about a specification tool. Architects and engineers embed and capture company knowledge and expertise from previous projects, which is the input. Architects and engineers then use the tool for the process to write specifications and link the project specification to the object-based project models for coordination/additional parameters. The output then is an outline specification at one stage and a full specification at another, then perhaps an as-built specification at the end of the project.
As you prepare to implement a BIM project, you want to understand your drivers for BIM. Drivers are simply your ambitions for BIM and what you want to achieve from it. Do you want to implement BIM to win work or to increase efficiency? Ask yourself what the BIM project will mean in terms of money savings — reducing risk and adding value.
Your business case should be a well-structured document that answers these types of questions and captures the reasoning behind implementing BIM on a project. Think of it as the argument or a convincing case that you can put forward to senior management or decision makers that have the authority to approve or action it. Don’t think purely in isolation. How will the business case fit in as part of a wider company change program, such as integrated delivery?
Business drivers include the following:
With the business case in hand, turn your attention to the tools that can help you implement it. In the next sections, you consider the key points when investigating which BIM software and platform is right, and after you choose one, know how you go about implementing it in your organization.
When making a decision about which software and platforms to use, seek advice not only from the project team but also farther afield. As well as talking to software and technology providers, have a chat with other companies and practices to see what they’re using. Webinars, social media, conferences, and trade shows are all good avenues to do your research.
To determine the processes that will be required for a successful, painless, and stress-free implementation of software and technology, get together with your team and determine your requirements for hardware, software, licenses, networks, and data storage for the project. Always consider the future access of the model information. Software vendors usually upgrade their products annually, so make sure that any platform upgrades during the project don’t cause any problems. In Chapter 7, we explore in more detail your software and hardware requirements.
At the center of your BIM process is the common data environment (CDE), which should be the main software priority. If this foundation isn’t in place then failure is looking likely! Chapter 8 discusses the CDE in greater depth, but for now, remember that the CDE is a single place where information is brought together and shared. Think of it as the single source of truth.
With your implementation strategy well underway, you must take into consideration a few other things. In the next sections you consider who is the right person for the job and at which point you face the green light and go ahead and actually do it. Go on, you know you can.
Usually, the BIM manager takes the decision on software and hardware needs, in consultation with the whole team. Today many virtual desktop solutions exist, and most software is cloud based, which you need to factor into your considerations. Make sure that whatever solution you chose it’s suitable for your interoperability needs and you have sufficient hardware power to make use of the information you create.
You want to implement software and technology as soon as possible — the sooner, the better, and before the project commences. Make sure that you allow enough time to implement your IT strategy, especially if you’re in a remote location. If you don’t have the adequate infrastructure in your area, you may potentially require 4G cards or local caching servers, all of which will take additional time to put into place. Conceptualize the infrastructure and hardware solution to ensure the project team can share information both within and without your organization’s firewall.
Your strategy may involve upgrades and software installations, so make sure you give the team plenty of warning that this will occur so that you can coordinate and plan IT improvements with minimal disruption to the day-to-day running of the office. Use the BIM execution plan as a way to document your IT strategy and communicate it to the whole project team.
The BEP is essentially your digital method statement. You prepare this important and useful document at the pre-contract stage when you’re tendering for a project. Following the contract award (fingers crossed that you won), you submit the plan post-contract. An overarching BEP may exist where more than one supplier has been appointed that contains individual BEPs prepared by each supplier.
The BEP is an important document within the supply chain’s armory. Here are the main objectives of the BEP:
You may want to develop your own BEP for a project in a particular office that may become quite standardized. A word of caution, however: Not all projects and clients are the same, so the BEP must respond and be relevant to the particular project in hand.
Chapter 8 discusses how the client describes his data needs within the employer’s information requirements (EIR) document. The BEP is your way of proving to the client that you’re up for the job and that you’re the right organization with the right team. Within the BEP you get the opportunity to answer all those probing questions that the client sets out, such as when and how you’ll go about the BIM project.
The BEP is considered in two distinct phases: First before a contract is awarded and then again after the client has awarded the contract to the successful bidder. The following sections consider the pre-contract BEP, including what this document should cover, and the post-contract BEP.
Include the following in your pre-contract BEP:
Putting together the right team from the outset is essential for the success of the project. When seeking others to be part of your team, consider the skillsets and knowledge that you require. The BEP is submitted by the supplier to the employer on behalf of the whole supply chain and includes a summary of the supply chain’s capabilities and responsibilities. The PIP is a document the client can use to make a quick assessment and comparison of the people and organizations that he’s intending to use, so make sure you sell yourself here.
The supplier submits the PIP as part of the initial BEP for each organization bidding for a project. You may find yourself asking a number of questions to potential partners or may even be asked if you’re joining another team. These assessments are designed to look at your BIM competence and cover past BIM experience, IT, and resource.
The BEP is a living document that you constantly update and review. Assume that you won the tender (congratulations) and now you must develop the pre-contract BEP further in the form of a post-contract BEP. The post-contract BEP should contain everything in the pre-contract document plus the following information:
Fundamentally, it’s about ensuring that you and all project team members are using the same data and compatible systems, in order to realize the benefits of BIM process and technology, like better coordination and elimination of errors. It can be difficult to sum up your progress in a simple way.
The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a classic way to describe the development and sophistication of processes. When the US Department of Defense first developed the concept, it was with software development processes in mind. However, the resulting diagram of five steps can be used to demonstrate the progression of process optimization for many organizations. Governments and Fortune 500 companies alike have adopted it. It also forms the basis for the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) process maturity assessment framework.
The diagram has real power when used to describe BIM implementation too. Recently, AECOM adapted the standard steps of the CMM to define its plans for BIM adoption, which Figure 13-1 shows. According to AECOM’s diagram, the five steps to BIM implementation are as follows:
Increasingly, organizations are producing BIM capability statements that give an overview of BIM experience and resources available. This is a good way to communicate with the outside world, but what about with your internal team?
You may be faced with explaining your strategy to the CEO or maybe to the intern. Whoever you’re talking to, make sure the message is short, simple, memorable, and clear.
Inevitably, lots of questions will follow, and you may not be able to answer them all straight away. If that’s the case, don’t bluff your way through an answer. Instead, be honest and say that you don’t know and that you’ll find out and come back to the person.
People are producing more digital data than ever before. Social network platforms and cloud storage have changed the way in which people share information. However, in order to make sense of all that information, you need to organize it effectively so other members of the project team can produce, retrieve, understand, and archive it.
Having a companywide work breakdown structure (WBS) is important and useful. Protocols and quality management systems (QMS) in place may seem like extra work at the time, but they make office processes and quality assurance more efficient too. They can force you to tidy up your CAD block library into a BIM object library structure, to name your drawing layers consistently, or to put everything into centrally organized folders.
A number of templates and guidance documents can get you on the way to completing your BEP:
www.cpic.org.uk/cpix/cpix-bim-execution-plan
.http://bim.psu.edu
. The guide was a product of the buildingSMART alliance (bSa) Project BIM Project Execution Planning.Now you are on your way, in the following sections we explain how to map the benefits of BIM, determine how much BIM costs, and make a profit on your investment.
In order to map the benefits of BIM you need to have some sort of benchmark or data to inform your findings. Chapter 15 explores in greater depth the many benefits that BIM brings about, not just in the long term but also in the short term. Having the process is all very well, but you need to record the benefits.
However, using your in-house timesheet system (assuming that you already have one), you can look at the benefits on your productivity and bottom line. This is only one way to look at the benefits, but by using existing data that you’re already collecting, you can start to see how more efficient a BIM process is to you and your organization.
Coming to a formally agreed way in which you can measure benefits such as cost across the industry is difficult because no standard metric exists for measuring the return on investment for BIM. How do you calculate how much BIM has cost to implement? Do you include hardware and software? New salaries and consultant fees? The cost of this book? Do you record the per-hour savings in reworked drawings or meetings with the client? How much is the client prepared to pay for quality information?
In short, this is a hard calculation to quantify. Remember to include contractors and infrastructure people here too; this isn’t just a building design type question. Consider the creation of a trial project delivery group that’s agnostic and separate to the site team to measure benefits. Don’t create lots of new key performance indicators (KPIs) — BIM should liberate value in your current drivers, such as money, safety, and program.
Making a return on investment, getting the figures to stack up, and ultimately generating a profit will be key considerations for most organizations. Construction generally hasn’t adopted new processes like BIM as quickly as other industries, and often the reasons are financial.
To get the most out of your investment, make sure you
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