Chapter 13

Developing BIM Plans and Strategies

In This Chapter

arrow Evolving a BIM strategy

arrow Undertaking an honest review of your current situation

arrow Governing the process

arrow 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.

Getting Started with Your BIM Strategy

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.

Undergoing some pre-planning

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:

  • Get top-down support from senior management and key decision makers and communicate it. Although you need the enthusiasm from the bottom up, you require the support from the top to make sure that the message carries weight through the organization. Demonstrate that improved access to shared, accurate information will reduce costs in the long term, but be realistic in your promises.
  • Consider cyber security for your valuable digital data. Today low-life thieves make off with more than just physical possessions. They also focus on digital data. In the wrong hands, crooks can make money off your sensitive information and intellectual property.
  • Determine the current archiving and document control protocols and procedures. Getting rid of those space-invading file cabinets not only frees up office space but also makes you think about how and where you can store your digital data.
  • Make sure that your staff members receive the required training for the job. Figure out whether you need to use an outside resource or if you can deliver the required training in-house. Do remember that everyone is human at the end of the day and different people learn at different rates, and some may require a bit more help than others.
  • Identify who’ll maintain your strategy and where it will live. Will the BIM manager be in consultation with the rest of the team? Remember that your strategy should be a live document that will be updated, and will require an owner who will carry out this task.
  • For IT, get support and buy-in from the IT team or manager. You may be faced with software and hardware upgrades, so having the people who carry out these tasks on your side is always a wise move.

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.

Embedding BIM into everyday work

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.

remember For now, don’t worry too much about technology, the cost barriers to implementation, or the business benefits that BIM brings. For now, focus on BIM being a process and behavioral change program.

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.

remember Embed BIM into your current day-to-day workflows, not as a separate entity. Here are a few tips for embedding BIM practice into everyday life:

  • Ensure that senior management take responsibility, because a change in working practice always starts at the top.
  • Establish and communicate a common understanding of what BIM means to your organization and customers. Give it real purpose and focus on the why? rather than the what?.
  • Identify key internal BIM champions.
  • Start early.
  • Make sure that technology, software, and processes are interoperable and integrated as a whole.

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.

Making the change

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.

warning Hasty implementations often lead to the wheels coming off. Make sure that you acknowledge that change brings uncertainty and resistance. People can feel threatened by any change, whether culturally or within processes. This resistance is often due to a lack of communication, trust, or even understanding. So early on, initiate the dialogue as to why the change is happening.

remember Make the explanation inclusive, and use business language and not technical jargon. Keep your words simple, easy to understand, and familiar, because already BIM is turning into a specialist subject.

Cultural change

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.

Make sure you include open communication

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.

remember A BIM execution plan (BEP) document is a key way to communicate to the rest of the team how you’ll be implementing BIM. For those individuals perhaps unfamiliar with the new processes that BIM brings, the plan provides reassurance and understanding. Refer to the later section “Combining Information into a BIM Execution Plan” for more information about this plan.

tip Rather than just telling the team about the change that you envisage, actually take the time to explain the decision-making process and why change is needed. We suggest that you create

  • A simple companywide BIM 101 awareness communication (road shows or webinars are even better — keep them short and jargon free like a TED video)
  • Some boilerplate BIM FAQ, addressing “What is it?” and “How will it affect my role?”
  • A network of BIM change agents who’ll cascade the message

Forgetting about the tools

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.

Setting Up a BIM Business Case

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.

remember 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:

  • Return on investment (ROI): Increased efficiency, reduced alterations and change orders, accurate costs, and improved timescales. Keep it simple and relate it back to your current business objectives. Your BIM strategy should be in concert with these and not a new layer.
  • Implementation time: Think about a series of horizon lines such as awareness, mobilization, trial projects, and embedding.
  • Objectives: Have a clear statement of objectives and outcomes.
  • Purpose: Whose business case? Clients’? Contractors’? Users’?
  • Affordability: Can you afford to do it? Can you afford not to do it? What’s your competitor’s intent?
  • Salaries: How will BIM affect salaries?
  • Training: How much investment is required?

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.

Choosing BIM software and platforms

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.

remember Retooling should be a result of having reviewed your business processes. Align retooling with your business needs, not the opposite way around. When considering which option is right for you, consider the following:

  • Solution: Despite what the vendors may tell you, a successful project requires a number of different solutions to deliver the end goals because no single package can cover everything.
  • Investment: Hardware, infrastructure, software, training, and related staff non-utilization can be costly. Remember when calculating your return on investment that the payback will be over a number of projects, so don’t contribute all the costs to your first BIM project. Also remember that some free tools exist.
  • Version: Nothing lasts forever, and sadly this is true of supported software. Whatever version you use, ensure that the whole team is using the same or that it provides you with the interoperability you require. Think about using open BIM file formats, which help you in the long term; for example, Industry Foundation Classes (IFC).
  • Management: Consider who’ll be responsible, and how, for the management and implementation of BIM technology, including deployment and software license management.

Implementing the software and technology

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.

Who is the best person to implement it?

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.

When is the right time to implement it?

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.

Combining Information into a BIM Execution Plan

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:

  • Sets out the supplier’s and supply chain’s proposed approach to BIM implementation on a project
  • Outlines your overall vision, along with how and when you’ll implement BIM, allowing the whole project team to sing from the same hymn sheet
  • Develops at an early stage of a project, and then is developed continually throughout the different project phases
  • Defines scope and extent of BIM implementation on a project, including roles, responsibilities, levels of definition, and timings of information exchanges
  • Is a living document that you should review regularly alongside model quality audits

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.

Knowing what to add to your pre-contract BEP

Include the following in your pre-contract BEP:

  • Overview: Describe why you’re creating the BEP in the first place. Imagine that someone is picking this document up for the first time and knows nothing about the project. Let him know what your mission statement is and give him an executive summary of the document.
  • Information required by the EIR: The BEP should respond to the parts of the employer’s information requirements that specifically require a response. This is likely to include information regarding
    • Planning of work
    • Coordination
    • Clash detection
    • Health and safety management
    • Collaboration procedures such as details of meetings, schedules, and agendas
    • Model management including filing storage, structure, and modeling requirements
  • Project information: This section is usually an introduction for the other team members, and it helps them understand what the project is about as a whole. Include information such as project name, description, location, critical dates, key project members, project roles, a company organization chart, and a contractual tree. The project team uses critical schedule information for future reference as the project develops.
  • Project goals and objectives: As well as documenting the strategic value and specific use for BIM in the project, include major milestones consistent with the project program.
  • Project implementation plan (PIP): This document is submitted as part of the initial BEP by each organization that’s bidding for a project. Include company organization charts and details of project roles.
  • Project information model (PIM) delivery strategy: The major goals and objectives for the BIM implementation must be considered and stated as a project strategy document. This document should set out what tasks will be carried out and by whom.

remember Remember that not all digital data will be 3D; more than likely the project team needs to consider in the strategy lots of flat documents and how they link together, and so classifications and naming conventions are key.

Assessing the team

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.

Addressing your post-contract BEP

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:

  • Management: Include details of roles and staffing, responsibilities, and authorities. You may not be able to complete this from the outset, but do update it as the project progresses and when the information becomes available. Also include any existing legacy data or survey information (if available) along with how you propose that information shall be approved.
  • Revised PIP information exchange: This should contain up-to-date capability assessments that confirm the competence and capability of the supply chain.
  • Information exchanges: Include what elements of the model are exchanged by discipline, when they’ll be exchanged, and by whom. The responsibility matrix outlines the agreed responsibilities across the whole supply chain, task information delivery plans (TIDPs), and master information delivery plans (MIDPs). This document is key to success: Make sure it’s comprehensive and well thought out with the right information at the right time.
  • Model QA procedures: The supplier must define the overall strategy to ensure quality. Include details of modeling standards, naming conventions, model origin points, agreed tolerances for all disciplines, and change control procedures.
  • Delivery strategy and procurement: They include details of the chosen procurement route and contractual details.
  • Communication strategy: It includes details of how you intend to communicate with the project team, which mediums you’ll use, and what types of meetings you’ll have and when. Also establish protocols around how the project team will create, upload, circulate, and subsequently archive information.
  • Model structure: Detail how the project team will structure the model; for example, how various disciplines break the model into appropriate schema, such as floor by floor. Also include file-naming structure and naming conventions, coordinate systems, classification structure, and modelling standards.
  • Facility management requirements: Start with the end in mind. Engage facility managers at an early stage so that any specific requirements about the delivery and type of data are useful and meaningful in the post-construction phase. Understand how the transfer of data to the computer-aided facility management (CAFM) will work — can it be automated or mapped across?
  • IT, solutions and technology: Examples include agreed software versions, exchange formats, and details of process and data management systems.

Putting everything together

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:

  • Initial: You’re aware of BIM and want to implement it, but you’re still only beginning to understand where your organization needs to improve and can only effect change at a small scale, which leads to the next step.
  • Defined: You’re more capable of explaining the benefits BIM provides and are trying to apply BIM methodology to your organization at all levels through training. The process of applying what has been understood into real practice leads to the next step.
  • Managed: You have embedded some BIM activities into real projects and are beginning to demonstrate the outcomes and return on investment. The implementation is joined up and is being coordinated by senior management as standard. This is the heart of BIM implementation. The process of embedding BIM processes into all project work leads to the next step.
  • Integrated: You work in a fully BIM-ready organization. The protocols and procedures to enable advanced BIM to become part of the fabric of every office are well managed and measured. For most organizations, this is the realistic goal of BIM. The process of becoming fully operational with BIM at the center of best practice on every project leads to the next step.
  • Optimized: This is an idealized stage of BIM implementation where all procedures have been refined to work at maximum efficiency and that leads to unprecedented levels of innovation across every office. Instead of best practice, this is next practice, generating high cost savings and exceptional building performance.
image

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Figure 13-1: The five steps to BIM process maturity.

Communicating with the team

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.

Organizing information in an accessible way

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.

Modeling Your Plan after Successful BIM Processes

A number of templates and guidance documents can get you on the way to completing your BEP:

  • The Construction Project Information Committee (CPIC) provides BEP templates for both pre- and post-contact as a free download at www.cpic.org.uk/cpix/cpix-bim-execution-plan.
  • The Pennsylvania State University, Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) research program’s BIM Planning website has developed the “BIM Project Execution Planning Guide,” which is available as a free download at 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.

Mapping BIM benefits

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.

Counting the cost of BIM

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

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

  • Learn from past mistakes. Look at your past projects and ask why they were over-budget or perhaps not delivered on time. Try to look past the software to the root cause. Was there a communication problem? Did the client keep changing his mind? Were there some unforeseen ground problems? All these problems aren’t exclusive to a BIM-enabled project, and apply equally to CAD and hand-drawn projects, but you can use the data within a BIM project to evaluate its effectiveness. Sometimes admitting where things went wrong is hard, but focus on the BIM process and work flow and where you can be more efficient and improve on your return on investment.
  • Change your process. Integrating BIM into your existing or current work flows gives you a return on investment, but to really reap the rewards, look toward a new process for project delivery, one that uses the principles of collaboration, coordination, and trust. Consider investing in tools designed to increase collaboration, such as installing a dedicated BIM room for model viewing. Some of the most advanced versions can turn formerly dull project meetings into immersive 3D experiences, more like seeing a 3D movie at the cinema. For a great example of this, see the Texas A&M University BIM Computer-Aided Virtual Environment (CAVE) at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErjvILsxvgE&feature=youtu.be.
  • Compare other similar projects. Comparing apples with apples is a good way to calculate return on investment. Look to where a project may share similarities such as size, location, type, and materials with another project; for example, you can focus on the differences between a CAD approach and a BIM approach in terms of work hours and effort.
  • Look at the bigger picture. When looking at your fees, you may find that you’re going over-budget during the design phases. Because more effort goes into the earlier stages of a project, a BIM process produces much of the groundwork in producing documentation for the construction, so make sure you factor this in.
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