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BIM and the Built Environment

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BIM AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

HOW 5D-ENABLED SOFTWARE SUPPORTS THE QUANTITY SURVEYING PROFESSION

BIM

We’re all familiar with BIM by now – the transformational technology has been a well-discussed issue for Quantity Surveyors in Australia and around the world. While Australia has not issued binding BIM mandates in the same way that other countries like the United Kingdom have, it is evident that the technology will have a major bearing on the future of Quantity Surveyors in Australia.

Many of the oft-spoken benefits of BIM are theoretical – in an effort to provide some hard facts to back up the conceptual notions, we have covered the application of BIM in revisioning, and as a general tool for Quantity Surveyors hoping to improve their output.

HOW WILL BIM IMPACT QUANTITY SURVEYING AS WE KNOW IT?

Historically, industry professionals often feel threatened by the advent of new technologies that changes the way they do business, and perhaps with good reason. There are numerous examples of automation or changing societal values making certain jobs obsolete.

These fears are unfounded when it comes to the application of BIM in the Quantity Surveying profession. While BIM will fundamentally shift the way that surveyors perform their role, this doesn’t mean that the current or future value of the profession will be swept away by automation.

The value of 5D BIM lies in the ability to append useful repositories of information to a model. Ensuring this process is correctly applied will require close collaboration between designers and Quantity Surveyors going forward. Beyond this initial work, Quantity Surveyors will still have to extract quantities, interpret their accuracy and align them as required with standard methods of measurement.

It’s possible that the average time a Quantity Surveyor spends on a project will be shortened by the arrival of BIM, but the reduction will be in timeconsuming aspects of the job that don’t require specialised experience. Much of the time spent on projects going forward will be on value-added work, such as confirming the information at hand, verifying that scope has been correctly applied and supplementing any information that was not modelled for various reasons.

All these tasks require the experience and technical knowledge that only a Quantity Surveyor can provide. From this, we can confidently state that Quantity Surveyors going forward must have a strong knowledge of advanced software, or else risk a competitive disadvantage against their peers.

Software platforms that combine traditional 2D measuring with 5D BIM takeoff are an ideal starting point for those looking to add BIM surveying to their skillset. Exactal’s CostX® platform is the result of years of development from Quantity Surveyors and Estimators, so new users can be confident that the software is tailored to suit common industry processes.

To demonstrate the value of BIM-enabled software to professionals in our industry, we have gone in-depth below on how a common revisioning issue can be mitigated thanks to the application of BIM.

ELIMINATE SCOPE CREEP AND CONQUER REVISIONING WITH 5D BIM

As Quantity Surveyors will surely know, scope creep is the progressive growth of project quantum and quality over that provided in the project cost budget. Scope creep can be a major cause of cost overruns and client dissatisfaction when it comes to construction project outcomes. Changes to the building function, quantum and quality that occur regularly throughout the design process can have a direct impact on the project cost budget.

To effectively control the project budget, scope must be clearly defined and managed throughout the design and delivery stages. While major changes or design revisions are usually easy to identify, the more insidious form of scope creep arises from the numerous small and minor changes which occur throughout progressive design iterations. Although none of these revisions have major consequences on their own, they can have a cumulative effect which can lead to major cost implications if undetected.

Traditionally, the designs for the architectural, structural and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) aspects of a construction project have been undertaken by separate parties working independently but communicating periodically to coordinate their discrete designs. In many instances this would lead to a staggered issue of redesign information on distinct drawings and documentation. Faced with this situation, the Quantity Surveyor must search through a multitude of unconnected information to identify the ‘clouded’ revisions and hunt down numerous ‘hidden’ changes.

In 2018, BIM is starting to come to the fore as an aid to the revisioning process. BIM uses 3D dynamic computer modelling to create a virtual representation of a building,

encompassing geometry, spatial relationships, geographic information, quantities and properties of the building components. Multi-disciplinary project teams use model-based technology to share building data and collaborate in real-time on design, construction and lifecycle management.

With the advent of BIM however, there is an increasing complexity of buildings themselves driven by ever more dramatic building forms. Interpreting and accurately quantifying these forms from two-dimensional representations can prove difficult and time-consuming. This process increases the risk for the Quantity Surveyor in reliably and accurately assessing the associated quantities and costs. Against a backdrop of reducing margins, it is vital that Quantity Surveyors have access to the best tools available.

Specialised estimating software, such as CostX®, allows the inherent property information embedded in each object in the model to be extracted rather than simply measured. This results in huge time savings and improved accuracy when it comes to quantity takeoff.

As BIM design evolves, the relationships between the building’s entities in the model mean that as one object is altered, all of those that are affected by that change will be updated accordingly. Using CostX®, these changes can be visually represented in colour-coded 3D form, providing an unequivocal view of the alterations made between each model iteration. The software’s ability to recognise altered, deleted and new objects within the model, allied with the ability to extract the embedded quantity and specification data attached to each object, means that the time required for updating the project budget can be drastically reduced. While the model may be continually evolving, the Quantity Surveyor is able to provide frequent updates to monitor against the established project cost budget.

Our industry has been focussed on sustainability and whole-of-life costing in recent years – to achieve these aims, surveyors can employ BIM to quickly measure and analyse the alternative costs of ‘what if?’ scenarios, enabling swift feedback to designers and clients. As a counterpoint, the ease with which alternative designs can be tested may encourage some Architects to test the water with alternative solutions, to ensure that none of the contingency sum that has been provided in the budget gets left on the table!

BIM is rapidly increasing in prevalence throughout the construction industry, and it has become evident that the technology is here to stay. Quantity Surveyors require advanced BIM-enabled software that allows them to become part of the collaborative process themselves. Such software can effectively mitigate the risk of scope creep and allow users to advise on cost with much greater confidence.

ENHANCE YOUR EFFICIENCY WITH ADVANCED BIM SOFTWARE

As early adopters of BIM technology, Exactal can provide cutting-edge construction software options in 2018 that have been refined to suit the specific needs of industry professionals.

Exactal’s flagship estimating platform CostX® has been constantly advanced since launch in 2004. The software supports auto-revisioning for 2D and 3D drawings, ensuring estimates remain up-to-date throughout multiple revisions and mitigating the risk of scope creep. Portable, standalone and network CostX®

licences are available, depending on your needs and the size of your enterprise. The CostX® range also includes options for Quantity Surveyors who only require a few of the features listed above.

Exactal have also recently launched ConnectX, a construction management platform designed to support intelligent project collaboration and control. ConnectX combines six powerful modules to improve communication, document management, contracts administration, tenders, defects and quality management throughout the lifecycle of a construction build.

Designers and Quantity Surveyors are likely to collaborate closer than ever in the future – integrated project management software such as ConnectX guarantees that no time is lost on oversights or lapses in communication.

When you consider the range of benefits available to Quantity Surveyors who embrace BIM, it's clear that we cannot afford to go without the technology any longer. It’s time to put our misgivings to one side and embrace the concept that will shape our industry for many years to come.

This article has been written by Tony Shaw (MNZIQS), Principal Product Specialist, Exactal.

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