Born in the USA

BIM – born in the USA

In the second instalment of a series of articles examining the level of BIM adoption globally, Rebecca De Cicco of Digital Node and Women in BIM turns her attention to the USA.

In my previous article, I outlined how Australia is implementing BIM, the level of support BIM gets from government, and what challenges the country is facing, particularly when it comes to skills.

In this article, I turn my attention to the USA, a nation that faces similar challenges to Australia and the UK, even though its BIM implementation plan began back in the early 2000s and continues to evolve.

Trying to determine what’s happening in the US in terms of BIM adoption and implementation is difficult, given the size of the country and its complex structure of federal and state government bodies, each with their own frameworks.

It was in 2003 that the General Services Administration (GSA), through its Public Buildings Service (PBS), established the National 3D-4D-BIM Program. It promoted a policy mandating BIM adoption for all PBS projects and outlined its intention to partner with BIM vendors, other federal agencies, professional associations, open standard organisations, and academic and research institutions.

Pushed by industry While the GSA is pushing the value and benefits of digital technology and BIM for projects, there hasn’t been an overall government push like we’ve seen in the UK. In the US, it comes more from industry. While the efforts the GSA has made are extremely worthwhile, they are not measured, so there’s no way to know how industry is utilising the processes.

When formulating its own government response to BIM, the UK looked to the US and its National 3D-4D-BIM Program. Since then, the UK has taken further steps to make BIM ‘business as usual’ and has a framework for maturity with UK BIM Level 2. In the US, however, it’s quite difficult to embed a consistent methodology against a backdrop of political division and fragmentation.

In the US, advanced users and organi- workflows, “as if only a national or global sations don’t like being pushed too force- standard can mean success, but it simply fully on a process-driven approach. They isn’t true.” see each project as an individually dis- The US has developed a National tinct challenge, driven by different client Standard before (for CAD), he points out, needs and requirements. and though many companies used it, it

Take standards, for example: the devel- certainly was not the majority. Even so, opment and use of standards like the PAS many companies were successful at CAD, 1192 suite doesn’t exist in the US. There comfortably ignoring the national CAD are national CAD standards and a nation- standards. al BIM standard, but these are quite com- “The mileage the US gets out of its BIM plex and, as a result, not driven across projects – like the standards used – varthe industry consistently. ies widely, depending on how seriously

As a small consultancy, Digital Node is both the clients involved and the practiconnected to many experts tioners take BIM, on any across the globe, so we reached out to our global community to validate our thoughts regarding BIM ‘‘ The mileage the US gets given project as well as their knowledge and understanding of BIM,” says Maller. “One notable thing I will implementation in the US. out of BIM – say about BIM in the US is

A fellow gunslinger, Aaron like the that I don’t have to look far to Maller, director of Parallax Team, is a good friend and close ally when it comes to standards used – varies find real examples of projects that are done well, all the way down to the details, well BIM and pushing industry in widely, beyond the lustre of marketa technology-focused way. depending on ing material.” He told us: “As with many countries, the extent of the proliferation of BIM on AEC how seriously The hugely important industry-driven group, the BIM Forum (which is the US projects in the US depends clients and chapter of buildingSMART widely on the prowess of the practitioners you ask. Many are using BIM, and leveragpractitioners take BIM International), adds Maller, is an extremely active community and has developed speciing the values of it in tangible ways. What isn’t happening in the US is a country-wide debate, a fications for use by the AEC industry. “The LOD specification document, although historically ’’ club-style academic exercise over BIM heavily geometry-driven, is being used standards, mandates or requirements, all around the world, even more so than where everyone tries to agree on one tools such as the NBS BIM Toolkit, or the ‘hypothetical’ set of standards by which LOD Specification in the UK,” he says. projects will happen.” The BIM Forum’s mission ‘to promote

According to Maller, “Companies have and support the use of open BIM standstandards and some project owners have ards throughout the industry in a longstandards.” These get fleshed out and term effort to drive towards fully digimelded as a project kicks off and, as a tized information exchanges’ is one to be result, the projects are more than capable applauded, he says, “even though they of succeeding. don’t push for an actual framework for

But, he points out, many parts of the adoption.” They also support industry as world currently debate standards and heavily as they can, being a not-for-profit

About the author

Rebecca De

Cicco is the director and founder of Digital Node, a BIM-based consultancy working with clients all over the world to educate, manage and support the implementation of a clearly defined process, underpinned by technology.

and voluntary group of people offering their time for free.

The challenge of the skills gap The US has always been a tech-savvy country with strong digital technology skills, making it a world leader in the digitisation of many industries and fields. While the skills shortages we see in the UK regarding BIM are similar for the US, the focus on education and digitisation in the latter is much more advanced. For example, universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working hard to push innovation and digitisation.

As I’ve already suggested, however, the process-driven aspects of BIM are of less concern to US organisations. Take, for example, the hugely successful coworking specialist WeWork: it is pushing the ability to design, construct and manage assets all over the world without a structured process like the UK BIM Level 2 approach. For WeWork, it’s more about ensuring that the end client ultimately saves money and time during all stages of a project.

On the whole the open culture of the US should assist in the drive towards greater collaboration. Most people I am connected with in the US and Canada are open in their levels of communication and happy to share. This open culture, as experienced at events such as Autodesk University (AU), helps attendees in coming together to learn, to share and to promote their companies and processes. For me, this openness is what makes such events so valuable.

That kind of openness is much-needed at a time when digital innovation is moving at a rapid pace. Advancements in Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence are likely to change the face of construction as we know it. We should be using collaboration to prepare for the challenges ahead. The UK could perhaps learn an important lesson from our American cousins in that regard.

incorrect spec detail on BIM objects can lead to some colourful language

The BBA’s BIM Object Assurance offer makes life easier for specifiers and manufacturers

You know the feeling. You spend valuable time selecting items as part of a building project only to discover that the sizes or parameter values are incorrect. It’s exasperating to say the least. The good news is the BBA has announced a new data validation service that provides specifiers and architects with greater peace of mind when using BIM objects in their building models. BIM modelers can now look out for a BBA BIM Object Assurance logo which indicates that the quality of the data included in the object have been independently validated to make sure BIM objects are of the quality required for their BIM models. So the whole BIM object selection process is smoother, and that’s got to be something to brighten everybody’s day.