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The challenges of integrating BIM Edward Bingham of engineering services company, URS, left, and Tim Claremont from law firm Browne Jacobson explore some of the challenges, both legal and non-legal, posed by BIM Level 2 implementation.
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he 2016 deadline for Building Information Modelling (BIM) level 2 use in all government-led projects in the UK raises a number of challenges that will require changes to the way things are done. Legal challenges exist. Traditionally, building contracts are between two parties and there are no direct contracts between suppliers on the same tier. Does BIM require changes to existing contractual arrangements or the creation of new direct contractual relationships? Successful BIM implementation will address a few key elements: people, collaboration processes, technology, procurement and the measurement of costs and benefits.
The right team The implementation of BIM starts with a review of existing data workflows, robustly challenging established processes and embedded mentalities on the ‘way we have always done things’. This work immediately recognises new and efficient data streams to be explored and exposes challenges to business leaders on how to manage ingrained cultural working practices. Selling and demonstrating www.AECmag.com
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the benefits of change is paramount to driving changes and influencing behaviours in the ‘people’ element of collaboration. The solution requires an understanding of the additional roles and responsibilities created by BIM to ensure that teams are appropriately resourced, structured and trained to respond to the changes.
Managing data flow BIM maturity Level 2 requires the development of federated information models stored within the central Common Data Environment (CDE) as the ‘single source of truth’ for use by all project stakeholders. The CDE facilitates the efficient mobilisation of design teams in different locations and a more efficient use of resources. The result of this is additional quality control with reduction in costs and in waste generated through duplication of information. The availability of accurate, interoperable information models within the CDE is critical and. accordingly, collaboration processes must be developed and implemented. These processes will provide the necessary structure to ensure that models shared for co-ordination are capable of
delivering the required input, output and levels of definition and detail. Challenges to this new collaborative sharing process include the volume of data, the need to review and establish revised internal checking, and formal verification procedures of the model and object designs. A consistent approach to quality control is of paramount importance, such as version and status control processes as well as modification and revision management. The creation of an intelligent 3D model base, spatially co-ordinated, with metadata ensures a more efficient delivery process for clients, with real usable outputs for quantity measurement, cost estimation and programming over more traditional methods. Models are allowed a higher status than drawings, which facilitate a real time view of a project at any stage within the project lifecycle and continuous review and mark-up process using new BIM authoring and review technologies. In response to this technology challenge, training of users for both undertaking the design within the new technologies, as well as the verification and end users is paramount. With new software may come additional hardware challenges and it is essenJuly / August 2014
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