Feature BIM briefing
all ends — the main contractors are asking us [for BIM], at the same time we’re selling it at the model and product end,” he said. “But it’s very fresh in the contractor market — and sometimes we feel we’re pushing water uphill.” Shaylor Group, on the other hand, is just
starting its first BIM project. “We’re still at the moment of going into live fire, we’re just starting to work out where the bullets are coming from,” said Chambers. “But in reality you learn to duck and dive pretty quickly. Invariably we’re learning because we’re working with designers who’ve already done a lot more than we have.” But both welcomed the way the
government had seized the initiative on BIM, and its role as a change agent. “Somebody had to make the step to create the platform, and the exciting thing for the construction industry is you’ve now taken that step,” said Verling. “There’s a framework for the industry to adopt. What you’ve done is put the coat hooks there, for the industry to hang something on.” Chambers is looking further ahead:
“It’s not just about government, it’s major
private sector clients starting to become a force for change. It doesn’t have to be government procured, but government has a major control over it.” As the discussion got under way, Philp was no doubt relieved not to be fielding questions on software, file formats, intellectual property, legal liability or even COBie. As he pointed out, a year’s worth of BIM conferences, seminars and articles have clarified many of the purely technical and business-case issues. “It’s now about lessons learned and process,” he said. “But one issue is scaleability. It’s not just the £50m jobs, this also has to make sense for the £1m-£2m project.” Chambers’ and Verling’s questions
instead took the discussion in some unexpected directions, including integrated project insurance, the risk of BIM models becoming bogged down with unnecessary data, and the scale of the cultural change required. A key issue was the practicalities of tendering and pre-qualification; and a wild card was whether data managers are to BIM what planning supervisors are to
BIM men: l-r David Philp, Aran Verling and Martin Chambers get down to matters at their meeting
CDM — a proliferating new profession extracting yet another fee. The discussion also elicited some surprising admissions. If you weren’t too sure what is actually involved in Level 2 BIM, for example, then you might be reassured to know that the Cabinet Office team is still working on an approved definition — in “plain English”. But the fact that BIM is almost at the
“One of the issues now is scaleability — it’s not just the £50m jobs, this also has to make sense for the £1m-£2m project.”
David Philp, Cabinet Office
models, we’re starting to get over the hump of changing cultures and behaviours. Martin Chambers I think you’re kidding yourself! If I look back 10 years, PRIME contracting had come through, we were talking about integrated project teams back then. Yes, today there are pockets of the industry where people have adopted it and are actually true believers and disciples. But they’re like rain drops on a pond! AV We’re subcontractors, and we’re still seeing main contractors sending us subcontract packages and asking for it back in four weeks. Why would you do that? If you wanted a co-ordinated integrated package back to get your cost base down, then you would sit down with the contractor and work
it out. There’s a whole industry of dysfunctionality and people who thrive on it out there. DP I agree it’s not gone away. The basic element in this BIM project is very much the intelligent client, that sets the environment for collaborative working. It’s about collaboration throughout the project life cycle. AV There are success stories, like the Olympic Stadium, where it’s an NEC contract, and the contractor brings a team of people together with a single goal. In fact, you could do COBie on paper if you have the right behaviours, and that’s before anyone opens their laptop up and starts talking about software. That’s what you’re looking for — the process that allows for the right behaviours.
“We’re sitting in a fragmented industry that makes money from fragmentation, that struggles to see the value in integration.”
Aran Verling, Byrne Group
contractual coal-face is an achievement everyone in the room recognises. As Philp says: “We’re at the point where it’s almost BIM with muddy boots — it’s real now, the first tenders are out. It’s about BIM out on site, how we actually realise efficiencies. “It’s also the point in the agenda where
we’ve got to keep staying ahead of the game. We [in government] have got to buy services and we want to buy from the UK and keep the UK industry ahead of the game and start to export its BIM skills. It’s how do we keep UK Plc the BIM champion?” An ambitious target, but Bew, Philp and the rest of the BIM implementation team are nothing if not ambitious.
DP You’re right. We’re hoping to set the rules of behaviour, the rules of the playground if you like. With the early adopter projects we’re looking at KPIs, forms of contract and what we need to do to propagate that cultural change. We have a series of working groups looking at this — it isn’t just us as a client saying “this is what we’re doing”.
2. Dealing with the data AV For government, what are the key metrics — over six months, a year, five years — that you actually want? That’s one of the dangers with this thing — you give people a new target and suddenly the information people can add to the model starts exploding. When we started getting into DFMA [Design
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