[ Spotlight: BIM ]
As BIM becomes increasingly important for the design and construction process, PAUL REEVE explains the latest on what electrical contractors should know – and do – to prepare for this collaborative working process
B
y now, many ECA Today readers will be comfortably aware that building information modelling (BIM) is a process rather than just a digital technology. BIM requires the client and the construction
project team to collaborate around a shared design. They then need to communicate effectively about design and construction and, ideally, how best to run what they have built. Communication is possible through the creation and exchange of shared information that can include 3D models and valuable building ‘object’ data. These object data can include sizes, maintenance programmes and physical performance (for example, for systems such as heating and air conditioning). All this is being done in the name of improved construction and operational efficiency.1
Maturity levels and contracts The relative importance of legal, contractual and insurance issues to BIM is linked to the maturity of BIM that is being applied to a building project. Back in 2008, Mark Bew, of BuildingSmart, and Mervyn Richards, of the Construction Project Information Committee (CPIc), developed the now well-known ‘BIM maturity diagram’. In their description of BIM, ‘Level 2’ maturity described the provision of data and information in a 3D environment, with each member of the design (and, possibly, construction) team creating and maintaining their own model. These models and databases then ‘fit together’, using proprietary technology. In March 2011, the government’s Construction Clients’ Group concluded in a strategy paper that ‘little change is required in the fundamental building blocks of copyright law, contracts or insurance to
58 ECA Today June 2013
facilitate working at Level 2 of BIM maturity. Some essential investment is required in simple, standard protocols and service schedules to define BIM- specific roles, ways of working and desired outputs’.2 According to Mark Bew (who chairs the
government’s BIM implementation group): ‘Level 2 is about taking the geometry and the attached data – the specification, planning and cost information – and bringing them into a tool called BIM. Level 2 has been selected very carefully (by government) because it preserves the commercial frameworks that exist in the market. The architectural information is still created and published by the architect, who retains the copyright and intellectual property. It won’t demand a large commercial change.’ The above suggests that applying basic Level 2 BIM does not require wholesale changes to traditional forms of construction contract or to the allocation of responsibilities between the parties. However, even maturity Level 2 exposes some of the deficiencies of current contractual documents. For example, to make BIM work properly, the roles and responsibilities of the various designers and contracting parties need to be much clearer. The required outputs at each stage also require better definition. This, in turn, will require a lead designer or main
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