BSEE INDUSTRY COMMENT
Gavin Watson, Sales Director at ELCO Heating Solutions, discusses the benefits of greater collaboration in the building services industry.
t this year’s CIBSE Building Performance Awards, Peter Caplehorn, Policy Director and Deputy Chief Executive of the Construction Products Association, spoke of the need for better integration and digitisation and how Building Information Modelling (BIM) can bring these improvements to the industry. Of course, from 4th April 2016, all centrally procured public sector projects, no matter what their size, will require the implementation of BIM at Level 2. This will extend right through the supply chain, from the largest contractor to the smallest supplier, and it is hoped that this will lead to the industry-wide adoption of BIM as its benefits become more widely understood.
Working together across the supply chain will be nothing new for building services engineers. After all, collaboration and good communication has always improved the overall quality of a project. Green Building Councils and building standards such as BREEAM and LEED v4 already provide incentives to follow more integrated design processes. But such approaches have, until now, remained fairly niche in the building sector.
Why do we need BIM?
So, how is the introduction of BIM going to make any difference, and why does the industry need to embrace it? To produce a well-functioning building, the industry will have contractors interacting with the mechanical contractors who, in turn, will be interacting with the designers and architects. This prevents separate parties within the supply chain working in their own ‘bubble’; instead, everyone shares the same common goals. Indeed, utilising BIM ensures that the supply chain can’t really operate unless the entire team is on board at the earliest possible stage – which in itself encourages much earlier, proactive involvement from all parties. To give the new level of BIM some context, Level 0 describes a paper-based process with CAD drawings, whereas level 3 is a fully open and integrated process, with models shared between the project team on a web-enabled BIM hub. The
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The benefits of better integration A
current Level 2 (as of 4th April) is the median of these, where separate disciplines, such as the heating and hot water system, are created in their own models, but all the project data is shared electronically in a common environment. As far as commercial heating systems are concerned, manufacturers such as ELCO have been contributing to BIM libraries for several years to ensure all parties in the supply chain can work collaboratively. In fact, manufacturers have always played an important role in commercial projects, offering expertise at the earliest stages – and this is unlikely to change with the introduction of BIM.
Space constraints ‘
The importance of BIM’s introduction can’t be underestimated. The UK is certainly under the spotlight, with much of the worldwide construction industry eager to learn how the new forward thinking approach is being rolled out.
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There will still be a requirement to discuss the idiosyncrasies of commercial boiler plant design in order to avoid potential issues, especially as gas condensing boilers are likely to remain at the heart of most projects. There are always a number of factors to consider when specifying new or replacement units, including space constraints, integration with other technologies and even the control strategies in place. So, manufacturers will still need to be on hand to offer this information at from project inception. The importance of BIM’s introduction can’t be underestimated. The UK is certainly under the spotlight, with much of the worldwide construction industry eager to learn how the new forward thinking approach is being rolled out. To summarise the importance of BIM at the CIBSE Awards, Peter Caplehorn used the analogy: “People say they don't need BIM, but people also said they didn't need email!” Of course, to an audience often engrossed by their inboxes, this received mixed responses. But there was no argument with his statement: “The gap between design and delivered performance is still too big”. BIM is sure to address this, so embracing the changes now is sure to guarantee the long term success of commercial projects for decades to come.
www.elco.co.uk
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www.marshall-tufflex.com
18 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER APRIL 2016
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