CONSTRUCTION & BIM
What’s all of this got to do with building information modelling? BIM lets information flow seamlessly from the start of a construction project all the way through to facilities management. It articulates to the client everything from floor plans and layouts to materials used, asset shelf-life and required maintenance schedules – essentially, it depicts what products are in the building, where they are, how they work, and how they all fit together. It relates objects in a model and links them to each other for the greater understanding of all parties involved in the design, construction, operations and ongoing upkeep of the structure.
What this means in the long term is enhanced predictability and the opportunity to take early steps towards proactive FM action; they can realise the full value of their asset over its useful life through cost, sustainability and time-effective operation and maintenance. With BIM, facility managers can visualise facilities being created, helping them to understand project intent. BIM lets them see into the future – it lets them see the effect individual design features will have in the immediate future, that very evening and in the days following.
BIM can also act as a bridge between different stages of the handover process. Where teams implement Common Data Environments, such as Aconex, workflows can be automated on a shared, neutral platform, whilst providing a comprehensive information resource accessible by interested parties and shared during or after the project. In this way, the risk of losing asset information created earlier on in the project is lessened. Accurate information
should have been recorded, verified, and submitted in a timely fashion throughout the process, not just collected at the end.
“IT IS COMMON FOR FMS TO BE
CONCERNED THAT
THEY HAVEN’T BEEN INVOLVED IN THE DESIGN OF THE
BUILDING AND THAT THIS MAKES THEIR JOB HARDER.”
It is common for FMs to be concerned that they haven’t been involved in contributing to the design of the building and that this makes their job harder. What BIM will mean for them is working not harder, but smarter. New working practices encourage, through embracing BIM, a need to involve asset owners and facilities managers to understand the information they require on handover. It will mean bringing people together. Facilities managers do not have to know everything about CAD technology or 3D modelling – but they can still have an important say during design, can impact the result, and can ensure the information handed over by the contractor fits their specific needs.
How do we achieve this collaborative way of working? By encouraging open conversation between all disciplines. The direction of travel in the industry will eventually lead to a point where facilities management experts can help and educate others within the design and construction stages on the long-term benefits of using BIM to aid the asset lifecycle. A specific role
comes to the open BIM formats like IFC (Industry Foundation Classes). It’s an international data standard for BIM, which allows communication between parties during the project, irrespective of the software platforms they use, and makes sure that the data can still be read in 10 years and more. It creates rules and foundations for collaboration to ensure that everybody is speaking the same language.
Without sophisticated digital handover tools, contractors are scrambling to retrospectively gather project information at practical completion to deliver to the owner, or risk penalties or late payments. Even then much of this information is inaccurate and/or incomplete. BIM gives owners a multidimensional model of the as- built asset, but more importantly, the opportunity to develop a structured, digital information source of the asset, so that the design can be modified and approved while testing its constructability. In the future, the facilities manager has the opportunity to influence the quality of the information they receive, including a complete digital representation, and a geospatial view, with all relevant project and handover information detail included.
Education affords many things. In our line of work, it opens doors and windows so that clients are fully conscious of the data they will need to make their lives easier. With more meaningful insights added every day, digital twins will emerge as the digital replica of physical buildings. Harnessing that sort of cutting-edge technology can elevate facilities management to a new space.
www.aconex.co.uk
www.tomorrowsfm.com
TOMORROW’S FM | 37
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
