Commentary

What’s the Next Step for BIM?

By Derek Cunz  - M.A. Mortenson Co.

Image courtesy of M.A. Mortenson

The A/E/C industry is enthusiastic about building information modeling and its associated process improvements. Imagine being able to design and “construct” your project in detail in a virtual 3D environment before casting it in stone in the real world.   

Information currently fragmented among drawings, specifications, operations manuals, schedules and estimates could all be located in one database. 2D drawings become simply one of the reports of the database. Moreover, by including scheduling (4D) and cost information, the virtual model becomes a powerful planning tool.   

advertisement

Improvements Ahead   

Few people dispute that there’s room for improving design and construction industry processes. Current practice is fragmented—characterized by 2D paper-based documentation, inefficient construction documentation, little automation, a nonintegrated supply chain and a poor hand-off to the customer for operations and maintenance.   

The advent of 2D CAD in the 1970s incrementally changed the drafting process by allowing information to be replicated, electronically transferred, and, in some cases, automated. This was an evolutionary change where the drafting board was simply replaced by a computer.   

With BIM, CAD lines are replaced with intelligent objects. From our perspective, BIM can be summarized by project information that is digital, spatial, measurable, comprehensive, accessible and durable. Instead of a beam being represented by a single static line, in a fully realized BIM environment, that beam would be represented by an intelligent digital object that might contain the beam’s size, cost, connections, fabrication data, delivery schedule and the structural forces acting upon it. Change the size or location of the beam, and the model automatically adjusts other building components to accommodate the change or allows you to automate coordination of the change.   

Scratching the Surface 

The industry is just beginning to reap the benefits of using BIM. At Mortenson, we have been experiencing the value of BIM for nearly 10 years but are just scratching the surface of opportunity. We have found that the new process allows project teams to better coordinate, collaborate and visualize building systems to avoid costly field changes.   

Other examples of successful implementation include the use of 4D scheduling, where the project schedule information is tied to the 3D model, and the schedule can be viewed and played like a movie. Our experience has shown that schedules viewed in animation can be debugged faster, better analyzed, and more clearly communicated to a wide audience.   

BIM has also been successfully implemented for LEED analysis of buildings, where the building model can be used for energy, mass and lighting design. Data can now be transferred between design and construction teams with more information than simple 2D geometry. This heightened level of information leads to a new level of collaboration among project stakeholders.   

Models have been used to create building sub-assemblies and prefabricate components or large portions of buildings; this allows buildings to be “manufactured” with higher precision and improved schedules. 

BIM Challenges 

One major misconception is that BIM is one model containing all project data. While this may be a future state, the current and near-term BIM world will include multiple models built for specific project use. Examples include analytical models for design, models used for simulation, design discipline models for specific design use, construction document models, and manufacturing models for various systems, including steel, concrete, mechanical and electrical.   

Tools have been developed and continue to evolve that allow these multiple models to be coordinated, merged and analyzed. The glue for keeping this data together is clear process management and a well-defined role for the project model integrator. This new role in the process is currently being defined, but we have seen the role split between the architect during the design phase and the general contractor during construction. The industry needs to better define these roles. 

These improvements to the process do not come without challenges. The current framework of our contracts does not support a BIM database information process. Examples of pinch points include procurement, permitting, contracting, liability and the hand-off of electronic information to the field. The transfer of BIM data will include orders of magnitude, more information (spatial relationships, design information, manufacturing data, operational information, etc.) than simply the transfer of a 2D CAD file, which is in essence an electronic file containing the same information we would see on a paper drawing. 

Contractual Issues   

We are currently in a transitional period in the adoption of BIM, which also includes challenges. Today’s BIM projects typically use a dual process where the contract documents follow the traditional process that includes 2D information, and the project team is using parallel BIM data to obtain the benefits. Now that we have experience developing and using BIM, we need to begin the transition to contractual reliance on BIM data as well. 

The ability to build a structure virtually—and the enhanced collaboration among owners, designers, contractors and suppliers—will generally reduce the liability exposure of all parties involved.  Nevertheless, BIM does raise a variety of legal issues. Perhaps the most significant is the potential blurring of the traditional allocation of responsibility (and liability) for design versus that for means and methods.   

The issue isn’t conceptually different than in the pre-BIM world, but the intense collaboration enabled by BIM—if carried out without appropriate process controls—could increase the chance of unintended liability transfer among the parties. Contracts need to define the roles and responsibilities related to the use of BIM, and the parties need to understand and follow these guidelines to avoid unintended liability transfer. 

BIM in Transition 

Other issues raised by BIM include those of intellectual property, the use of digital models as contract and record documents, software defects and data corruption, the “obsoleting” of generations of technology, discovery of and evidentiary procedure for digital models, and the use of models for building operation and maintenance. We can hasten the realization of BIM’s full potential by developing appropriate terms for data transfer and encouraging appropriate compensation for BIM deliverables. 

With BIM, there are huge opportunities for a leap in productivity, collaboration and improved quality. There are many groups now working on new contract terms and/or BIM guidelines—AIA, AGC, DBIA, AISC, CURT, CII, NIBS, and IAI to name a few. Challenges that need to be addressed include: 

 • Intellectual property rights, 

 • Interoperability between design tools and manufacturing/production tools, 

 • Development of standard form agreements that define reliance on BIM data and the roles of the parties, 

 • Published metrics to support the BIM value proposition. 

Click here for more Features >>