The BIM Episodes: Episode 6

Episode 6: A systematic understanding of BIM

Building information Modelling can be a very difficult topic to define. Just try to discuss it with a colleague and you end up going all over the place. For example, you start to discuss the effects of BIM on industry and you end up comparing software solutions. Or, the topic starts with how to collaborate around the Model and the discussion shifts to discussing risk-shedding vs. risk-sharing, insurance and design fees. It doesn’t stop there, you try to explain to someone how to migrate from 2D to 3D or implement a basic BIM tool and conversation shifts uncontrollably to discussing complex integrated practices.

This ‘confusion’ is not only found at individual practitioners' level but is omnipresent in industry presentations, guidelines, writings and specialised forums. Just Google the term BIM and read the countless informed and not-so-informed entries about it. To highlight the issue, try read the below argument which I rephrased from six different highly informed sources:

BIM is a catalyst for change (Bernstein, 2005) poised to reduce industry’s fragmentation (CWIC, 2004), improve its efficiency/effectiveness (Hampson and Brandon, 2004) and lower its high costs of inadequate interoperability (NIST, 2004). BIM is a methodology to manage the essential building design and project data in digital format throughout the building’s life-cycle (Penttilä, 2006). Building information modelling is a new approach to describing and displaying the information required for the design, construction and operation of constructed facilities (CRC-CI, 2006) 

Just by reading the bolded text of the above few sources (out of hundreds of definitions and assertions out there) and BIM is a sounding more like a super TLA – a belated Three Letter Acronym that defines nothing in particular. Is BIM something you can buy? Is it a change process or a construction procedure? Is BIM a GSA requirement, an NBIMS guideline or what exactly? If it is all of the above then isn’t it true that the breadth of a definition is inversely proportional to its usefulness?

Figure 6.1: BIM's recurring themes

Faced with all this ‘BIM chatter’, AEC stakeholders will find it difficult to pinpoint what they need to actually do to reap the full benefits of BIM. In fact, there is a need for some ‘systematic understanding’ of the BIM domain. By that I mean a clear, methodical and full description of what BIM is, is NOT as well as how to achieve it in an incremental and sustained fashion. To systematically understand a loosely-defined concept like BIM, we need to subdivide it into its components and analyse the relationship between them. The next few BIM episodes will do just that.

Based on my ongoing research (academic and professional), I will safely ‘decompose’ the term into three complementary dimensions: BIM Nodes (players and deliverables), BIM Stages (evolutionary steps) and BIM Lenses (multidisciplinary analysis). I will later use these three dimensions to generate BIM Steps – those elusive incremental steps needed to migrate from a 2D based workflow all the way to Integrated Project Delivery.

 

Figure 6.2: BIM Framework: the three dimensions

To be continued; next Episode will discuss the first dimension - BIM Nodes

References:

Bernstein, P. (2005) Integrated Practice: It’s Not Just About the Technology, http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek05/tw0930/tw0930bp_notjusttech.cfm, last accessed on December 5, 2005

CRC-CI (2006) Open Specifications for BIM: Sydney Opera House Case Study. IN Mitchell, J. (Ed.) Delivery and Management of Built Assets. Brisbane, Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation.

CWIC (2004) The Building Technology and Construction Industry Technology Roadmap. IN Dawson, A. (Ed.) Melbourne, Collaborative Working In Consortium.

Hampson, K. & Brandon, P. (2004) Construction 2020: A Vision of Australia's Property and Construction Industry. Australia, CRC Construction Innovation.

NIST (2004) Cost Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities Industry. IN Gallaher, M. P. O. C., A. C.; Dettbarn, J. L., Jr.; Gilday, L. T. (Ed.), National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Penttilä, H. (2006) Describing The Changes In Architectural Information Technology To Understand Design Complexity And  Free-Form Architectural Expression. ITcon, 11, 395-408.