Tag: bim

Stop Putting Your Construction Business at Risk with DIY Tech (3/3)

Luke Johnson

Every Construction project in the world is at risk, not just from site conditions or supply chain disruptions, but from a much deeper, systemic problem: wasting time and resources on in-house tech solutions.

BIM people and Construction businesses need to stop building crap technology solutions in-house. The reason? Simply because doing that is a waste. The ideal of BIM was to avoid waste. But building and re-building scripts and automations and solutions on every single project is a colossal waste of time and resources. This needs to change right now, because the Construction industry globally can’t afford to keep doing this.

Who perpetuates this risk? Its those at the end of their career who fight against transparency and change. Its those who accept the status quo. Its those that think they must hoard knowledge and peacock their IT skills constantly. Its those that think that their inherent value is in building some kind of custom solution for their project or business. It really isn’t.

While BIM and Digital Construction were created to reduce waste, such as time, materials, and money, somewhere along the way it morphed into a “DIY” mentality. Custom scripts, piecemeal integrations, and one-off workflows might work in the short term, but they rarely scale across projects. Worse, they often cost more than what shows up on a P&L.

Here’s why it’s time to stop building in-house tech:

1. It’s Inefficient
Building and maintaining custom tech solutions consumes huge amounts of time, effort, and expertise. Instead of driving innovation, teams end up reinventing the wheel instead of focusing on what matters most: delivering successful projects.

2. It’s a Distraction
Your core business is delivering exceptional projects, not building software. Diverting resources to develop in-house tech solutions means taking focus away from the actual Design and Construction of the built environment.

3. It’s Unsustainable
As technology rapidly evolves, in-house solutions require constant updates, upgrades, and troubleshooting. What starts as a one-time investment quickly becomes a never-ending, costly cycle.

The BIM and Construction professional of the future has pragmatic courage. You identify the need to collect and centralise data across projects and you choose the right solution for it. You push forward with real purpose on your projects (the real Construction projects, not the dumb internal software ones).

You are massively valuable on your projects, not because you have BIM in your job title and not because you learned how to use an AI chatbot. Its because you understand that Construction is about designing and delivering the built environment, not software. You are valuable because you are going to push for the right workflow, and you are going to choose the right data platform to support your Construction business.

BIM will die one day, but pragmatic courage will remain forever.

This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.

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Bring Value to BIM with Build SA

Luke Johnson

The intro session is coming up soon…click here to find out more and Register.

What is Build SA?
“a series of seminars run throughout 2015 with a focus on bridging the gap between what BIM promises and how it is actually delivered on projects in South Australia. BuildSA will give industry leading and proven workflow solutions for anyone interested in getting the most out of BIM…”

BIM, Revit, FM and Health

Luke Johnson

Detailed and informative article re-published on AHDC (Australian Health Design Council) website. Quote (underlining is mine):
Managing the technology 
The post-occupancy incorporation of building data into an existing system long has been a tedious and error-prone process that now can be automated via the model’s geometry and data, if structured and formatted correctly. Health facility managers are seeing the value of BIM by integrating it into their existing computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) and computer-aided facility management (CAFM) systems as well as energy or building management systems and electronic document management systems. By not limiting the application of BIM to simply a technology-to-technology interaction, the realistic outcomes that can be achieved by this type of workflow become evident. Often considered low-hanging fruit is BIM’s ability to integrate into a space management system. BIM applications such as San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk Inc.’s Revit Architecture are capable of tracking building spaces and easily categorizing that information into departmental areas as well as floor-to-floor or building-by-building breakdowns across a larger medical campus in both graphical and schedule-based interfaces. 

Also:
In its simplest terms, a model’s power to visualize space can contribute to staff and patient recruitment… BIM also can work to improve visitor wayfinding.

And the experience of Ohio State University and its 2D to 3D conversion for FM:
OSU began creating 3-D models of all the medical center buildings, helping the facilities team to understand its buildings and collaborate more effectively with the people who use them. OSU also has started using BIM in energy-use analysis and it is poised to play a key role in helping OSU to achieve its goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.

Now that the medical center has been modeled, BIM is allowing the university’s facility management group to support general space reporting and to mock up spaces in greater detail for more informed decision-making processes and for future project funding. Due to the success of the initiative, OSU decided to extend the BIM program to its main campus.
“The core benefit of BIM for us comes down to being able to make better, more cost-effective decisions faster,” says Joe Porostosky, senior manager of facilities information and technology services for OSU. “Ultimately, our facilities better meet the needs of users without as much time-consuming back-and-forth and expensive rework.”

Source:
BIM’s Role Expands as Health Facility Managers Take Ownership | Australian Health Design Council

 

Heads-up:

Free Model-Based Estimating and Quantity Takeoff Lessons and Tutorials

Luke Johnson

I have posted about the Autodesk BIM Curriculum before, but it is worth mentioning again. It is a great collection of resources, videos, whitepapers, downloadables, and targeted lessons that can help improve your understanding and ability when it comes to specific BIM tasks.

For example, there is a focused set of lessons relating to quantity takeoff in Revit and Navisworks.

Some of these videos have also been uploaded to Youtube. Here is a playlist:

Main lesson page:
Lesson 3: Model-Based Estimating and Quantity Takeoff | BIM Curriculum

What does BIM for MEP look like in 2014?

Luke Johnson

Check out the survey results from Design Master Software – interesting that 2/3 using Revit over AutoCAD:

And how does MEP industry take-up of BIM compare with what was expected in 2011?

As with any such survey, its value must be regulated by the question:  
“Do the survey respondents represent an accurate cross-section of the industry itself?”

Read more:
MEP 3D-BIM 2014 Survey Results – Design Master Blog

Name the 10 most significant ROI benefits of BIM

Luke Johnson

Happily, it is becoming less and less common that we have to actually justify why we do BIM.

But if you do, Daniel Hughes has put together an interesting list based on his experience:
“Here’s my list of the ten best process features in Revit; that can offer the biggest Return On Investment (ROI) in the initial phase of Revit implementation.

  1. Automatic Sheet set Management and Tag Coordination
  2. Automated Floor Planning Tools
  3. All Model & Sheet Views Update When the Revit Model is Edited
  4. Annotation Graphics Resize Based on View Scale
  5. Power of Parametric Dimensioning
  6. Pre-built Building Product Manufacturer Model Libraries
  7. Building Schedules SynchronizeAuto-Update With Model Changes
  8. Views: Independent & Automated Visibility Controls
  9. Multiple people can simultaneously Access and Edit the Project File
  10. Link DWG Files Into Revit Project”

Read the whole post at:
http://bradleybim.com/2014/06/03/revit-implementation-secrets-10-best-revit-process-features/

What is your opinion of BIM?

Luke Johnson

In a recent Twitter experiment, I posted three different opinions of BIM and have been monitoring the response through Retweets. Here are the results (as these are embedded tweets, the results will change over time).

The results thus far appear to be overwhelmingly positive – that BIM is indeed “awesome”. I guess the majority of my Twitter followers are, unsurprisingly, supporters of BIM.

I’ll keep this page live as a checkpoint for the statistics – it will be interesting to drop in from time to time and see if the results change as more people from outside my Twitter circle weigh in on this BIM thing…