Building information modelling (BIM) is a new way of approaching the design and documentation of building projects.
- Building : the entire life-cycle of the building is considered (design/build/operations)
- Information : BIM data can be used to illustrate the building life cycle, from cradle to cradle
- Modelling : defining and simulating the building, its delivery, and operation using integrated tools
The Government Construction Strategy was published by the Cabinet Office on 31 May 2011 and revealed the Governments intention to require 3D BIM (with all projects and asset information, documentation and data being electronic) on its projects by 2016. Essentially the UK Government has embarked with industry on a four year programme for sector modernisation with the key objective of: reducing capital cost and the carbon burden from the construction and operation of the built environment by 20%.
However, specialist contractors are struggling to adopt BIM because of rising software costs and poor practice by tier one contractors, and industry briefing to government has warned. The briefing, seen by Building Magazine, which was prepared by the Specialist Engineering Contractors Group (SEC) and has been sent to Cabinet Office ministers, catalogues a series of problems faced by specialist firms. The briefing has claimed that software providers are pushing up prices as a result of high license fees and poor adaptability between different software packages. It accused larger contractors of not bringing specialists into the design process early enough, offering poor value ‘BIM seminars’ and “dumping” responsibility for information management and data coordination onto sub-contractors at a cost of up to £150,000 a project. It is also highly critical of inadaptable software and there is a “real danger that BIM development will be driven by software houses [rather than firms]. It gives an example of an M&E firm that was forced to sped £5,000 getting BIM model converted into a usable format.
A BIM system uses a computer generated model to collect and manage information about the project. It is especially useful where many parties, for example different sub-contractors, provide input on the same project. Any changes to the design of a project made during its construction are automatically applied to the model.
David Frise, chair of the BIM group at SEC Group, said: “You’ve got to engage with the supply chain and with organisation that are…in survival mode”