Great question and very good critical observations. BIM is not the "magic bullet" that it was portrayed as when it hit the market. It is just a tool, not a philosophy. BIM is merely a highly effective computer design tool that can be linked with estimating and scheduling tools to assist the project manager, but it still requires human intervention and a discipline to feed the tool and evaluate its output. Like all the other magic bullets that have arisen in our industry, critical path scheduling, partnering, alliancing, lean construction, to name a few, BIM does not guarantee success. Its the people on the project team that make that happen. We seem to forget that no matter what gimmicks we employ in the project delivery process, the project team must still plan, design, construct, commission, and maintain the completed project. That is and always has been a very difficult, very complex effort. The tools help sort out the complexities, but only if their practitioners understand and appreciate their limitations. I spent 20 years in the construction industry before moving to academia and have found that my academic colleagues tend to assume reality out of the project management equation because it greatly simplifies the analysis and leads to gee-whiz, publishable findings. I'll end this missive before I go off the deep end on this line of reasoning. Thank you very much for initiating this dialog. It is greatly needed. Cheers

Doug

Following.

I guess today BIM has more than its real value

I don’t think BIM has been around enough time to have reach an obsolescence level.

Perhaps the industry's' commitment to BIM was overestimated and people may have thought all you have to do is buy hardware and software, as suggested by some vendors, do some training and, most of all, pay consultancy - the so called gurus.

A realistic approach encompassing an assessment of the whole industry, from client to product vendors (can we bid for components, materials, equipment and services electronically, at the press of a button?), not only design and construction firms, that aims to eliminate non-machine readable data from the process - standardization of data across all the production chain is essential.

Development of appropriate and detailed contracting schemes and also of collaboration culture, to reduce loss of information, rework and disputes.

BIM will be of little use, if the model doesn't go beyond the design office. And if it does, and stakeholders only see the design cost and time increase, relative to the construction cost and time ("BIM has made the design more expensive"), not the whole picture, because this is hindered by the contracting scheme (that does not favour integration), then things start going backwards - perhaps this was the case in Brazil (we're doing some research on that).

es muy acertado el comentario BIM como tecnología es muy a apropiado pero encarece los costos de proyecto por solo enunciar el aporte tecnológico y no como un complemento para el desarrollo de y agilidad del proyecto lo cual debe ser entendido así

como apoyo mas no como sobre costo

BIM has not outlived it's value / promise - it is actually well on its way to achieving it's value / promise for those that adopt BIM and embrace the standards and protocols of the process in the context of predetermined organisational / project outcomes.

However, BIM 'bastardisation' (think this is part of what BIM ThinkSpace described in 2011 as BIMWash ‘…The inflated and sometimes deceptive claim of using or delivering BIM products or services') is quite prevalent and is one of the reasons that knock down confidence in the BIM process when all the glory of BIM being the silver bullet of the built environment does not materialise when certain benefits / achievements are oversold and expectations inflated.

Only time will tell, but their is an increasing demand for BIM managers (by major players in the industry), where I study and work, so we can be optimistic about the future of BIM. And the interest of the industry in BIM is there.

But, a proper integration of BIM management is not an easy task and it require significant investements (in software licence and personnel formation) and a long term strategy by a compagny, wich can be a major "turn-off" for compagny focusing mainly on short-term profits. A good way to go is the integration of BIM management in the formation of the next generation of construction project managers, architects and engineers to minimise the formation cost for the industry.

As for the the use of BIM behond the design phase, during construction, the best way is probably to mix BIM with other management strategies (like Lean Construction) to favor the collaboration between the general constractors and the specialists. But, again, a change of mentality is required, wich is not easy with the current structure of the construction industry.

In my opinion, BIM has failed to deliver it's promises mainly because of the difficulties when dealing with the interoperability. Authoring set of tools had already provided some solutions, but when it comes to the needs of exchanges between different authoring apps, things get really complicated!

The IFC Schema, per se, has not overcome it yet, since there is a critical need to deploy several MVDs, which is not a simple task.

We are working on that right now, exploring the integrated process of the IDM/MVD, subsets of the IFC Schema, so to implement the interoperability between three authoring software within a Brazilian wood frame contrutech company. And it's been a hard time!

The true benefits of the OpenBIM are still to come. I feel that its promises fail to deliver all it's potential yet.

Deployment of BIM needs education and learning about the cost benefit from using this technique

Great question and very good critical observations. BIM is not the "magic bullet" that it was portrayed as when it hit the market. It is just a tool, not a philosophy. BIM is merely a highly effective computer design tool that can be linked with estimating and scheduling tools to assist the project manager, but it still requires human intervention and a discipline to feed the tool and evaluate its output. Like all the other magic bullets that have arisen in our industry, critical path scheduling, partnering, alliancing, lean construction, to name a few, BIM does not guarantee success. Its the people on the project team that make that happen. We seem to forget that no matter what gimmicks we employ in the project delivery process, the project team must still plan, design, construct, commission, and maintain the completed project. That is and always has been a very difficult, very complex effort. The tools help sort out the complexities, but only if their practitioners understand and appreciate their limitations. I spent 20 years in the construction industry before moving to academia and have found that my academic colleagues tend to assume reality out of the project management equation because it greatly simplifies the analysis and leads to gee-whiz, publishable findings. I'll end this missive before I go off the deep end on this line of reasoning. Thank you very much for initiating this dialog. It is greatly needed. Cheers

Doug

I think your example epitomises the challenge we have with BIM as too many who knew nothing jumped on the bandwagon of the acronym and went about selling the concept. However the reality is somewhat different and therein lies the challenge as we now have to convince those self same people a 2nd time which requires hard data which is very difficult to come by as companies are loathe to give it out for fear of it damaging their business. Mortenson's research in this regard is the best I have seen. Having worked on over 100 projects since 1999 using BIM and now in academia I believe the current generation are the ones who will reap the real benefits as they have the skill sets and will have opportunity to employ the tools as they gain experience so it will become 2nd nature which will also drive those around them to upskill and maximise the use of the technology into the future. My PhD research is looking to confirm this belief by going back to those I worked with as well as others to see if this is in fact reality and not just some idea on paper.

Thanks for the thought provoking comments.

I found some of the speed breakers for realizing the value of BIM in construction:

(1) Inadequate knowledge and skill level of people

(2) Stakeholders fear to shake hands for sharing their invaluable information, because its their asset

(3) Unready to give some room for BIM to breath in to organization culture

Thanks

Marimuthu

This is an interesting question and debate.

I agree with the background info about the proliferation of the so called "experts". They are many who claim to be BIM "experts" in both academia and practice. A good part of the BIM academic literature is either not reliable or does not add value (e.g. improve of conceptual knowledge and/or practical understanding of BIM). To exacerbate things, this issue in the literature is not limited to publications by early career researchers or is present in low impact journals, but it is across the board unfortunately. Many academics saw BIM as a huge hype and wanted to ride it with speculative papers to attract citations or increase the number of papers.

In recent times there has not any innovation that created as many self-proclaimed experts as BIM did.

I also could not agree more with this part (" BIM subjected to misuse/abuse as a result of our misunderstandings or lack of complete picture it entails") of your question. The key issue here is that we disagreed for so long over an adequate and representative definition (e.g. the above responses defining BIM as a tool are just an example) of BIM. If we had embraced very early a definition that provides justice to what actually BIM is, we would not probably had to have this discussion at this time. I know it is not easy to achieve such an agreement over the definition. But we could have at least acknowledged that BIM - as a technology - should not be separated from its process and policy components. We all know that technological developments far outpace social (policy and process) environment that is always catching up. In my humble opinion, this is the key issue that slowed down BIM adoption and limited its benefits realization. Process and policies are now catching up fortunately. Many countries have started implementing efforts at market/country level to address the process and policy components of BIM. These initiatives are maturing, and together with the educational/training infrastructure that is also slowly catching up, things will improve!

The current view that the architecture/engineering/construction industry seems to have of BIM is akin to the tale of the blind men and the elephant. One blind man holding the tail thought an elephant was like a rope. The second holding its leg thought an elephant to be like a tree. A third feeling its side opined an elephant to be like a wall. The forth with a hold on its ear stated it was very much like a fan and the last, holding the trunk described an elephant to be like a snake. Constrained by this limited perspective, stake holders in a capital project, like the construction of our metaphorical elephant, too often see it as just another work task that they want to do as efficiently as possible in order to maximize profit and get on to the next one.

I have witnessed architects, being pressured by owners to keep their fees low, hand off the heavy lifting of a design to less experienced or knowledgeable but cheaper draft persons that create elegant looking 3D designs that are not well coordinated and can't be built with currently available products. To save time they cut and paste specifications or designs from previous projects, which often don’t exactly apply to the current design. These design errors too often don't manifest themselves until the construction phase brings them to light with the associated extra costs of correction and delay. Because fees are being squeezed, architects are reluctant to purchase and climb the learning curve of BIM implementation and work flow, particularly if the elephant only looks like a rope. A rope can be made without going to all the effort, they seem to say.

Product suppliers send sales people to architects offices in an effort to persuade them to specify their newest and more expensive product into the project being designed. Suppliers have little interest in disclosing that the new product has not been around long enough to determine whether or not it performs well. In addition, since the architect's fee is often a percentage of the overall cost of the project, she is incentivized to specify more expensive materials be incorporated than may be warranted. Since manufacturers spend a lot on R&D, fabrication and marketing already, why would they go through the extra expense of creating 3D designs of their products for BIM and run the risk of having their designs knocked off by a competitor? They want to sell a big expensive wall for the elephant construction project. And, they have little interest in how it performs after the typical 1 year warranty period is over.

Subconsultants to the architect can be characterized by the blind men building the elephant to look like trees or a fan, the same way they have always done it. They are often subject to the same constraints and incentives, thus reacting as the architect when it comes to BIM implementation. Current engineering company owners are most likely in their 50s to 60s, and many began their careers hand drafting until forced to do CAD drafting only by necessity. Many view the leap to 3D and then to BIM as a bridge too far and too expensive to implement given that they can still make a living just fine with current work processes. I’m acquainted with a mining processing project that was designed by a multinational engineering company full of old egos that wanted to design the project in 2D, because that’s what they were comfortable with. When constructed, the $300MM project required an additional $250MM to correct the errors and the owner decided to tear the building down rather than pay the additional cost of remedying the multiple errors. Though anecdotal, it illustrates the entrenched mindsets against adoption of new technologies in the AEC industry. This attitude is similar to that of the big auto industry leaders that didn’t want to retool to compete because they were making money doing it the old way. The business management author Peter Drucker said, “ It is easier to kill a company than to change it.” Just like surveyors, that spent thousands of dollars on their theodolites, with the advent of GPS they had to adapt or die.

General contractors or construction managers as the trunk of the elephant are supposed to be at the leading edge of the charge but are often just as limited in vision as the previous participants in the project. While there are exceptions, like Mortensen, typically general contractors build the incomplete design they are given as cheaply and quickly as possible. I have observed some forward looking general contractors that have spent tens of thousands of dollars building their own 3D models from 2D contract drawings. They spend the money up front because they have learned that it is much cheaper for them to identify design errors virtually at the beginning of the project when labor costs are limited to one or two engineers rather than during construction when entire crews are delayed while the architect figures out how to remedy a design error. While commitment to 3D design is a start in the right direction, it is not BIM.

In my opinion, the technical aspects of the BIM process have matured sufficiently to provide real value, but its major value is to building owners that hold on to the capital asset just built and not owners that intend to sell it when complete. Building owners, given a fully loaded BIM model can use it as the basis of what the late Doug Christensen, past president of BOMA, termed Capital Needs Analysis (CNA). With reduced drawing object file size, relational databases can be attached to the tags of those objects which provide significant information for the management of a building. For example, clicking on a pump that has failed within the warrantee period can bring up its commissioning test result documentation and warrantee information and let you know if there are other like pumps that may have the same defect. Lubrication maps attached to that pump can be provided to maintenance personnel on an ipad in the field as they service it based upon the lubrication schedule attached to said pump. Laser scans of the piping and electrical conduits in hospital walls can provide accurate asbuilt information before the walls are covered with sheetrock for future reference in the next renovation. Manufacturers are able to depreciate equipment much faster based upon detailed quantities of specific assets that are depleted faster than general accounting practices use because detail is not available.

CNA that uses BIM as a basis can determine what the condition of every building element is, what its remaining life is, what its replacement cost is and compare that against the element’s repair costs to date. A manufacturing company with a large profit one year can use that detailed information as the basis for making needed renovations to extend production line income. In a low profit year, they can hold off on renovations thus having some control on the volatility of their profit peaks and valleys. Mr. Christensen saved a major university 1/3 of its annual operations budget employing this process.

In my opinion, BIM will be adopted by the AEC industry when project owners demand it of them as a deliverable in their contracts. This will require clear parameters for input and maintenance be communicated to all project participants so the plumber knows how to put operations manuals into the project BIM file on how to repair the flush valve of the toilets. Welding inspectors can post x-ray films on the structural field welds made, which may become important in future event of a structural failure. I’m aware of a major corporation driven into bankruptcy because they could prove they had inspected aspects of their system that caused damage to others and were, therefore, deemed negligent and liable for millions of dollars of damage caused by their equipment failure. Inspection reports attached to the equipment in a BIM model would have proven to the court that the company and made a reasonable effort to inspect the condition of their equipment.

When all the players in the construction of capital projects can see the whole elephant and are bound contractually to provide their input, then BIM will deliver on the promise.

Good afternoon

I can comment on BIM only from a viewpoint of someone who was overseeing architectural design team attempting to implement it. My observations are as follows:

• The BIM concept if fully implemented might be beneficial for very large projects, developed by large contractors for large clients only.
• The BIM concept is probably great for IT or software development business, as it appears to generate the continuous need for new products and updates. There may be similar benefits for BIM Managers.
• The desire to implement BIM appears to, more or less, coincide with the worldwide economic downturn of 2008 and the introduction of austerity measures in the UK from 2010. These are likely to have adversely affected the implementation of the concept. It can be argued that it is much more challenging to transition from 2D to 3D mode of delivery and BIM when everyone is looking to downsize, ask the skeleton remaining staff to do even more for less, as well as to devote a substantial amount of capital and revenue associated with the transition requirements. Suddenly recently acquired hardware perfectly able to support the 2D delivery mode is rendered obsolete and redundant, along with that the staff operating it until they are sufficiently up-skilled to operate in the BIM enabled environment. The latter is even more difficult to implement when there are barely enough hours to deliver the project as it is without having to learn new tools.
• One would assume that the true benefit of the BIM concept can be realised only when all links in the project chain are able to fully implement them. Even now on construction site, one can see builders attempting to construct a building of an A4 print of an A1 or A0 drawing created by a 3D building model!? One can barely read the title of the A4 drawing, not to mention about the fine detail. Equally, some of the contractors tendering for the works suggest that the tender return will be higher if the tender information includes specification!?
• The BIM enabled 3D CAD software appears to be good when it comes to detecting clashes and services coordination assuming that all parties add their information in sufficient detail and with sufficient level of precision.
• The few BIM enabled 3D CAD software tried out so far has not performed satisfactorily from a point of detailing. It appears that satisfactorily detailing have to be done still in 2D environment.
• BIM concept appears to be dependent on working in shared cloud based environment. This relays on maintaining information on a third party server for the lifetime of the building which is an endless both storage and managing expense, not to mention the increased risk over time for unathorised data access to the information stored. In addition is the perpetual expenditure of updating software to be able to access the data.
• It is my understanding that the BIM concept was introduced to be used on larger publicly funded projects. Although this make sense from one point of view, one wonder how the ongoing expenditure can be funded from within the current public sector purse. Assets are often passed onto charitable trust run by volunteers to manage the asset, etc.?
• Equally BIM is often asked on alteration of an existing building, which creates additional burden on the project since the existing building has to be created in the 3D environment even before design can commence. There is always the 'minor' issues on how the creating of the 3D model of the existing building will be funded.
• Over the years a number initiatives have been introduced in the construction industry that require highly specialist input. Whilst this reflect the complexity of the construction process in the 21st century the associated cost are increasing the financial burden on the forthcoming developments which are rapidly becoming un-affordable. We may all well need a slightly simplified approach in the time of austerity.

Regards