CITA BIM seminar report
Gerard O'Neill MCIAT reports on the CITA Smarter Co-operative Building Seminar held in Dublin on 9 March 2016.
Being of a certain age and from a college era when graphite was king in the drawing office and when a CAD was an unsavoury individual, I have long since accepted that I will never achieve a natural proficiency in computer aided project work. So I took the opportunity provided through CIAT to attend this seminar not with the aim of working towards proficiency but to develop a knowledge of the subject which will allow me to contribute in an informed way to the directing of the BIM journey in our practice, and to gauge how our current progress compares with that of our professional peers and with that of the construction industry in general.
The seminar was efficiently paced and focused. It showed me some of the potential benefits of BIM for a design practice which are great. It showed me that the resources and staffing challenges around gearing up and managing BIM are also great. While a number of professionals spoke enthusiastically of the ways in which BIM has improved the efficiency of their offices it was clear that, in general, efficiencies are confined to within their particular practices. Cross-disciplines co-ordination, it seems, is yet to find its feet. A contributor from the floor, a client representative, commented that while a very large construction project which he is managing uses BIM, he is enjoying little or none of the client benefits he understood BIM would deliver. He complained of limited early project 3-D presentation and of poor early stage co-ordination between the design disciplines. He spoke of consultants forging ahead unilaterally with a vague notion of ultimately liaising in some way under a single BIM model sometime later in the project.
In a post-recession industry many professionals, particularly but not exclusively those in the “secondary” disciplines such as M&E consultancy, find themselves under extreme early project resource and time pressure to deliver their initial design and production information. It seems they regard the “BIMming” of their work as something which must take second place to the delivery of primary information for tender and site start. We are experiencing a catch-22 scenario and it appears that, notwithstanding emerging client requirements, BIM will not gain real traction without a top-down driver, a focused government policy, perhaps even an ultimatum for use. A speaker from Scotland outlined the role of government in driving BIM both there and in England. An excellent seminar. Two hours very well spent.
More than once during the seminar the arrival of BIM was compared to that of CAD about three decades ago. While there are many comparisons, there is one fundamental difference. It was possible back then for CAD to feed into practices in an initially tentative and laterally organic way, with each practice acting independently and unilaterally. Because the ultimate benefits of BIM lie in the cross-disciplinary sharing and streamlining of information and procedures there is an obvious need for an over-arching national policy which should include high level direction for the various disciplines on achieving a single uniform base structure or model for BIM in the construction industry. The challenges around arriving at any consensus, let alone a national one, in matters digital are of course acknowledged (consider the fraught subject of CAD pen settings in the average drafting office). The ongoing work towards progressing BIM by the various groups around the country is recognised and was spoken of during the seminar. However the journey is likely to continue to be a frustrating one without the top-down rudder.
Being part of a profession which spent the last decade or so in survival rather than investment mode, one is concerned at being left behind ones industry peers in the movement to BIM. The seminar showed me the benefits of BIM. It showed me the challenges on the journey to a broad cross-disciplinary co-operation and to the ultimate goal of streamlined information sharing across our industry. And, most importantly, it showed me that the learning for us all is just started and that even those among us who have already forged a path acknowledge that we all have far to travel.
An excellent seminar. Two hours very well spent.
