BIM Everything Everywhere All at Once

I'm bullish on BIM, but we've got some work to do.

This is a 3D model screenshot of my first and favorite project from Navisworks. The exterior skin, hangers/halos, walls and other objects hidden to showcase the density of MEP systems.

Some of you have heard about my BIMtern story: During my first internship with DPR Construction, I was thrown into the world of BIM (Building Information Modeling) and fell in love with building something virtually before building it physically to find all potential conflicts and inefficiencies. Construction labor in the field is expensive so leveraging a digital representation of what we’re building to make sure everything fits and equipment can be delivered can save a lot of money. Ever since I joined the construction industry, I have been bullish on BIM increasing construction productivity. However, throughout my years working in it, I have learned how hard it is to implement BIM and some of the major challenges.

BIM can mean a lot of things to a lot of different stakeholders in the construction value chain. BIM stands for Building information Modeling and the word has been around for a long time. Wikipedia says the word BIM has been around since the 70s, but I don’t think it became popular with the construction industry until Autodesk marketed it in the early 2000s. Today, there are still varying definitions of BIM around the world and new terms that have been made to redefine the concept with or without adding any new component/value: VDC (Virtual Design and Construction), Digital Twin, Metaverse…

Some examples of differing definitions:

• The US National Building Information Model Standard Project Committee has the following definition:

  Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A BIM is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle; defined as existing from earliest conception to demolition.

• The UK Government’s definition:

  Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a collaborative way of working, underpinned by the digital technologies which unlock more efficient methods of designing, creating and maintaining our assets. BIM embeds key product and asset data and a 3 dimensional computer model that can be used for effective management of information throughout a project lifecycle – from earliest concept through to operation.

As you can see, the US’s definition seems to define BIM as just a digital representation, while the UK’s definition hints at a process. My training on BIM is from DPR Construction and Stanford CIFE. It has been engrained in me that BIM has (3) components to it: people, process and technology. In order to implement BIM properly, you must leverage technology to create a digital representation, you must implement processes that integrate BIM into overall construction operations processes (change orders, scheduling, etc.), and you must train and educate the project teams about the technologies and process changes.

During my career in construction, I have come across many horror stories on BIM implementation. In this article, I will highlight some of those challenges, which can help describe why BIM adoption has been so slow over the last few decades even though BIM has been marketed to help solve construction productivity issues. I am still bullish on BIM, but there needs to be foundational changes to the way we do construction before we can take full advantage of what BIM has to offer.

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BIM /= BIM Coordination

One of the biggest assumptions in the industry is that to implement BIM, you just need to implement BIM Coordination. BIM Coordination is the process where you bring in 3D models of all the different scopes, trades and components of a building and run a clash detection test, which will tell you which objects are in conflict with one another in 3D space. Yes, finding all of these clashes can help reduce rework, but just the act of doing BIM Coordination does not equal BIM. In a proper BIM process, you have planning sessions before you do any modeling—here you map out generally where different scopes of work will go in 3D space. You’re defining real estate above the ceilings where mechanical ductwork should run and leave space for fire sprinkler piping. Too often does BIM Coordination take place in a silo and the coordination schedule is not tied to the construction schedule and design changes are not fed back to the design team and properly documented in construction documents. As you can see, this BIM Coordination process must be linked to many other processes and involve more than just the BIM team… hence just implementing BIM Coordination will not benefit your project if it is done in a silo.

“I want BIM”

I hate to say this.. but sometimes the client is to blame for poor or improper BIM implementation. I’ve heard from many project teams that the client will write an extensive Employers Information Requirement or BIM Execution Plan that will either be too vague or will ask for the moon. The range of requests and requirements may not be fully understood by the clients or the business development teams or the project executives that sign contracts or make verbal agreements. When a client requires an as-built model, they may not know that that deliverable comes with a big price tag — if the contractor properly prices for it. However, oftentimes, the contractor will agree to the deliverable to win the project and not price the scope properly. The contractor will likely lose money to produce a highly accurate as-built model when none of the processes were in place to keep the model up to date throughout construction. As you can see here, alignment of expectations and proper definitions of what the client actually needs vs what they want are very important for not losing money on BIM implementation.

Contractual limitations

The way that projects are bought out do not always incentivize sharing models or collaboration around BIM. The time and effort put into making BIM more accurate by the design team will benefit the construction team—but why would one stakeholder spend more time (make less profit) to benefit another one in an industry full of adversarial relationships? Even with the best of intentions, each stakeholder is a business and needs to make a profit. Unless the contract incentivizes collaboration, companies will not go out of their way to make things easier for other companies on the same project. BIM implementation tends to have the best chances on IPD (Integrated Project Delivery) or Design-Build delivery methods given the ability to share project profits. I’m not saying it can’t be done in more traditional methods, but contracts will need to align incentives for collaboration.

Existing BIM tools are horrible to use and there’s a steep learning curve

Close industry friends of mine know this: I’m not a Revit fan. I’m a millennial, I grew up with computers, I played video games, I’m an engineer… and the tool is even complicated for me. I’m not saying it’s impossible to learn, but it’s a highly inefficient tool—it’s old, it’s clunky, and nowadays has limited capabilities. Even if the definition of BIM implementation was just adopting Revit… a company can spend a lot of money on training and software and be less productive with 3D tools versus 2D tools. I have seen too many companies that adopt Revit have to increase their fees on projects. The tool is so hard to learn that companies are still designing in 2D and traditional methods, then hiring additional staff members to learn Revit and redraw everything in Revit for compliance purposes. This is not changing the current process, this is adding another step in the process. Yes, there is value in drawing everything in 3D and communicating design intent to the rest of the supply chain, but today, it is still costly to implement BIM given the archaic nature of the tools. And of course, this is not just Revit (from Autodesk)… there are also old authoring tools from Bentley, Hexagon, etc.

Not everyone can navigate a 3D environment

Just like how not everyone knows how to read a map, not everyone can easily navigate a 3D environment. In construction, you have to know how to read plans (including section cuts, details, etc.) and visualize what is being built in your mind. Not everyone can do this, so BIM is supposed to help with this visualization. However, I’m not sure if we only need a user interface upgrade or if we need more ways of visualization—there are people who cannot navigate a 3D environment. I’ve spent time teaching people how to use Navisworks and it is too hard—navigating with a mouse is not intuitive. There were improvements made by linking 2D plans to the 3D environment that helped (thank you BIManywhere) and nowadays there are even easier interfaces like Revizto. However, there are still people on construction sites who cannot navigate in a 3D environment and we need a better way to help communicate what’s to be built. We are still limited on our BIM implementation if we cannot manipulate the data as it’s fit to those consuming it.

BIM affects everything

I alluded to this above where doing BIM Coordination in a silo is a waste of time. BIM must be integrated into all operational processes on a construction site or it is a waste of time. Here are some processes that BIM changes:

• Schedule: Using BIM, we can build something virtually before physically doing it. The BIM coordination schedule should precede the construction schedule. In detail, the process is: BIM coordination sign off —> material procurement —> prefabricate of parts —> delivery —> installation. Too often the coordination schedule is not tied to the construction schedule so coordination is completed after installation has already begun and when that happens, there is reworking of the installed materials to match the model or the model will need to be updated to reflect the field installation. This causes greater deviation between the modeled vs actual.

• Cost: Generally speaking, there will be added cost for BIM implementation on any construction project. All stakeholders should make sure they have enough cost in their labor, procurement, etc. to cover software costs and/or hours required to participate in coordination meetings and/or time to make changes to the model.

• Change Orders: If there are any changes, whether driven by the owner or not, those changes should go through a re-coordination process, input into the schedule (not just the rework, but also the coordination duration), and change order costs should capture BIM-related costs (re-coordination, redetailing, etc).

BIM is not for every project

People assume that BIM will be widely adopted across all of construction. Until BIM is super easy to implement and designing in 3D is commonplace, there are many types of projects that BIM just doesn’t make sense for. Sometimes 2D drawings just make more sense. As an example: a basic parking garage. Yes there are sprinklers and electrical conduit in parking garages, but for the most part, there is plenty of overhead space and most parking garages don’t have ceilings.. so does it really matter if this pipe is one foot to the west if there’s nothing next to to it? Also, everything in the garage is visible — do we really need an as-built model? One can make an argument that you might want to know where the steel reinforcing is if you want to make changes/drill holes in the concrete in the future, but is it worth spending all of the money to capture it when you’re unsure if those doing the work in the future will even trust the data? They will likely do their own scan before drilling any holes anyways. Some can argue that there are parts of commercial office buildings that don’t need BIM.. and single family residential projects don’t warrant BIM. The takeaway is that the value of BIM will be different depending on the complexity of the project and today, given the high cost of implementation, BIM does not make economic sense for every project.

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I do not mean to rant, but I’ve been in and around the BIM space for over a decade and have seen very slow adoption. I am still bullish on BIM being an important part of the digitization of the construction industry, but on top of new technologies, we will need process change, contractual changes and cultural changes before BIM can be standard in our industry.