Recently, I worked on a Building Information Modeling guide for the cold-formed steel industry.
What I found in researching and writing the guide might help you to integrate BIM with your firm’s processes. In short, there are three keys to BIM: (1) full immersion by your firm, (2) testing BIM out and (3) moving forward despite what architects, general contractors and MEP trades do.
I’ll take these points one at a time.
Total BIM Immersion
Before you buy BIM software and establish a BIM department, make sure you’re committed to the BIM process. That means analyzing your processes and seeing where you can improve them.
“You start [with BIM] by defining how you design, bid and build structures,” says Bob Grupe, AWCI’s technical director.
Next comes setting up some specific BIM goals and getting everyone in your company working together on them. Will BIM models help you identify clashes before work starts, streamline procurement processes, optimize job site layouts? Find out from your estimators, project managers, foremen and field crews.
You’re going to use BIM as a tool, and a tool can function only within an existing process environment. So, understand that process and how BIM will improve it. This calls for top-down BIM commitment—and a nurturing environment set by a culture of collaboration. Make sure you have that kind of culture before moving forward with BIM.
Piloting and Testing
My sources say it doesn’t take a large organization nor hefty outlays to put basic BIM procedures in place.
“The modeling platforms are getting inexpensive, so find somebody in your firm who’s excited to get started,” says Robert M. Leicht, Ph.D., assistant professor of architectural engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and director of the Partnership for Achieving Construction Excellence.
Try prefabricating some components. Use BIM as an internal planning tool to help estimate material order quantities.
Justin Robbins of F.L. Crane & Sons, who heads up his company’s BIM department in Austin, Texas, says his firm got started with BIM to collaborate with other trades.
Megan Washnieski, manager of design and engineering at South Valley Drywall, Inc., Littleton, Colo., says, “We started by prefabricating the components of walls. It wasn’t an investment in computers and BIM modeling software at first. We started with a pilot project.”
Yes, you’ll need to license a BIM software package to author BIM content. The industry offers several choices. If you have questions, reach me on LinkedIn and I’ll do my best to help you find answers.
Not Waiting for Others
If you do what your peers do, then move forward with BIM. Dodge Data & Analytics says BIM adoption by construction contractors now exceeds that of design professionals. Even wall contractors are BIM modeling when others are not.
Robbins authored a BIM model that helped the firm fabricate 750 15-foot exterior wall panels for a mid-rise apartment building. Even though the GC did not require BIM integration on the job, Robbins did it anyway. He got the MEP foremen together for a meeting in the job trailer and asked to see their system designs. That led to fabricating panels that accommodated their work.
Robbins says his BIM model even generated “panel tickets”—11×17-inch printed sheets showing how to fabricate each panel and where it would be placed on site.
“We had total confidence we would not redo a single panel,” he says.
A Whole New World Out There
Not long ago, clash detection involved little more than MEP trades and wall trades getting together for coffee on site and eyeballing problem areas.
Today, BIM brings a whole new world of 3-D visualizations to do things better. And clash detection is only the beginning.
Isn’t it time your firm got involved?
Mark L. Johnson writes regularly about BIM and other construction processes. He tweets at @markjohnsoncomm and connects at linkedin.com/in/markjohnsoncommunications.
