BIM Coordination- Shop Drawings
One of the most promising areas of development as the building industry adapts to BIM offerings, is the link between building models and construction management, in particular shop drawings. Shop drawings will provide one of our most satisfying benefits, the opportunity to create accurate shop drawings using the building model that reflects direct manufacturer components and necessary fabrication systems. This has obvious benefits like, increasing construction accuracy, reducing construction management’s man-hours, cutting down on change orders, and reducing construction delays due to fabrication coordination. The industry currently has a limited connection between BIM and shop drawings as the BIM movement has just begun. We have seen a preliminary effort to link structural framing models to shop drawings with fair success. Actual procedures are far from developed, but you can count on their continual development within the entire AEC/O industry.
BIM Coordination- Area Analysis
One of the least understood benefits of BIM is the built-in area analysis features that are provided as a result of creating the building model. Regardless of the number of floors, the overall size, or mixed-use conditions within the building, area calculations can be performed at any stage of the project, whether that be preliminary or later during value engineering. This flexibility allows for design changes and automatic area calculation updating removing much of the human error that accompanies design changes.
BIM Coordination- Collision Detection
Collision Detection, also known as Conflict Analysis can be summed up as the process of determining when, where, and what types of systems or objects intersect each other. For example, collision detection commands within BIM software can find beam conflicts with pipe runs. BIM software typically has this ability built-in and improves productivity and quality in the project lifecycle of building construction. But, collision detection is only as good as the building model, and if your architects, engineers and consultants are using different software, your collision detection will prove shortsighted. When multiple BIM or Virtual 3D Modeling software is involved, there are a couple of proven software, allowing integration of all major modeling software vendors for complete file format interoperability. This kind of software is known as 3D/4D Design Review software. It is scalable, flexible and has a programmable interface allowing for customization to other third party software and databases. One is known as Innovaya’s Composer HYPERLINK "http://www.innovaya.com/prod_revit.htm" http://www.innovaya.com/prod_revit.htm and the other is known as JetStream by NavisWorks (Autodesk, Inc.) http://navisworks.com/en/jetstream. They both allow for complete project management, estimation, and collision detection. They also have multiple additional components that allow for additional services to provide common presentation.
BIM Coordination- Cost Estimation
Providing, the Construction Management Company is included in the sharing of the design models, Construction Estimators can pull preliminary model data early in the design process to provide material quantities to enable faster cost estimates, and saving potential building budget disasters. The preliminary design models will still require a fair amount of estimation work, though this work is lessened with each successive model, and with such information, comes the opportunity to control the design management process and provide the client with much needed support.
To simplify the process, consider the design model as a place holder for our building information. This information must be exported from the model and transferred into software designed to format the information into readable output. A few of these examples are as simple as Excel spreadsheets and Access databases, and as advanced as Sage’s Timberline in association with Innovaya’s Visual Estimation or with Innovaya’s Quantification alone.
BIM- Future
BIM- in the face of unpredictable construction dynamics, the effort to bring order to chaos is paramount. We have attempted for years to bring our 2D documents together with our custom spreadsheets and databases, but the information never really stacked up. BIM is the solution to an age old dilemma, how do we minimize effort and maximize product at the same time, and now we can add to that, how do we maintain control of the project with so many additional chefs are in the kitchen? By blending very smart virtual graphics software with information-packed smart objects, we create a very large database of design and product information, providing us with a very flexible design and management solution. We use technology to work for us, lessening our work load, and automatically coordinating our tedious tasks to enable us to do what we do best- design and manage our projects. We continue to add more and more technology to simplify our industry processes. But in the end, we have more consolidation within all industries and more changes to get used to. The Building Industry becomes a major conglomerates housing all the disciplines under a few roofs with the ability to do exactly what BIM can do now, provide everything an owner with a construction project is looking for, a Master Builder, a company tasked with the effort to build his building without the seemingly disorganized effort that falls upon his building projects today. It seems inevitable. The stronger our computers become, the stronger our software becomes, and with stronger software, comes greater opportunity for savings of man-hours due to coordinated graphics, collision detection, scheduling, management, etc. Some existing industry specific jobs will be lost as BIM envelopes their work, for instance, though BIM is in its infancy, the creation of shop drawing will no longer be necessary as architects and engineer’s BIM models become so accurate as to make shop drawings unnecessary. Or, cost estimating will no longer be a major part of a project as the BIM models will have quantified the building components and the data is a simple extraction to common construction management software solutions. This will be due in large part, because building component manufacturers will finally get on board by providing real-time support for all building designers by the creation of smart BIM models of their companies product lines. This will go a long way in the creation of accurate BIM models, when actual product and specification enter building models via real world information. Imagine, not construction documents as we know them today, but digital construction models with full 3D and 4D functionality including GPS coordination, will begin driving actual survey, management, design and engineering, permit, and construction processes. The entire design and construction process is simplified. As we look at our lives, no one can say that our responsibilities haven’t grown out of control and more difficult with each passing year. Well, the owner/client is also looking to simplify his work. As we look ahead at how BIM will simplify our efforts and create opportunities for our organizations to compete within the global market, our owner/clients are looking for the same benefits. These benefits will come to us as BIM proliferates within our industries. One digital model will bring simplicity and order. What will be gone is all the chaos. There is only one real question left. Who owns the BIM model? I believe, that is a question our courts aren’t prepared to answer, and is more than likely going to be handled by project contract. Don’t take this lightly, but one thing is for certain. He, who owns the model, owns the world.
Next week, Part 3 will include BIM Training, Resources, and Support.
Written by: Scott Ebert, BIM Industry Analyst
© Copyright 2008 Soft Innovations, Inc.
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