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Golden Rule of BIM (AEC Insight Column)
1 Oct, 2008 By: Jerry LaiserinBuilding owners increasingly demand improved processes and better technology to reduce costs.
Nearly 10 years ago, Paul Bell, then-vice-president at Dell (and now president, Americas), observed that in the manufacturing business, "inventory . . . is the physical embodiment of bad information." In AEC business, the cost of bad information is embodied in routine practices such as add/deduct alternates; allowances; requests for information (RFIs), addenda, and sketches; change orders and substitutions; material stored on site; contingencies; retainage; and — all too often — litigation. Just as end users and consumers in manufacturing and distribution supply chains ultimately pay all costs of inventory-related bad information, building and project owners — as end users and consumers of design and construction services — ultimately bear all costs of bad information in construction supply chains.
 In this article |
Paying the Piper
Whether passed along directly as change orders, hidden in excessive bid spreads and bidding surprises, or buried in someone's overhead, reimbursables, or general conditions, all costs of project information — good and bad — are absorbed by project owners. On hypothetical (but not atypical) projects, owners could pay as much as 6% of construction cost for architectural and engineering fees or creating building information. Another 6% or so of construction cost might go to a general contractor or construction manager for general conditions, fees and/or profits, or managing building information.
Yet, as I've discussed previously, numerous studies in both the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that as much as 30% of construction cost is wasted because of bad information: inaccurate, delayed, misplaced, inconsistent, uncoordinated, and so on. Thus, project owners pay roughly 12% of construction cost to create and manage building information, and inefficiencies of as much as 30% are attributable to inadequate building information.
Little wonder, then, that owners increasingly demand improved processes and better technology, especially interoperable technologies. Emergence of building information modeling (BIM) and virtual construction (VC) — also called virtual design and construction (VDC) — promises to significantly improve accuracy, consistency, integration, coordination, and synchronization of building information at all stages of the building lifecycle. If software tools for BIM and VC are fully interoperable through standards such as industry foundation classes (IFCs), then potential cost savings through reduction of bad information can be even greater.
Spending Wisely
Government buildings and health care facilities are two building sectors in which project owners have been especially aggressive in early adoption of BIM and VC technologies. Both the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and its Finnish counterpart, Senate Properties, have shown global leadership in this process despite vast differences in size and scope of their respective government building construction programs and property portfolios.
 Figure 1. Solibri Model Checker compares model files with building codes, design guidelines, and project programs/briefs. Many building owners demand this kind of checking to ensure that the building they get is the one they requested. (Image of the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Austin, Texas, courtesy of U.S. GSA) |
Both agencies demand extensive use of IFC-based interoperable software tools by their design and construction service providers, and both rely on a model-checking tool from Solibri, a Finnish company (figure 1). Solibri's model checker works on BIM and VC models and documents in much the same way that a spell checker works on text. Models can be checked against code requirements, design guidelines, or the building program/brief. GSA has enjoyed considerable success to date with Solibri on U.S. federal courthouse projects, which have complex spatial and circulation requirements.
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About the Author: Jerry Laiserin
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