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To BIMfinity and Beyond! (AEC Insight Column)

November 1, 2007 By: Jerry Laiserin

Building information modeling for today and tomorrow.


Five years into the industrywide conversation about building information modeling (BIM), it has become clear that BIM is simultaneously bigger, smaller, and more diverse than many first imagined. It's bigger in that its process encompasses far more than do many of the current so-called BIM software programs. It's smaller in that early steps in BIM automation will — as with any technology adoption cycle — mimic earlier tools and methods. It's more diverse in that the BIM model is fragmenting into discipline-, phase-, and role-specific models that mirror the business facts of life in designing, constructing, and operating buildings.

In this article
In this article

The Big BIM Theory

To think of BIM only in terms of specific software programs is to miss the point. My own definition of BIM has evolved since I initiated discussion of BIM in 2002. In a keynote at the April 2005 GeorgiaTech/LaiserinLetter Conference on BIM, I proposed that

Building information modeling is a process of representation, which creates and maintains multidimensional, data-rich views throughout a project lifecycle to support communication (sharing data); collaboration (acting on shared data); simulation (using data for prediction); and optimization (using feedback to improve design, documentation and delivery).

This definition makes no reference to parametric objects, database technology, or indeed to any software at all. It doesn't even require computers. In my seminars and other writings, I emphasize the view that

BIM is a business process, not a software program. Successful AEC/O businesses already practice BIM as a process. Everything an AEC/O firm does is geared to its existing (BIM) process. Therefore, automating and externalizing that process via software will change everything.

I use AEC/O here to include the role of owner/operators who — along with designers and constructors — have recently begun to focus on these issues because newly available process-automation tools enable everyone to step outside of their existing process environment and see it as they never have before.

If BIM is a process and software can automate portions of that process, then the first question to ask is not "Which BIM model-authoring tool should we buy?" Instead, the question should be "What aspects of our existing processes do we wish to improve?"Some potential areas for improvement are:

  • 1. Accuracy. Complete, correct communication between AEC/O project participants; for example, owner requirements to designer (program/brief), designer feedback to owner (visualization/simulation), design intent to construction documents (CDs), and CDs to constructors/bidders
  • 2. Consistency. Uniformity within a representation; for example, within a set of drawings or specs
  • 3. Integration. Linkage between related representations; for example, between drawings and specs or between models and sequencing/schedules
  • 4. Coordination. Interference checking among disciplines; for example, between building and site or between structural and mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP)
  • 5. Synchronization. Achieving comparable levels of detail/resolution over time; for example, drawings/specs versus cost

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