Comment

A rose by any other name

The BIM acronym has been around for some time now. It’s been accompanied by dramatic changes in the construction industries working processes, and fostered a high degree of collaboration within project teams. It shares its successes with the awkwardly named COBie (whose precise terminology I always have to look up) which sets the standards and the rules for the CDE (Common Data Environment). That provides built assets with the information required to operate them throughout their life.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that although BIM may merely be a term that describes a process that was going to happen, anyway, it provided a powerful catalyst for the construction industry to bring its somewhat archaic working practices up to date.

We are in, however, a rapidly evolving industry, with new technologies, capabilities and demands. When BIM was mooted there was nothing on the horizon like AI, smart cities, reality modelling, drones, and so on. Perhaps the time has come to re-evaluate the success, or otherwise, of BIM and its future role in the industry.

To assist us in our evaluations is Excitech, who will be taking a closer look at the realities of BIM – its successes and failures (where it hasn’t quite delivered what was promised), COBie, collaboration, Information and Asset Management and benefits yet tomaterialise. The first of the interviews with BIM Consultant Daryn Fitz at Excitech is featured in the latest issue of the magazine – and in this newsletter.

David Chadwick

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