News
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Cloud Based 4D Virtual Reality
Integrated design and operations consultancy for the built environment, Bryden Wood, and BIM technology innovator, 3D Repo, have launched a new platform for visualising how construction projects change over time
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Abvent announces Twinmotion 2018 version 2
Abvent Group has announced the global release of Twinmotion 2018 v2, a major update to its award-winning 3D immersion software developed especially for architects, designers, landscapers and urban planners
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Software Focus |
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Bracing stuff
The Braceworks add-on for Vectorworks helps designers ensure that temporary structures are both spectacular and safe
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Case Studies |
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LEGO meets BIM
Bond Bryan Architects, early adopters of the principles of BIM and its application through their use of Graphisoft's ARCHICAD, have produced the 'LEGO Architecture meets BIM' guide, using LEGO's popular building blocks as its focus
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Grandfather's Bridge
A recent Tekla-based project in finland tested BIM fully from conception to completion, with the aim of delivering a truly 'paperless project'
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Getting on track
Willmott Dixon has used Viewpoint for Projects and Field View to enhance their information management and educate their clients during the National College for High Speed Rail project
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Technology Focus |
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iModelHub
ntroduced at the 2017 Year in Infrastructure Conference in October, Bentley's iModelHub has been conceived to leverage change rather than fight it and represents an evolution in the way model information is shared between project team members, writes David Chadwick
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Forging Ahead
Autodesk used their latest Autodesk University event to outline the road ahead for its developer platform Forge, which will help transform the industry over the next decade
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Comment
Carillion
What can one say? The fall-out from this is going to be huge. Carillion is involved in a large number of major projects – many of them, like HS2, in infrastructure, and it builds, and operates NHS hospitals and up to about 900 schools. There are going to be many, many sub-contractors throughout the industry who are going to feel the pain – if they aren’t already smarting from unpaid contracts, delayed tenders and remuneration from work carried out and signed off.
Carillion changed its business profile recently – instead of being nominally a construction company, it focusses on outsourcing, which means that it has to continually tender for new projects, with the concomitant risks that some of these will end up as rotten deals – which, of course, they have. The company is also involved in PFI deals, 3 of which are causing problems (2 NHS and 1 road), and the nature of PFI is that after early investment, the main profits for contactors are very long term.
StreetwiseSubbie, an organisation that represents sub-contractors in litigation and other contractual matters, state that ‘enough is enough’ and the problem of late payments is endemic in the construction industry. Many organisations have to handle delays in payments totaling tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. This is indefensible, but in an industry already facing issues in other areas, shortfalls in cashflows can be disastrous.
What next? With a large number of critical Government projects in peril, and with pressure from the Banks, it is likely that some form of intervention is attempted. Failure in this regard would result in huge turmoil in the industry, contracts changing hands in unsavoury deals at bargain prices, and the collapse of some of the most worthwhile and essential projects. The thin end of the wedge.
David Chadwick
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