B3 - Implementation of BIM technology within the next 10 years

From the Autodesk University lecture, Bill Allen discusses the future of BIM in the AEC industry and how these changes will occur within the next 10 years, which is sooner that most expect. As a quick summary, the changes he is referring to are increased use of automation during iterative design. Through manipulation platforms such as grasshopper or rhino, designers could cut down time over some of these iterative processes and have it be done through automation. This, in theory, would save companies tons of money and time.

As evidence from the lecture and from our guest speaker the other week, certain companies are already implementing this technology and are putting themselves on the forefront of this “revolution”. Through this information alone, it is easy to believe that this type of technology would be accepted as an industry standard within the next decade. However, it appears that the companies that are actively pushing the use of these design tools are large firms that have enough resources to allocate to certain departments for training and execution. Most firms still rely on 2-D drawings for design through microstation and autocad, and it has been working well. In my experience, a lot of the senior engineers at the company I co-oped at were not even very familiar with using these CAD softwares let alone being able to use Revit or visual programming languages. They would rely on the more “tech-savvy” employees to produce the drawings while they would review and make edits to them. What this says to me is while there are new methods that would theoretically work better than traditional or old fashioned methods, there is still a large gap in the industry and people are hesitant to learn new things when they don’t have to. Since the old methods are still proven to be working effectively, why would a company (specifically smaller firms) put in the time and money into teaching employees these new methods when both clients and workers are more comfortable using traditional ways?

Overall, as automated technology continues to expand and become even more efficient, firms will have no choice but to make the switch in order to keep up. As the generation that did learn this methodology early in their careers moves on to higher level/senior positions, it will then become an industry standard. While the technology Bill Allen presented in his talk will ultimately change the AEC industry and affect firms everywhere, I think his prediction of complete integration within the next 10 years is a bit optimistic. All stakeholders in a project would have to be on board for this new methodology to be implemented and it seems unrealistic given their comfort of using traditional methods for the past several decades. My estimation is it will take around 15-25 years rather than 10.


Comments on others

To Nick Maloney:

You post was very well-put and you described the limitations that will slow down the implementation of these powerful tools. I couldn’t agree more that economic factors would be a huge hindrance for many firms to add these tools to the company repertoire. For smaller firms, and with smaller projects, it is typically not necessary to even use some of these tools Mr. Allen presented. In these instances, it seems like it would be a “waste” of money for these firms. Operation and training costs would take up alot of time and money at first, and full integration would definitely be a long, slow process.


To Hailey Ihlow

Your personal experience relates to this topic perfectly. It was interesting to hear that your company also is seemingly preparing its employees for the eventual switch by introducing some of these design tools during lunch and learns. I wonder if they will soon have a more aggressive training approach and make it a requirement for certain teams. It’s definitely a great example of the methods that companies are using to start making the transition to using this technology.

To Albert Hanan

I agree that there is an increased time frame for these changes than as Allen describes. We share the sentiment that the newer generation of industry leaders would pave the way for these changes, as those who currently practice traditional methods will retire. The mentality that many principals have (which may not necessarily be a bad mentality at all), is that there’s no point to fix what isn’t broken.