Blog 2 - Chapter 4 BIM for Owners

Section four of the BIM handbook goes over how BIM is related to the building owner and this blog post will specifically address application areas for owners. A typical owner will not get to involved with the inner mechanisms of building design but will instead be more concerned with the big picture items or what’s immediately relevant to them such as quality cost and schedule. As much as an owner may not have the desire to learn something new when they decide to make changes to a building BIM can help show the impacts of what those decisions will have.  When an owner works with the design team and uses BIM it is easier to convey what the requirements are between the two groups. It is possible for the design team to make a more presentable model using simple techniques like a color coordinated system to help translate information between groups. This visual outreach tends to be more engaging for anyone not related to the building’s design in this case the building owners. One way that an owner can assess design quality in a building is by running varying simulations one such scenario being an egress diagram in case of emergency. As buildings advance the systems get complex and as the complexity increased so did BIMS capability to analyze. This makes BIM essential for any owner that might e trying to coordinate building systems. Once the building is constructed an owner needs t ensure that it will continue to run at peak efficiency. BIM will allow owners to simulate and thus ensure maintenance on the building. Using BIM it will be easier to convey the significance of energy consumption in a building or worker productivity. By taking these two factors into account it is possible to eliminate waste in the building. One thing that’s always on the mind for any sensible owner is money and BIM is just the tool to help manage that. It could be something like keeping track of changes made to the building to determine responsibility. Or improving the detail and reliability of cost estimates, BIM is bound to help any owner have a better understanding of the projects money flow and lead to a more cost efficient project. After the building has been completed using BIM models will allow for more clearly organized information. This will be useful for maintenance and collecting commission on the building. This increased communication makes the construction process move with increasing efficiency.

Sources:

Eastman, Teicholz, et al. BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors. Second Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011.http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzM2NDIzOV9fQU41?sid=4df32a3e-004b-43f0-a14c-f6fb56fe0cea@pdc-v-sessmgr01&vid=0&format=EB&rid=1

Comments:

Tyler, I think the distinction you make in the beginning that most contractors would not benefit from BIM is important rather than just highlighting all of the pros that BIM has to offer. That being said seeing the benefits to communication that BIM can bring, it is unfortunate that more contractors do not use the technology. In construction communication is essential to the workflow of a project and it seems that BIM would be a powerful tool for this purpose.

Sean, the way you highlighted what exactly interoperability was before continuing further on the topic made this post really easy to follow. It sounds like a really useful tool for data exchange between disciplines and programs, I can think of several situations when I wished for something more compatible. It is interesting but expected that varying developers have different methods and secrets for how they practice interoperability as each programmer probably wants to protect their work. It is unfortunate that it causes for some incompatibilities along the way.

Weiyi, having a good communication system within a project can prevent rare disastrous mistakes or frequent smaller ones which is why I think using BIM to communicate is such a great idea. As you say it can be very wasteful if a design team is lacking in cooperation. The concept of an IPD is very intriguing to me and I think is a great direction to go in but as always some people would rather lose the quality and save money instead of taking the preemptive measures. It is a very ideal method of communication that should work if everyone involved can take a step forward together and I’m sure after a few success’s it will become common place but how long will it take until then?