Are You Ready for BIM

On today's topic, I discuss some aspects of adopting BIM or Virtual Design and Construction (VDC). If you are a contractor, architect or engineer, here are some suggestions from my personal studies and experience to see what it takes to get the "BIM Department" in your firm going.

First and foremost:

..."BIM is great, but it's not for everybody"...

The reason is simple; different circumstances require different procedures. I will not go too deep in the discussion, but from the report published by McGraw Hill Construction in 2009 called The Business Value of BIM:Getting Building Information Modeling to the Bottom Line; the numbers show the following:

1. Contractors see the highest Return on Investment (ROI) in BIM with 71% reporting positive results, followed by
2. Owners, 70% reporting with positive results
3. Architects, 58% reporting with positive results, and
4. Engineers, 48% reporting with positive results.

*see sources below*

As a firm, do you have the resources for:

• hardware and BIM software
• BIM training
• marketing/advertising your BIM capabilities
• upgrades (depending on the project)

Productivity and ROI:

The diagram shows an immediate dip in productivity as users get familiar with the new software and collaboration process. However, productivity should level out with time, depending on the firm's progress to implement and understand BIM.
Your ROI depends on how long it takes your firm to adopt BIM practices and at what cost.
A (cost of hardware and software), B (Monthly labor cost), C (training time in months), D (% of productivity loss during training), E (% of productivity gain after training).

This would summarize my findings on adopting BIM and VDC practices.
I think that this is a good start for anybody to understand what the pros and cons are. Also, I would just start out by trying BIM software and see how users adjust to it. Depending on those results, I would suggest whether BIM is right for you.

More Information and Sources used:

http://www.bim.construction.com/research/

BIM Project Tracking

This discussion summarises BIM 4D and 5D modeling and how you can get the most of it. Summarized in this blog is the use of some 5D software that are available as a trial version, assuming you have Revit, Navisworks, Autodesk QTO and Microsoft Project.
So if you are like me and want to know more about 4D and 5D modeling without spending a lot of money on software licences, but rather get the full use of free trial versions, please read on.

Quick Introduction
The great thing about Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) is that all aspects of the project (modeling, scheduling, estimating, management, etc.) can be fully utilized prior to the construction phase. Actually, VDC can be fully utilized months or even years before the bidding stages. But in order to successfully implement the full use of BIM software, we need to understand the importance of each task, such as 3D, 4D and 5D modeling. Below is a link to the top ten reasons why 5D modeling is important and crucial to a project's life.
http://www.vicosoftware.com/0/blogs/virtual-construction-inside-out/tabid/84142/bid/11632/The-Top-10-Reasons-to-Do-5D-BIM.aspx?source=Blog_Email_[The+Top+10+Reasons+t]

My Experience
For the past six months, I have been trying to fully implement 4D and 5D modeling. There is great software available as a trial version, and I strongly recommend taking advantage of those.

One of the great software to use, that combines 4D and 5D modeling, would be ViCo. (office, estimator and 5D presenter). ViCo has free trial offers on their software, but not all of their software have BIM-neutral platforms, meaning that not all software support Revti applications.
ViCo Office supports a BIM-neutral platform, and you can import models from most BIM application software; but they do not offer a free trail version to ViCo Office.
More information can be found at
http://www.vicosoftware.com/Virtual-Construction-Management/tabid/46250/Default.aspx

There are other ways to fully implement 4D and 5D modeling. I have been mainly working with Autodesk products, since I have a student licence on Revit and Navisworks, and getting a great analysis on project cost and management. A few extra steps are necessary to obtaining similar results as in ViCo Office, but these extra steps just made me understand the concept behind 4D and 5D modeling. Below is my schematic and how I have learned to appreciate 4D and 5D modeling.

Again, this is the schematic on how I have been utilizing 4D and 5D modeling. The main difference between my technique and that, for example, of ViCo Office is that theirs is a bit more user friendly, meaning that there is less effort in importing, exporting and linking files. Also, my technique does not allow to view an animated version of project tracking, like Earned Value Analysis.