BIM: The Hype, The Reality and Managing Expectations

[Link]

As a continuation from the conversation started here I would like to pick people's brains about the reality of BIM, as it stands right now at the beginning of 2009.

As we know only too well, many software packages work in theory, or only deliver about 80% of what they promise, of what is really needed to complete the job, so is BIM similarly fraught with shortcomings and workarounds?

And with such a huge offering of BIM products, covering so many disciplines and even non-disciplne specific functions, how does one even start to choose the application(s) they'll need?

I hope experienced BIM users and people who have researched BIM so far, (eg. Laura, Matthew, Tom, Aaron, Stefan, etc) are willing to contribute their experiences and knowledge to this discussion. Of course anyone is welcome to comment and any relevant external references would also be welcome!

Cheers,
Link.

[NandoMogollon]

As Mathew said,
This is the situation where the executives on the Firm will push to "get the drawings delivered, so we can get paid", and the BIM/CAD/IFC managers will try to get the Model done and then to produce automatized drawings. This battle will continue for a while for a simple reason, on the market the Designers still get paid for Drawings on Paper.

Here comes the BIM manager's argument of "Little BIM", instead of 2D dumb drawings, let's produce the automatized drawings, because we can save money and time. (just check any ROI from GS web site or Revit website). But this argument have being used for the last 10-15 years without being able to gain much inertia.

Now and thanks to the Building Smart group, the IAI, the Interoperability Building Council,(now the building smart alliance) , and the creation of al the concepts of BIM (our old virtual building), IFC, IPD, IDM, MVD, MPS, and other fancy 3 letters words, now we have found the second and latest argument: the Big BIM, and the promise of global operability and total integration.

The reality for many small-medium size firms today lies on the market of little BIM.
For the Big ones : HOK, GHAFARI, Kirksey, Lucasfilms, Disney, US Eng. corps, BSD, Onuma inc, the reality is the market in 10 years, the market of IFC and the future "affordable" interoperability.

Then probably the average Architect could get paid for delivering the drawings but mainly the Model, for Maintenance and management of the buildings, for future renovations and day to day operation of the systems inside the building.

... but I'm probably wrong... don't you think?

[Michael]

It could be done today if someone married the right technology with the right business plan.........Geoff Briggs

It is being done today....We have been using this computing cloud for 20 months and our team is collaborating nationwide ........ including Alaska.

Send me a private message and I will send a link where you can test run for $1 / mo. any where in eworld, or above it, details included.

Michael

[Djordje]

As you might have (not) noticed, I have been away from the Talk for a time ... so that's why the contribution (?) to the discussion is belated.

All the BIM hype is about possibilities, yet a little is said about the realities, and a lot about problems. Mostly, unless you use ArchiCAD from the start, Revit since the inception, TriForma/Bentley Architecture, or as Chuck said even ADT (I used to do full 3D models in plain vanilla AutoCAD 9!) AS IT IS MEANT TO BE USED, you do NOT, repeat NOT understand the basic idea of - we are in a Graphisoft forum, so I will not use BIM any more - the Virtual Building.

The problems of the implementation of the Virtual Building principles in the industry is the industry. It still runs the same way as it has since the reneissance - what has changed are the participants and the technology. But, the paper is king, the milestones are the submitted/approved drawings (digital or physical, never mind) and the payment is based on the milestones.

That is another key - who is paying for it? I have read recently that some of Gehry's projects have been scrapped as they are too expensive to build. Around here, everything is stopped, and whatever the developers are still having the money for is being value re-engineered. Current crisis or not, it was really high time to check the actual price/performance ratio, especially on the blobotecture and mile high towers. Not mentioning the environment and the social impacts, that would be off topic.

So, the PROCESS and the CONCEPT have to influence and change the industry. There is no comparison like for like with the current disjointed dog eat dog process, and can not be. It is a different plane, where ideally software should talk to software, not you shout across a paper littered table that a small forest died for to the project managers. For that to happen, there has to be a system, a lingua franca - interoperability and compatibility - and above all the UNDERSTANDING of the players in the field.

In the developer-architect/engineers-builders-facility managers-users loop, only we, the second step, have used the technology in its various forms for decades. The builders have cottoned on, thanks to Graphisoft mostly, as it was a very clear value added and time saving proposition. But, still - how many people do you know that do Vico by themselves? Again, a change in the industry, even the education for the industry, is required.

In these times, the situation is binary. People will either go down to the bare bones - what they know "gets the drawings out of the doors" - e.g. AutoCAD and its cheap clones, which I would describe binary as zero, or use the downtime where the trickle of the work is manageable, and there IS time to implement new procedures, concepts, training and outlook in general, which I would binary interpret as one.

We know very well that the interoperability and the knowledge of the average computer user in the industry are two main operational problems, while the lack of understanding and the separation of the management from the actual production is the main management/financing problem. I remember Laura's horror stories ...

Bottom line, IF you are in a chain where the developer and the contractor want to use VB systems, then you "only" have the operational problems to face. But, if you are out in the wild, and the ones who write the cheques don't give a *beep* about what is the technology that you use, then enjoy it as it enables you to do your job faster.

All in all, I have to say that I am not an optimist. Too much has been said to an audience that does not need to know. While this might sound elitist, unless one understands the concept and the procedure of the implementation, that Matthew, Link, Tom W and Laura could probably all write a few books on, especially if the same person also signs the cheques, he has no NEED to know more. That is the great hurdle.

The light at the end of the tunnel? The current crisis. The world is changing, the way that things are done is changing, less is more will become the ideal, not more has to be even more. Who survives will tell.

What a rant ... 😉

[Anonymous]

Geoff wrote:
[...]
Long term I see BIM being based on cloud located model servers operated on a software as service basis with modular thin clients contributing and extracting the data they are designed to manipulate, all with well optimized synchronizing technology. It will be fast, efficient, affordable and infinitely scalable.

[...]
[...]
BIM is after all about information connected to simulated building systems. It’s a case of can’t see the trees for the forest.

(1) I agree with you.
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Simulation is where all this leads, and the reason for which we create models in the 1st place. At this "historical" stage of modeling the built-environment, our "simulation" is a faint shadow of what it could / will be: the model simulates what a static building "looks like." Phase II is getting the data under control and the structures to accommodate it. We're in this phase, still. Trying to drag along the industry for building design to have what mechanical parts design has had for 10 years.
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Data structures for time and for relationships must come very soon. (Imagine a parametric BIM system with no proximity / adjacency / interference detection built in: that will be a future wry joke.)
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Phase III will be working in the data to accommodate "behavior." After all these years, I still want to watch the building age, which means I want to watch the systems interact, decay, shake each other apart and get maintained, along with a cost. (Participants may wish to check out discrete simulation software, some of which has 30-day trial periods, in order to see what is "old hat" / "leading edge." Once the data structures are in the BIM toolsets, the way is paved. IFC2x4 looks like a substantial improvement which evidences an ability to continue to move in this same direction. It simply needs to happen much faster.
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(2) Security in the model server cloud you refer to must be built in rather than, once again, glommed-on, "somehow," as an after thought that is perceived as "something we don't really get much call for." (Sounds like A/E firms fighting the switch to 3D in 1995.) After life, water, food, and energy, the built environment is one of the most precious things. The havoc that might be played with a very complex BIM, centrally located, and hacked unbeknownst to its creators, is an elephant larger than any room we've been in lately. Already we have seen SQL injection "succeed" infamously, iPhone virus, Skype recordings even before the data is encrypted and transmitted out of the computer.

[Anonymous]

Laura wrote:
One myth: The single integrated BIM model.

I think this is THE myth of the building model. As one in both the trenches and the clouds it seems to me that the holy grail of the single integrated building model is not only highly unlikely (if not impossible) it is also undesirable.

The building models we use are tools for the purpose of creating, renovating and maintaining buildings and are useful only insofar as they permit us to do these things better, faster and/or cheaper. Given the great variety of building types and functions and the wide array of disciplines required in their design, construction and maintenance it is inevitable that there will be a variety of different building model types to best serve these various purposes.

I do believe there is a need for common model standards that facilitate sharing between our specialized, purpose driven models. So far IFC is the clear leader as a common standard, with other formats serving more limited functions, but i don't see any way for it to become the operational standard for use directly by all the various softwares. So inevitably we will retain many incompatible, proprietary formats for the foreseeable future.

To me interoperability is all that matters in this regard. The ability to quickly and reliably transfer meaningful data between programs is essential to expanding beyond the "islands of BIM" model of each firm doing their own thing internally and tossing piles of paper at each other. This can take the form of linked IFC models, exchange of DWG models and drawings, scanning existing buildings, scanning old drawings, emailing screen shots, exchanging tabular data and so on and so forth.

To try to shoehorn all the multitudinous ways that we need to communicate information into a single, integrated data model is a hopeless endeavor. I think we will see instead the evolution of multiple, improved pathways for these communications to take place. To paraphrase Edison, I have always seen the building process as 10% installation and 90% communication. The success of BIM, I believe, will be the extent to which it can facilitate these communications.

[Djordje]

The single model is a myth, I agree.

What we should also consider is the connectivity of the BIM data with the general ERP systems. Look for example at the details of this job ad:

http://www.gulftalent.com/home/Building-Information-ModellingBIM-Manager-jobs-in-Abu-Dhabi-UAE-36525...

Who can say that he can do all of the required without any preparation?

[Laura Yanoviak]

Matthew wrote:
So far IFC is the clear leader as a common standard, with other formats serving more limited functions, but i don't see any way for it to become the operational standard for use directly by all the various softwares. So inevitably we will retain many incompatible, proprietary formats for the foreseeable future.

I'm starting to wonder if IFC isn't another myth. I believe my firm will move to Revit before IFC becomes usable.

Djordje wrote:
What we should also consider is the connectivity of the BIM data with the general ERP systems.

ERP? I'm not familiar with this acronym...

[Anonymous]

Laura wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if IFC isn't another myth. I believe my firm will move to Revit before IFC becomes usable.

It certainly isn't a panacea nor will it be the embodiment of the mythical unitary BIM model, but it is already quite useful and becoming more so. Revit may serve for coordinating the architectural and structural designs assuming both firms are using Revit but once you get past design and into construction coordination any advantages largely evaporate.

[SeaGeoff]

Unitary BIM Model, UBM, a TLA (three letter acronym) within a TLA—I love it!

The UBM is indeed mythical today, and we may indeed “retain many incompatible, proprietary formats for the foreseeable future”. But it’s hardly farfetched to predict that the UBM will eventually come to pass. It’s more a matter of when.

I am concerned that our (collective) excusing away the lack of a robust, open UBM architecture, or at least a roadmap, paves the way to a closed proprietary one. Isn’t UBM exactly what AD is selling with the Revit Suite?

[Anonymous]

Geoff wrote:
Unitary BIM Model, UBM, a TLA (three letter acronym) within a TLA—I love it!

The UBM is indeed mythical today, and we may indeed “retain many incompatible, proprietary formats for the foreseeable future”. But it’s hardly farfetched to predict that the UBM will eventually come to pass. It’s more a matter of when.

I am concerned that our (collective) excusing away the lack of a robust, open UBM architecture, or at least a roadmap, paves the way to a closed proprietary one. Isn’t UBM exactly what AD is selling with the Revit Suite?

If the UBM does come to pass it will probably be Revit and we will all be the worse for that (even the Reviteers). I still think that this is unlikely and we are probably headed toward the Integrated Collective Building Model (ICBM 😉 no need for nested acronyms).

But you are right Geoff that things are headed either one way or the other and unless we get robust and convenient means for interoperating among the various programs Revit may well be come the center of gravity. I still think Revit has some fundamental limitations that will likely prevent this happening, but in the absence of something better mediocrity will prevail.