WHAT IS BIM?
Building Information Modeling is an intelligent multi-dimensional model-based process. It provides every detail to AEC professionals needed to plan, design, construct, and manage buildings and Infrastructure. Also, it enables better design decisions, improved building performance, and real-time collaboration throughout the project life cycle.
Basically, BIM enables collaboration between specific trades involved in a project. It allows them to detect and resolve the clash with effective coordination before or during the construction. Ultimately, the trades involved reach better accuracy than ever before through BIM only.
Countries That Made BIM Compulsory
Various global boundaries have adopted BIM as a compulsory part of the construction process. A project there can not begin for execution if the owner doesn’t get a verified BIM model. It has prevailed in numerous countries like the UK, Singapore, China, the USA, France, South Korea, etc., and spreading across the globe will take more time.
However, before proceeding towards the benefits of BIM services, let us see what BIM renders to the industry that countries want its implementation before execution. How & why is BIM so helpful to the AEC industry?
How Is BIM Helping the AEC Industry?
Will you consider it ‘a help’ if something makes you complete your work half the time required? Do you also think saving time and cost is a significant help?
If yes, BIM consultancy services provide the same by allowing the project workers to foresee the requirements and helping them make the procurement process efficient. With BIM services, tradespeople stay free from physical clash issues, commonly a significant concern during the conventional construction process. BIM, in this case, allows for resolving things before any construction phase.
The AEC industry has been saving a lot of material, cost, time, and labor effort since BIM’s involvement in the industry occurred. By safeguarding the entire sector from the possible hustle and bustle in advance. Let us explore the wing of BIM benefits now and learn more about BIM through it.
Benefits of BIM in the AEC Industry
Coordination
Any project idea needs a puppet or an execution model. The designers from every trade are supposed to develop a design file for the same purpose. Those ‘design file(s)’ will act like a navigation map for each trade. The different trades include Architecture, Engineering, Plumbing, Structure, etc.
Once the designs are ready, they go for a coordination check. Now here is when BIM’s role comes. With the help of BIM software, each design is coordinated in a centralized manner on a BIM software.
Autodesk Revit is a BIM software developed for the AEC industry. It allows designing in 3D and provides much more than just that. The most convenient thing it offers is it enables coordinating with files from other software as well.
Conventionally, when all the designs were ready, they did not get any platform for pre-construction coordination checks, unlike what they get on using BIM services. Today, we are in that time when a tradesperson puts in a request to address the clash issues and can get resolved instantly, unlike the conventional RFI process (See next Section).
Shorter Project Life Cycle – Quick RFI Response and Execution
At the time of clash coordination, the conventional process was to generate RFI (Request for Information), which takes about 15 or more days to get processed and resolved. With the help of BIM services, that period can be shortened by organizing clash coordination instantly. Basically, BIM saves time and mitigates unnecessary hassle between the trades involved by providing them a stage for instant coordination. Conclusively, the faster the clash recognition, the quicker its rectification will be.
Let us move on to the benefits and why BIM consultancy services are essential to the AEC industry players. The first thing for which construction companies use BIM is-
Accuracy & Quality
Economically, being the most significant industry, it becomes its prime responsibility to render accuracy and quality altogether. As a subject of safety as well, quality is a prime aspect when constructing a massive structure with a lot of money involved is concerned. It is also about the safety of hundreds of workers who invest a portion of their lives to build it.
BIM consultation services, therefore, help the industry by providing as much as possible accurate results. In fact, Industry experts believe that 95 percent of the results through BIM are accurate and reliable.
The material analysis for the actual structure is easier to presume with the help of BIM software during the pre-construction phase. Only those models with tight engineering tolerances are given manual vigilance along with BIM-based analysis.
Check out the ten unique dimensions of BIM that are helpful in a completely different manner as BIM’s next benefit.
Also Read: What is Revit? Its benefits & Uses
10 Dimensions of BIM
Specific dimensions help stakeholders analyze some peculiar aspects today, which were conventionally difficult to manage. Those aspects are-
- BIM Modeling – 3D
- Time analysis – 4D
- Cost estimation & analysis – 5D
- Sustainability assessment – 6D
- Facility Management – 7D
Further three dimensions are pretty much only a subject of debate till now, but the industry is leaving no opportunity to reach up to them.
- Health and Safety Analysis – 8D
- Lean construction – 9D
- Industrialization – 10D
All these dimensions are not geometrically confined as they seem, but they include crucial aspects for construction only. Each dimension under BIM services has a specific goal defined which provides convenient results to the project as far as achieving perfection is concerned.
It would be enlightening to discuss the most prevalent of these dimensions, i.e., Facility management, which is also a benefit of BIM.
Facility Management
It is about maintaining and managing the facilities including electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical, as well as the greenery within the project area. It helps keep the information regarding maintenance from the beginning to the equipment’s disposal date.
COBie Data is a term used for information related to the component. For example, when a part is to be replaced in the future when a component should get replaced, and so on. And it comes under facility management only. As it helps the company develop a quality work environment and spend efficiently on things that usually require continual attention.
Facility management is one of the most discussed dimensions of the Construction industry for a reason. And the best part is- that a BIM software user would only be able to get the benefits out of Facility management.
However, discussing each dimension here would be a long task, but you may check out our portfolio or contact us to know more about BIM consultancy services. Also about how Pinnacle helps others in their projects using its BIM expertise.
Pinnacle as A BIM Service Provider
Pinnacle Infotech Solutions offers Building Information Modeling (BIM) solutions to Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) firms globally. Our clients use BIM services for construction projects to facilitate project coordination, collaboration, asset management, risk mitigation, logistic planning, and cost optimization.
Our BIM Projects Portfolio includes Airports, Hospitals, Medical Centers, Stadiums, High Rise Towers, University Campuses, etc. We have global delivery centers with local experts in the USA, UK, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore & UAE to cater to our client’s needs and changing requirements.
After going through the aspects that are important with respect to the construction industry, we can say that BIM consultancy services are the future runners of this industry, and BIM users would be called ‘the smarter ones’ for choosing something efficient over conventional.
Author’s Bio
Aayush Goswami is a Mechanical Engineer, who chooses to rather contribute as a technical writer. He believes in doing things that make him feel effortless, therefore, he has been writing for more than 7 years in order to transcend his writing skills. He enjoys debates on social problems and their solutions and possesses expertise in automobile engineering too. Always a keen learner who usually stays excited to add new things to his knowledge arsenal. Nowadays, he is writing professional articles on the technologies and tools used by AEC industry leaders which is a part of his interest as well.
