I recently attended the first BrisBIM event of 2014 along with a full house of 180 other people.
The appeal of BrisBIM lies in the people that attend and the networking opportunities it presents. A wide range of people attend, from Builders, Architects, Engineers, Quantity Surveyors and Technology consultants – it’s rife with interesting BIM conversations. Presenters generally speak openly about their experiences and projects which means there is some good insights especially when hearing from contractors.
Two presentations that I found of particular interest were:
4D Workflows and What’s Missing
Peter Ayre from Lend Lease explained they are making good progress with 4D (tying time and schedules to models) by using Navisworks and linking this back into P6. His experience was that whilst there are a lot of people claiming that they do 4D well, we are yet to see it being used to it’s full potential.
The Road to BIM: The John Holland Story so Far
Donald Cameron (pictured below) and Andrew Mattiske from John Holland also gave a talk that caught my attention. They spoke of the sophisticated system that they utilise on some of their builds where they can scan data from installed materials and are able to produce accurate as built models. Of particular interest to me was their ability to generate progress reports from the model and their inclusion of this data in their progress claims.
One point I continually take away from BrisBIM is how important collaboration is in order to get the most out of our building models. Recently Jennifer MacDonald, currently a lecturer at UTS, wrote a great article on our Blog focusing on collaboration from a research v’s education v’s industry viewpoint (she was a structural engineer for 10 years in the UK as well as Australia and is now a lecturer at UTS), and how important collaboration really is if we are to take BIM and design to the next level. Take a read.
Similarly, below is an exert that I like from Donald Cameron and Andrew Mattiske’s presentation that places collaboration as a cornerstone of positioning the Australian AEC industry in good stead against the threat of global competition:
“From an AEC industry perspective – we’re all in this together. We’re a manufacturing industry to some extent, similarly we’re going to be more and more exposed to the global trends, much the same way that the internet has affected news media. I certainly see that this technological age as having an impact in much the same way that we can design a building here to be made overseas, there’s obviously the competition and threat that the same thing can happen here. And we’ve got to be ready for it. And I see the best way for us being ready is by being integrated and working more collaboratively.”
I would love to hear your feedback on how you and your business are collaborating to get the most out of BIM. Please leave a comment in the box below.
If you’re in Brisbane for the next event on Wednesday 16th April 2014 be sure to come along. See you there!