It was promising to see that the BrisBIM event last week was well attended. To me this highlights a growing interest in BIM across multiple disciplines from Cost Planners to Software Developers to Architects to Construction Managers.
BirsBIM’s purpose is to facilitate and bring together the built environment community within the greater Brisbane region to share and exchange thoughts and knowledge in respect to technology innovation across the industry.
Below I’ve noted some points from each presentation that interested me from the latest event…
BIM: A Journey into the Future – Nathan Hilderbrandt (Fulton Trotter Architects)
Nathan’s story showed the benefits of a firm investing time in taking a BIM pathway early on.
Of particular interest to me was that Nathan emphasised placing all notes and additional architectural information on the 3D Model rather than adding this to 2 Dimensional Sheets and Drawings produced from the model.
Whilst recently completing a 6 week Introduction to Revit course we were shown how to add notes to the Sheets and Drawings û so I’m not sure that all architects are adding additional info to the model alone. It was also interesting to note that their firm works in Archichad yet still collaborates well with consultants who use Revit.
BIM Management Plans û Chris Price (XRev)
To me it is essential that BIM Management plans are put in place early on in a project. Chris highlighted this with his talk and emphasised that not all plans have to go into too much detail, for instance if you want to tell how consultants how to model in detail this could be included in a separate document. He also showed many free templates that are available.
One important point that Chris highlighted was that the BIM Management plan should show a position of the building and actually provide two points (thus taking into consideration the rotation of the building too) so that buildings align.
Increasingly when doing estimates we receive updated models and models from different consultants which are not on the same physical location or rotation thus making it more difficult to track changes.
BIM Legal Considerations û Andrew Orford (Minter Ellison)
Andrew’s talk was also an interesting one and I was reminded that Contractors and Consultants should not be afraid of IP and create insurmountable hurdles to sharing information due to IP concerns.
These aren’t new problems or concepts to deal with in a legal framework. Interestingly a question from the floor was asked if he has worked on any disputes regarding BIM and his reply was that as yet he hasn’t come up against any.
Whilst 6 months ago I came up against some resistance, or asking for disclaimers, Architects seem send through models for our estimates willingly now.
M-SIX VEO Product Overview (A2K Technologies)
This was a very interesting presentation. It highlighted how advanced future Facilities Management will become.
It was great to see that models can be updated in real time in the field with tablets and smart phones. It was also interested to hear that the amount of data stored in the model in these devices can be huge and included things like photos, scannable barcodes and service manuals.
Of particular interest to me was the Life Expectancy of items and I can see a definite application for Quantity Surveyors in being able to create Tax Depreciation Schedules and Sinking Fund Forecasts.