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BIM Breakfast review [Construction Week (United Arab Emirates)]
[September 27, 2014]

BIM Breakfast review [Construction Week (United Arab Emirates)]


(Construction Week (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The use of building information modelling software is growing at a rapid pace.

Designers and contractors need to convince clients to allow for proper design periods in order to gain the full benefits of Building Information Modelling (BIM) software, according to Jeffrey Freund of Abu Dhabi-based iTech.

Speaking at the second in a series of BIM Breakfast panel events held by Construction Week in association with Middle East Architect and MEP Middle East last week, Freund mentioned several projects in the region which had seriously overrun cost and/or budgets, which he said was due to unrealistic targets initially being set over delivery dates.



He pointed to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, which was initially due to open last year, but will not now open until 2015, and has run over its initial budget.

He also mentioned Dubai's Cayan Tower, which he said finished AED300mn over budget.


"As far as I'm aware, no-one has spent more than AED20mn-30mn on BIM on a project," he said.

Used properly, building information modelling can help to considerably curtail risks of overspend and project delays, but only if consultants and contractors are realistic with clients who expect highly compressed timescales, he added.

"It's not just in the UAE, it's globally," said Freund. "Everyone says yes to get the projects... the designer says they can do it in a year and the contractor says they can do it in two years. If you don't, someone else will get the job.

"In the end, it still takes four years but the cost goes back to the owners." However, Elizabeth Peters, a BIM lead practitioner at Aecom's Building & Places division, said that clients will not simply accept a request for more time to model projects. Instead, the industry needs to convince property owners and investors of the long-term benefits of BIM by assuring them of the return on investment they will receive.

She pointed out that just 21% of the costs during the 50-year lifecycle of a building were due to its acquisition (including construction costs), with the remaining 79% covering facilities management, maintenance and other costs. By providing a genuine resource on a building's operations, BIM helps to substantially reduce some of these, she said.

Peters added that even if a developer is looking to build in order to sell, the quality of information provided through BIM will ultimately improve the value of an asset to a potential buyer.

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[[page-break]] She argued that construction is perhaps the only industry not to have made substantial use of technology in order to improve processes.

"We can't afford not to do it," she said.

Suhail Arfath, head of consulting at Autodesk Middle East, said the construction market is set to grow by around 70% by 2025 to $15tn and that Dubai, with initiatives like Expo 2020, Dubai Smart City and Dubai Metro 2030, is likely to see significant infrastructure growth.

However, he added that the construction industry has typically been slow in adopting new technology, and that 30% of costs go to waste as a result of co-ordination issues, inefficiencies and wasted materials.

He added that 60% of all capital programmes fail to meet their schedules and budgets.

"I don't think that is new to our industry, neither is it new to the Middle East.

"If you look at the issues, it's the supply chain, co-ordination and collaboration.

"This potentially means an opportunity for us to have some savings. Imagine if we are able to reduce that 30% in each one of the projects we are involved in by 5% or 10%. What does that mean for the industry, and for owners?" He said a further study by Stanford University covering 22 projects identified that BIM helped to improve cost accuracy, with projects generally completing within 3% of budget.

He also presented a case study on the Gensler-designed Shanghai Tower, which is now the world's second-tallest tower. The use of BIM helped to create a structure that twists 120 degrees from base to top, which reduced wind loads on the structure and allowed it to reduce the amount of material used, shaving $58mn off the cost.

Rob Phillpot, co-founder and senior vice-president at construction collaboration software company Aconex, said the adoption of BIM had rocketed in recent years.

In 2008, he said, there were hardly any BIM files stored on Aconex's servers, but a tipping point was achieved last year when more than 50% of all projects used BIM.

"They might be adding it badly or scratching the surface, but at least they are doing it in some way," he said. "BIM is no longer for the few." He also said that the way in which the software is used was changing, from a "lonely" model where it was only used by a select group of engineers to a much more open, connected process where all members of the design team, contractors, subcontractors and even suppliers were using it in some form.

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[[page-break]] "The future is about data, not files," he said. "Information on construction, inspections and such things as safety needs to be made available to everyone involved in a project. It needs to be accessible to all.

"One of the largest benefits can be handing over a rich source of inter-related information to the client.

"Files can be tightly held by the design team, but they need to open up the data." Phillpot said BIM technology can gives accurate information on the whole history of a project, down to specific details.

"Walking through a model you can check a pump, for instance. You can see its warranty. You can fully understand not just what it is, but how it got to be what it is." The advantages of BIM and its storing of data was brought home to Phillpot recently.

"I was in Doha," he said. "There was a project I was made aware of which had three shipping containers of documents by its end. How can you ever find anything you need amidst all that paper?" Hassan Dajani, managing director of Bentley Systems' Building and Construction Middle East division, said: "The BIM wave is coming, there is no two ways about that.

"When people take it on board they realise its value. It's a wave – it's a tsunami." The cost factor is one of the most important for contractors and consultants, Dajani said.

"BIM can lead to very large savings and is the best way for colleagues to communicate. That is the reason it is important for the business.

"Three dimensional modelling is the way to detect problems and simulate control on a project one level at a time. This means greater value to the client when the project is completed. It's not just a design tool." Article continues on next page ...

[[page-break]] Andrew Milburn, an associate, at Godwin Austen Johnson, added: "This isn't all about propaganda, it's about dragging the construction industry out of the stone age." He added that designers and product manufacturers need to work together more closely so that product information can be seamlessly integrated into BIM files, and advocated the use of cloud collaboration, or 'CloClo' Zones.

"Everyone has their digital tools, but sometimes the connection to BIM is very tenuous," he said. Using architectural ironmongery as an example, he said many firms currently send CAD drawings or PDFs to suppliers with product specifications, only to receive spreadsheets or PDFs back a few weeks later.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we had a place where we could take a subset of our BIM data containing the project sets and they could then populate it with the necessary products? They can see the building information to understand which doors are fire-rated and why, and he can send back visualisations to show what they will look like – not just a picture, but an actual product with codes." "BIM is really an effort to use information more effectively in the construction industry. It's actually about databases. What we need are digital tools to support decision-making." Freund said that BIM will evolve so that cities like Dubai have a rich source of information on each structure, which will help with disaster planning and prevention.

Peters urged those who haven't embraced the technology yet to start with a pilot project, setting realistic goals and assigning a team that will oversee it.

"A pilot should be the type of project you normally engage in – bread and butter work. Something everyone really knows inside-out. Something small enough to manage, but large enough to be representative." She also said that people should hire experienced help to see them through the process, and understand that they may not make as much money on a pilot scheme than otherwise because people need to go through a learning process. "If you stick with BIM, it will provide you with long term benefits." BIM Breakfast took place at the Ritz Carlton DIFC on 16 September.

It is the second in a series of four held jointly by Construction Week, Middle East Architect and MEP Middle East. The next event in the calendar will be held in November.

(c) 2014 ITP Business Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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