Building Information Modelling: Present realities and Future possibilities

BIM (Building Information Modelling), a term that is drawing the attention worldwide in the construction industry and governments, is a complex concept that involves management effort, tools and applications for enhancing information flow and therefore productivity for projects. This article pretends to briefly explain BIM, its advantages, challenges and potentialities while considering the current adoption of the concept in some countries. Furthermore, the article includes suggestions for the implementation of BIM in an organization as well as in projects and a list with some useful tools for this purpose

Housing Information Modelling for BIM-embedded Housing Refurbishment

The aim of this research is to identify BIM input datasets within a BIM-embedded housing refurbishment process and enabling construction professionals to utilize BIM as an information management platform for housing refurbishment projects. A hypothetical case study using BIM tools for a housing refurbishment project is adopted to identify BIM input datasets to create a housing information model within a BIM system. Reliability of the research outcome is examined by conducting a comparative analysis between existing and simulated research outcomes. This research identifies essential BIM input datasets during the early design phase. The importance of a well-integrated housing information model containing accurate as-built condition, cost and thermal performance information is essential to utilize BIM for housing refurbishment. BIM can be feasible for housing refurbishment when an information enriched housing information model is constructed. Furthermore, the capability of BIM that can enable key project stakeholders to determine the most affordable refurbishment solution among various alternatives is identified since BIM can provide reliable cost estimations and thermal performance of refurbishment alternatives at the early design stage. The examined refurbishment processes and input datasets are confined to the early design phases since BIM use for housing refurbishment is limited. This research will contribute to utilize BIM for housing refurbishment by providing essential BIM input datasets and BIM-embedded refurbishment processes. This research reveals primary housing information datasets and BIM-embedded refurbishment processes at the early design phase

Incorporating prefabrication processes into building information modelling

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Master of PhilosophyConventional business procedures are increasingly being replaced by dynamic and revolutionized growth due to the integration of Information and Communication technologies to meet changing business requirements. For survival in this highly competitive field of construction, the adaptation of new technologies enhancement and its revolution is considered as an essential requirement. Emerging ICT developments and new construction techniques have generated much needed discussion about how these two streams are connected together. The concept of prefabrication has grown in recent years to change conventional construction processes and simultaneously Building Information Model (BIM) has emerged to brighten up traditionally ill functioned business communication flow. Building Information Modelling in the early stage of building construction development provides the vehicle to bring the construction industry into line with other technically driven fields, such as Automotive and Aerospace. However, in the past this has not given much consideration towards interaction between itself and the much improved construction industry prefabrication process. This research has reviewed the current state of BIM capability in the Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) professions and establishes what is technologically possible. It also closely scrutinises one of the leading UK‟s cold rolled steel prefabricator‟s design and manufacturing process. The result of the findings leads the research to undertake in-depth benchmarking process to review and select an appropriate BIM application for live implementation. Upon selection, BIM application is customised to cater current and future design process of the above SME unit and implemented within a live construction project environment. Latest design process within SME unit along with BIM solution then evaluated against commercial criteria which determine the validity of incorporating construction industry prefabricating processes into current BIM applications iiand highlighted its overall benefits for the prefabricators and construction industry as a whole. Latter part of the research investigated the latest technological advancement available within BIM applications. Review has lead to highlight Application Programming Interface (API) available within the BIM applications. API provided much needed control mechanism to end users via standard programming mechanisms which captured during this research as the gateway to incorporate prefabricating information into BIM. Future Novel Framework developed based on API capabilities of the BIM applications in order to incorporate prefabricating processes into BIM Application

BIM as a strategic tool for supply chain in main projects in the United Kingdom

The need to achieve more efficiency and quality, reduce costs, cut carbon dioxide emissions and faster delivery were demanding for a vast change in the construction industry in the United Kingdom. To helping achieve these aims, as well be and remains in the vanguard of smart construction and digital design, UK made the decision to embrace Building Information Modelling (BIM), underpinned with the Government’s mandate launched in 2011, for Level 2 BIM compliance as minimum for all their centrally-procured projects by 2016. That decision resulted in a Government push to upskill the construction industry with the intention of reducing the capital and revenue costs associated with the procurement and use of buildings and infrastructure. For the public sector, BIM is offering the Government the opportunity to industrialise and reform its built environment through a digitally enabled procurement. Indeed, this Level 2 BIM programme already helping significant savings of circa £2.2bn between 2013 and 2015, making it a significant tool to meet the Government’s target of 15-20% savings on public construction costs (Cabinet Office, 2015). To support the industry to comply with Level 2 maturity, BIM Task Group and British Standard Institute, have developed several standards, documents and guides to explain clearly how BIM should be applied. The Level 2 programme is a key enabling strategy for the UK developing processes for data deliveries, classification and open data definitions. Certainly, the UK BIM standards and processes are working as a world-wide acknowledged benchmark for industry digitisation. By 2020, economists estimated that the UK market for BIM-related services will be an annual £30bn; in a global context, UK-based firms already export £7bn of architectural and engineering services; develop BIM capabilities and have a leadership position regarded to BIM, will provide UK further export growing and enable the industry to deliver higher quality and a more sustainability built environment for the future generations. This dissertation aim to encourage everyone to learn more about building information modelling and to explore the success example of the UK strategy Government related to BIM level 2 mandate. For that purpose, this document first explains the fundamental concepts of BIM and then explores the context in the UK: BIM maturity levels, the existing codes and standards, addresses the named “8 pillars of Level 2 BIM” and explains the information delivery cycle process. It also becomes relevant discuss in this paper, the current situation of the BIM adoption by the AEC industry and address some of the benefits and limitations of BIM adoption in the country. Furthermore, we look beyond and investigate the BIM level 3. The research has been conducted by an extensive review on the literature related to the topic of interest, collecting and analysis of surveys that have been conducted related to BIM in the UK and experienced working in a UK based contractor. A case of study is showed to recognise the importance of use BIM for a large project such as the High Speed 2, and additionally it is suggested a process map for BIM execution planning.A necessidade em obter mais eficiência e qualidade, reduzir custos, diminuir as emissões de carbono e de prazos de execução, exigiam uma enorme mudança na indústria da construção no Reino Unido. De forma a alcançar estes objetivos, bem como a pertencer e permanecer na vanguarda da construção inteligente e projeto digital, o Reino Unido tomou a decisão de adotar o BIM (Building Information Modelling), impulsionado pelo mandato do Governo para cumprimento do Nível 2 de maturidade como mínimo, lançado em 2011 para todos os projetos lançados centralmente, a partir de 2016. Essa decisão resultou num impulso do Governo para melhorar a indústria da construção, com a intenção de reduzir os custos de capital e receita associados à aquisição e uso de edifícios e infra-estruturas. No setor público o BIM está a proporcionar ao Governo, a oportunidade de industrializar e reformar o seu sector da construção através do procurement digital. De fato, este programa de BIM Nível 2 já ajudou a atingir poupanças significativas de cerca de £2.2 bilhões entre 2013 e 2015, tornando-o numa ferramenta significativa para atingir a meta de redução de custos com a construção pública entre os 15-20% (Cabinet Office, 2015). De forma a apoiar a indústria a cumprir com o Nível 2 de maturidade de BIM, o BIM Task Group e o British Standard Institute, desenvolveram várias standards, documentos e guias para explicar claramente como o BIM deveria ser aplicado. O programa Nível 2 é uma estratégia chave potenciadora para o Reino Unido desenvolver processos para a entrega de dados, classificação e definições de dados abertos. De fato, as BIM standards e os processos do Reino Unido estão a ser reconhecidos mundialmente como uma referência para a digitalização da indústria. Por volta de 2020, os economistas estimam que o mercado para serviços relacionados com BIM sejam £30 bilhões; num contexto global, as firmas baseadas no Reino Unido já exportam £7 bilhões de serviços de arquitetura e engenharia; desenvolver as capacidades e ter uma posição de liderança em relação ao BIM, fará com que esta exportação cresça e permitirá que a indústria entregue com mais qualidade e sustentabilidade as construções às gerações futuras. Esta dissertação pretende encorajar todos os interessados a aprender mais sobre o BIM e explorar o caso de sucesso da estratégia tomada pelo Governo do Reino Unido no que diz respeito ao mandato do BIM Nível 2. Para isso, este documento explica primeiro os conceitos essenciais do BIM e depois explora o contexto no Reino Unido: os níveis de maturidade de BIM, os códigos e standards existentes, aborda os chamados “8 pilares do BIM Nível 2” e explica o ciclo de entrega de informação. Torna-se também relevante discutir neste trabalho, a situação atual da adoção do BIM por parte da indústria AEC e abordar os benefícios e limitações na adoção do BIM no país. Adicionalmente, olha-se para o futuro e explora-se o BIM Nível 3. A pesquisa foi levada a cabo através de extensa revisão da literatura relacionada com o tópico, de recolha e análise de inquéritos realizados no Reino Unido relacionados com BIM e a experiência trabalhando numa construtora baseada no Reino Unido. É apresentado um caso de estudo para demonstrar a importância do uso do BIM num grande projeto como High Speed 2, e adicionalmente é sugerido um mapa de processo para o planejamento de execução BIM

The Historic American Buildings Survey and Interpretive Drawing: Using Digital Tools to Facilitate Comprehensive Heritage Documentation

The Historic American Building Survey (HABS), a federal New Deal program largely unchanged since its inception in 1933, is the nation’s largest archive of historic architectural documentation. Surveys include three sections that describe a historical building and/ or site: written historical research, measured drawings, and black and white photography. Today, nearly 40,000 records exist in the Library of Congress, providing copyright free public access in both digital and hard copy format. This thesis focuses on the drawing portion of a HABS survey; specifically investigating the nature and usefulness of the types of drawings allowed by the current drawing guidelines and standards and how contemporary digital tools can facilitate drawing production and analysis. While the current HABS standards call for a strict method of researched and measured documentation, within that methodology exists a diverse range of drawing types that accurately express the desired information but are not all necessarily utilized in practice. In an attempt to rejoin contemporary practice of architectural drawing within the limits of the Drawing Guidelines for HABS, this thesis will investigate the Interpretive Drawing clause within the Guidelines and how these interpretive drawings can reunite a new generation of architects with the federal program for documenting historic structures. By analyzing HABS’s history and its sister programs, which include the Historic American Engineering Record and the Historic American Landscape Survey, analyzing drawing theory, and critiquing current practices in drawing (both in the HABS world and in contemporary architectural practice), this thesis will ultimately synthesize those analyses by putting to practice different techniques for producing interpretive drawings in the form of case studies

A Building Information Modeling (BIM)-centric Digital Ecosystem for Smart Airport Life Cycle Management

An increasing number of new airport infrastructure construction and improvement projects are being delivered in today\u27s modern world. However, value creation is a recurring issue due to inefficiencies in managing capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenses (OpEx), while trying to optimize project constraints of scope, time, cost, quality, and resources. In this new era of smart infrastructure, digitalization transforms the way projects are planned and delivered. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a key digital process technique that has become an imperative for today\u27s Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) sector. This research suggests a BIM-centric digital ecosystem by detailing technical and strategic aspects of Airport BIM implementation and digital technology integration from a life cycle perspective. This research provides a novel approach for consistent and continuous use of digital information between business and functional levels of an airport by developing a digital platform solution that will enable seamless flow of information across functions. Accordingly, this study targets to achieve three objectives: 1- To provide a scalable know-how of BIM-enabled digital transformation; 2- To guide airport owners and major stakeholders towards converging information siloes for airport life cycle data management by an Airport BIM Framework; 3- To develop a BIM-based digital platform architecture towards realization of an airport digital twin for airport infrastructure life cycle management. Airport infrastructures can be considered as a System of Systems (SoS). As such, Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is selected as the key methodology towards designing a digital ecosystem. Applying MBSE principles leads to forming an integrating framework for managing the digital ecosystem. Furthermore, this research adopts convergent parallel mixed methods to collect and analyze multiple forms of data. Data collection tools include extensive literature and industry review; an online questionnaire; semi-structured interviews with airport owner parties; focus group discussions; first-hand observations; and document reviews. Data analysis stage includes multiple explanatory case study analyses, thematic analysis, project mapping, percent coverage analysis for coded themes to achieve Objective 1; thematic analysis, cluster analysis, framework analysis, and non-parametric statistical analysis for Objective 2; and qualitative content analysis, non-parametric statistical analysis to accomplish Objective 3. This research presents a novel roadmap toward facilitation of smart airports with alignment and integration of disruptive technologies with business and operational aspects of airports. Multiple comprehensive case study analyses on international large-hub airports and triangulation of organization-level and project-level results systematically generate scalable technical and strategic guidelines for BIM implementation. The proposed platform architecture will incentivize major stakeholders for value-creation, data sharing, and control throughout a project life cycle. Introducing scalability and minimizing complexity for end-users through a digital platform approach will lead to a more connected environment. Consequently, a digital ecosystem enables sophisticated interaction between people, places, and assets. Model-driven approach provides an effective strategy for enhanced decision-making that helps optimization of project resources and allows fast adaptation to emerging business and operational demands. Accordingly, airport sustainability measures -economic vitality, operational efficiency, natural resources, and social responsibility- will improve due to higher levels of efficiency in CapEx and OpEx. Changes in business models for large capital investments and introducing sustainability to supply chains are among the anticipated broader impacts of this study

BIM implementation for infrastructure projects: Methods and tools for information modeling and management

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

BIM and Facility Management for smart data management and visualization

Il BIM è per tutti gli edifici. Riconosciuta tra le disruptive technologies, la metodologia BIM cambia completamente il modo tradizionale di lavorare dell’industria delle costruzioni, a partire dalla fase di progettazione. In questo scenario, la sfida più interessante è quella di stabilire un framework, che riunisca metodi e strumenti per il ciclo di vita degli edifici, per la gestione del costruito. Il paradigma di Smart city si declina anche nella disponibilità di smart data, includendo, quindi, l’utilizzo intelligente delle informazioni riguardanti il patrimonio immobiliare. Il coinvolgimento proattivo del Facility Management nel processo edilizio è la chiave per garantire la disponibilità di un dataset appropriato di informazioni, supportando l’idea di un sistema di gestione della conoscenza basato sul BIM. In linea con questo approccio, un processo di management impostato a partire dal BIM è conseguibile attraverso una re-ingegnerizzazione complessiva della filiera atta a garantire l’efficacia del BIM ed a fornire servizi intelligenti di Facility 4.0.BIM is for all buildings. As a disruptive technology, BIM completely changes the traditional way of working of the Construction Industry, starting from the design stage. However, the challenging issue is to establish a framework that brings together methods and tools for the buildings lifecycle, focusing on the existing buildings management. Smart city means smart data, including, therefore, intelligent use of Real Estate information. Involving Facility Management in the process is the key to ensure the availability of the proper dataset of information, supporting the idea of a BIM-based knowledge management system. According to this approach, BIM Management is achievable applying a reverse engineering process to guarantee the BIM effectiveness and to provide Facility 4.0 smart services

Building Information Modelling (BIM) aided waste minimisation framework

Building design can have a major impact on sustainability through material efficiency and construction waste minimisation (CWM). The construction industry consumes over 420 million tonnes of material resources every year and generates 120 million tonnes of waste containing approximately 13 million tonnes of unused materials. The current and on-going field of CWM research is focused on separate project stages with an overwhelming endeavour to manage on-site waste. Although design stages are vital to achieve progress towards CWM, currently, there are insufficient tools for CWM. In recent years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been adopted to improve sustainable building design, such as energy efficiency and carbon reduction. Very little has been achieved in this field of research to evaluate the use of BIM to aid CWM during design. However, recent literature emphasises a need to carry out further research in this context. This research aims to investigate the use of BIM as a platform to help with CWM during design stages by developing and validating a BIM-aided CWM (BaW) Framework. A mixed research method, known as triangulation, was adopted as the research design method. Research data was collected through a set of data collection methods, i.e. selfadministered postal questionnaire (N=100 distributed, n=50 completed), and semistructured follow-up interviews (n=11) with architects from the top 100 UK architectural companies. Descriptive statistics and constant comparative methods were used for data analysis. The BaW Framework was developed based on the findings of literature review, questionnaire survey and interviews. The BaW Framework validation process included a validation questionnaire (N=6) and validation interviews (N=6) with architects. Key research findings revealed that: BIM has the potential to aid CWM during design; Concept and Design Development stages have major potential in helping waste reduction through BIM; BIM-enhanced practices (i.e. clash detection, detailing, visualisation and simulation, and improved communication and collaboration) have impacts on waste reduction; BIM has the most potential to address waste causes (e.g. ineffective coordination and communication, and design changes); and the BaW Framework has the potential to enable improvements towards waste minimisation throughout all design stages. Participating architects recommended that the adoption of the BaW Framework could enrich both CWM and BIM practices, and most importantly, would enhance waste reduction performance in design. The content should be suitable for project stakeholders, architects in particular, when dealing with construction waste and BIM during design