Exploring New Directions for the Transformation of the Built Environment in Nigeria: The Role of Building Information Modeling

Building Information Modelling (BIM) offers an alternative and better method of handling information for integrated project delivery approach to that of the traditional fragmented method of collaboration in the built environment. This paper is aimed at assessing the awareness and the prospects of adopting BIM in the professional Architectural practices in Nigeria using Akure as a case study. The rate of urbanisation and transformation of the built environment in the face of globalisation, calls for a new direction in the processing and handling of building information. This is particularly necessary as the current business model is inadequate for maximum productivity. The field investigation focused on determining the current business model of selected Architectural practice as well as assessing their awareness of Building Information Modelling and whether or not professionals are going to adopt it soon. The findings showed that the method of collaboration among professionals remain fragmented, the use of 3D software and even BIM software is limited to just 3D visualization and plan details. The study revealed that despite a good number of respondents already conscious of the benefit of using a BIM tool; their overall approach to project delivery remains fragmented. Awareness of the concept of BIM was a little above average among respondents but BIM implementation in professional practice is very low. It was discovered that challenges faced by respondents in the adoption of BIM is predicated on the attitudinal disposition of other professionals with whom they work and exchange building information with. These professionals do not work with BIM and coupled with inadequate knowledge of staff in the adoption of BIM workflow. The paper concluded that Building Information Modelling (BIM) has greater advantage than the existing traditional practice involving 2D drafting. BIM also has the inherent ability to foster integrated project delivery by creating a common platform for all professionals to work simultaneously on a project thereby minimising costly design and construction errors. Keywords: Architectural practices, Building Information Modelling (BIM), collaboration, construction, urban transformations

Data transfer between digital models of built assets and their operation & maintenance systems

The operation and maintenance of built assets is crucial for optimising their whole life cost and efficiency. Historically, however, there has been a general failure in the transfer information between the design-and-construct (D&C) and operate-and-maintain (O&M) phases of the asset lifecycle. The recent steady uptake of digital technologies, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the D&C phase has been accompanied by an expectation that this would enable better transfer of information to those responsible for O&M. Progress has been slow, with practitioners being unsure as to how to incorporate BIM into their working practices. Three types of challenge are identified, related to communication, experience and technology. In examining the last aspect, it appears that a major problem has been that of interoperability between building information models and the many computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) systems in use. The successful and automatic transfer of information from a building model to an FM tool is, in theory, achievable through the medium of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema. However, this relies upon the authoring of the model in terms of how well its structure permits the identification of relevant objects, their relationships and attributes. The testing of over 100 anonymised building models revealed that very few did; prohibiting their straightforward mapping to the maintenance database we had selected for the test. An alternative, hybrid approach was developed using an open-source software toolkit to identify objects by their geometry as well as their classification, thus enabling their automatic transfer. In some cases, manual transfer proved necessary. The implications are that while these problems can be overcome on a case-by-case basis, interoperability between D&C and O&M systems will not become standard until it is accommodated by appropriate and informed authoring of building models

BIM FM: An international call for action

Despite significant progress for the adoption of BIM in AEC, currently its adoption for FM has been sparse, scarce, and extraneous. There are few cases in the world where robust adoption has taken place that are able to demonstrate success and are willing to disseminate the positive impact of BIM FM on sustainability, operational efficiency, and cost reduction. To date, there is no approach, motivation, or support in place to enable the extensive adoption of BIM for FM worldwide. In the UK, for instance, the UK BIM initiative, mandate, and the Digital Built Britain cannot count on the participation of FM stakeholders; the government has only started promoting initiatives that could trigger an extensive BIM approach, generating benefits for organizations and more importantly, society as a whole. In this chapter, data from authors’ various research projects has been put together to generate an agenda for BIM FM implementation. The findings reveal that unless an intervention, such as a mandate for FM services suppliers, is put in place, very little will happen with regards to BIM FM

BIM FM: An international call for action

Despite significant progress for the adoption of BIM in AEC, currently, its adoption for FM has been sparse, scarce and extraneous. There are few cases in the world where robust adoption has taken place; which are able to demonstrate success and are willing to disseminate the positive impact of BIM FM on sustainability, operational efficiency and cost reduction. To date, there is no approach, motivation or support in place to enable the extensive adoption of BIM for FM worldwide. In the UK for instance, the UK BIM initiative, mandate and the Digital Built Britain, cannot count on the participation of FM stakeholders, the government has only started promoting initiatives that could trigger an extensive BIM approach, generating benefits for organisations and more importantly, society as a whole. In this article, data from authors’ various research projects has been put together to generate an agenda for BIM FM implementation. The findings reveal that unless an intervention, such as a mandate for FM services suppliers is put in place, very little will happen with regards to BIM FM

Modelling organizations' structural adjustment to BIM adoption: a pilot study on estimating organizations

Building information Modelling (BIM) promises a fairly radical revolution in all segments of the construction industry. Vital evidence has been used in many studies to elicit how fragmented processes in conventional construction systems, predominantly manual design systems and entity-based CAD often render design and project performance vulnerable. BIM is presented as having attributes that strengthen the frameworks for servicing efficiency in design and project performance. As BIM adoption continues to improve, various stake-holding practices that are involved in developing projects through integrated systems do require process models to help them simplify issues relating to multi-disciplinary integration - a direct opposite of what they are used to in fragmented systems. They also need to develop appropriate skills and strategies, including new marketing and administrative stratagems, to service intensive collaboration and other ethos of BIM. These are some of the inevitable changes to which organizations must respond in order to generate efficient results when adopting and deploying BIM. To examine organizational response to those process changes as promised in BIM, different organization models are explored with emphasis on their functional structures, namely: (1) matrix (2) networked (3) functional (4) divisional structure models. Data were collected from 8 construction and software development organizations in Australia through focus group discussions. 18 participants in core BIM skills took part in the study. Some interesting discoveries were made and reported on the industry's reactions to BIM adoption. Conclusively, this study confirms the nature and direction of potential changes that BIM trigger

Towards digital facility modelling for Sydney Opera House using IFC and semantic web technology

The challenges of maintaining a building such as the Sydney Opera House are immense and are dependent upon a vast array of information. The value of information can be enhanced by its currency, accessibility and the ability to correlate data sets (integration of information sources). A building information model correlated to various information sources related to the facility is used as definition for a digital facility model. Such a digital facility model would give transparent and an integrated access to an array of datasets and obviously would support Facility Management processes. In order to construct such a digital facility model, two state-of-the-art Information and Communication technologies are considered: an internationally standardized building information model called the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and a variety of advanced communication and integration technologies often referred to as the Semantic Web such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This paper reports on some technical aspects for developing a digital facility model focusing on Sydney Opera House. The proposed digital facility model enables IFC data to participate in an ontology driven, service-oriented software environment. A proof-of-concept prototype has been developed demonstrating the usability of IFC information to collaborate with Sydney Opera House’s specific data sources using semantic web ontologies