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People often describe BIM as a data revolution. “Why?” you may ask. People hype BIM to be many things and have wide-ranging impacts, but fundamentally it’s a decision by a project team to change the way you share information, cooperate, and collaborate on projects. It creates value by demonstrating that you can work in more efficient ways. The most significant change is in how the project team manages information across the life of a project.

You can explain the idea of the “I” in BIM as information modeling to someone by using the example of a human body. If you wanted to, you could accurately replicate the geometry of the entire human body, so that you had a perfect 3D model of human anatomy (and these models do exist as study tools for medical professionals). However, so much information is missing from the model that represents a real person, including age, medical history, family history, occupation, lifestyle, and daily routine. In the same way, a perfect 3D representation of a project is still missing so much information, such as the execution of building works, when components were installed and their likely replacement time, warranties and certificates, estimated energy performance data, and so on. The geometry is only useful with embedded property data.

For a fascinating crossover of construction BIM and medical anatomy, check out Arup’s Project OVE at http://arupassociates.com/en/exploration/bim-trial-project-ove/.

A lot of industries have applied information modeling and managing information and knowledge across projects. BIM isn’t something architects or contractors invented. In the following sections, you can find out how information modeling is used successfully by other sectors and how you can benefit from the information aspect.

Noting other industries that use information modeling

In simple terms, information modeling allows clients, designers, builders, engineers, fabricators, product manufacturers, owner-operators, and users to understand an entire project before construction, refine the proposal to avoid errors, and generate efficiencies. They can then output a digital copy of the built project, interrogate it for key facts in the future, and update or expand it as necessary when things change.

Because of these efficiency benefits, the construction industry isn’t the first to think that information modeling sounds like a smart idea. In fact, some companies have been using the concept of data analysis for decades. The following sections give some great examples of other industries using information modeling innovatively.

By modeling a project digitally in terms of its information as well as its geometry, everyone involved has the opportunity to access, influence, and interact with the same data for different reasons. One of the key aims of BIM is to group all the information about a project into just one virtual place, but doing so is a long-term goal.

To make the most of existing technology, you need to ensure that the information and systems you use are interoperable; in other words, you allow and encourage data exchange and sharing to take place across the team. To help you with this, you can work to international standards available. In Part III, we go into much more depth about the various documents and protocols around the world that direct information coordination.

Automotive manufacturing

The automotive manufacturing industry is responsible for revolutionizing factory production through the modern assembly line at Oldsmobile and the use of magnetic conveyor belts by Ford Motor Company. The automotive industry is now acclaimed as a key innovator of digital information modeling. The 3D model is used to refine the design through the product lifecycle. For example, Suzuki recently aimed to remove 1 gram from every component in its next car: a win-win for company and customer, because weight reduction would result in huge cumulative material cost savings and lead to increased fuel efficiency in the car.

The model no longer exists just in the design phases; it’s used as a fabrication model too, and the use will only increase with the evolution of 3D printing and intelligent materials. Automotive manufacturing has benefited from imposed international standards for design and safety, and the utilization of standardized computer-aided design (CAD) platforms across the industry. One of the key lessons you can adopt from car companies is the importance of the client being committed to the adoption of new technologies that support the supply chain to ensure interoperable information.

The concept that expands an evolving information model into project management has been used for decades and is more accurately called product lifecycle management (PLM). Chapter 6 goes into more detail about integrated project delivery (IPD), a term you’ll often hear in the same sentence as BIM, and IPD provides an analogy that’s closer to PLM. BIM and IPD processes working together can be powerful.

Aeronautical and aerospace engineering

Aeronautical manufacturing has advanced to the point where every commercial plane is designed and built using a comprehensive information model. More than 20,000 global component suppliers and manufacturers can be involved in the supply chain for one aircraft, so the only way to manage and coordinate that amount of data is via a central hub utilizing live data. In the examples that we’ve encountered, the plane only ever exists in the virtual environment, and no prototypes or mock-ups are built for testing; the manufacturer does everything in a digital form until the final build, such is the trust in the data management.

Aerospace information models are also embedded into PLM systems, which completely integrate teams and information. This results in high levels of manufacturing quality and efficiency. Airplane manufacturers even embed checking approvals with qualification data, so that managers can track every decision back to an individual. If a component fails, airplane companies can see not only the use of that part in other aircraft and who manufactured the part, but also who installed it and what else they installed. You can see an overview of aeronautical PLM in Figure 3-1.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Figure 3-1: Product lifecycle management in the aeronautical industry.

The industry needs to respond quickly to market demand and performance requirements such as fuel efficiency or new emissions legislation, and it does so on a global scale. One has to be able to zip large amounts of data around the world to allow the kind of international team-working required in aircraft production. As a result of this precise quality-assurance process, the concept-to-delivery time for the latest single-aisle passenger jet design is less than 18 months, and in 2013, Airbus delivered 41 identical aircraft every month.

NASCAR and Formula 1 racing

You may know that in the mid-1990s a NASCAR pit crew became synonymous with continuous improvement when Ray Evernham’s Rainbow Warriors went through seasons of strength and agility training, video replay, and rehearsal to choreograph driver Jeff Gordon’s tire changes like a ballet. Emblazoned with “Refuse to Lose” across their chests, they took lessons from professional football and gave specific roles to each person based on his individual skills.

Since then, the crews have gradually tried to shave seconds off the pit times through these same low-tech methods. Now, though, teams are using real-time location systems (RTLS) such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to assess and train pit crews in practice, tracking the location and movements of the car, all the equipment, and the engineers themselves. The data instantly generates an information model to allow NASCAR crews to completely optimize performance and motion.

In Formula 1, where the cars don’t refuel and only have a single wheel nut, in the 2013 season Red Bull Racing changed all four tires in 1.9 seconds. During the race, the Formula 1 constructor teams use real-time information models of the cars to understand every element of car performance, from tire pressure and engine temperature to aerodynamic effects in different weather conditions. Interestingly, in order to maximize analysis, teams often feed this information back to their factory headquarters and then back to the racetrack. Think about the speed of your home Internet connection and consider how fast the communications need to be to relay data transmissions back and forth during a race.

You can take another great lesson from NASCAR and Formula 1. In selecting pit crews, the racing teams evaluate the applicants, and through the right assessment can work out where their skills and weaknesses are. The teams then provide training tools particular to that situation, rather than putting everyone through the same training or making everyone learn to do every task.

Not everyone needs to know everything that’s going on. Higher levels of management will want an overview picture, but don’t need the details of your software training. At the same time, you can’t expect someone with a very specific role in proofreading or object modeling to be able to explain your entire strategy. Think about what messages you need to relay to your whole team and what parts may only be relevant to specific people.

Also, some of the crew are former athletes, working in this new industry for the first time but using skills from their previous sports. In the same way, which of your colleagues can you see adapting to BIM and data management roles who can bring a different kind of expertise to the table? Where can someone add value to your organization’s BIM implementation?

Eyeing the main benefit of information modeling

The main advantage of information modeling is quite simple: no one owns information. You may be familiar with the traditional view of the concept of ownership: “This is my steelwork design! Why should you have access to my drawings?” or, “If you really want, I can tell you the height of that door, but I don’t see why you need it.”

Every single person on a team has a responsibility to make his information open and accessible in shared locations. BIM is more than just an innovative tool that helps some of the design team and an integrated central data platform that the client requires you (and everyone else on the project) to use in an open and intelligent way. Eventually, at handover, the client or the eventual building owner can take ownership of all the native model and exported data. BIM is a lot better than receiving hundreds of boxes filled with paper.

Right of ownership of the model and the legal implications of BIM on fees, intellectual property, and copyrights are the subject of discussion in the construction law community, with a gradually increasing set of test cases for the courts. In Chapter 13, we explore these issues along with other challenges surrounding BIM, such as security, risk, and contractual liability.

For example, consider the construction industry, which has traditionally worked in silos, usually reflecting the job titles or qualifications of each team or office, such as architects, structural engineers, quantity surveyors, mechanical engineers, and landscape architects. Everyone has his or her own set of data, probably using different software programs and managing information coordination in-house, releasing just what the client requested or another team needed as the project progressed. This is in direct contrast to the idea of BIM, which allows everyone in the supply chain to add content to a unified model.

Information modeling is the future of construction

The construction industry is one of the last areas of global business to adopt standardization and refine information management processes in order to generate efficiency. You can argue that construction activities are manufacturing of a sort. Construction is the creation of an object made of many components; that object just happens to be a very complex project containing hundreds of thousands of advanced sub-objects like steel beams, timber, bricks, and concrete. Nothing prevents construction from leading innovation rather than playing catch-up with the manufacturing sector, but it needs to understand the power of information.

Using entirely digital information is a big step forward for built environment teams, but doing so isn’t going to solve every existing problem in design, construction, and asset management processes. It can’t ever be a silver bullet, because the success of a project still relies on people understanding that they need to communicate with other team members. One of the principles of BIM could be the following: information is only useful if you’re sharing it. This principle should go beyond defined roles and job titles; if you see something is wrong, tell whoever needs to know.