The previous article, BIM Business Case Part I, discussed the importance of a business case as a step towards BIM adoption. This touched on the general, yet key business drivers and frameworks considered in growing any construction business. A matrix of the business drivers and frameworks show that a BIM business case can be used to:
· Improve the company’s value proposition in construction project delivery, in a fiscally sensible manner.
· Deliver beyond a ‘typical’ project, through integrated project delivery. This entails using added value services such as virtual reality, augmented reality, digital twins and the generation of facilities management data sets.
· Train and upskill company staff on BIM standards, protocols, software and hardware use in order to improve their technical skills in project management and delivery.
Part II will cover the questions likely to arise from a BIM business case proposal.
Q1. Can we afford BIM?
Changing to different ways of doing things would involve some disruption costs, but if carefully planned BIM need not imply great expenditure. Conventional rule of thumb suggests that in any new venture, there is a three-year cycle for financial and other potential successes to appear in any business. The first year is anticipated to be a loss, the second-year breaks even and the third year shows a profit. BIM should be treated like any other long-term business investment; not expecting to supply a profit cycle instantaneously.
The bigger question should be, can we afford not to adopt BIM in this changing market? Both clients and consultants are increasingly catching on to BIM. While some see it as a means of drive construction fees and prices down, others seek better quality outcome. The market is absorbing the new BIM phenomenon as we operate to a different dynamic in the future. Affording BIM plays its part in the constant quest to improve construction office working and job satisfaction.
Q2. What effect will it have on salary levels?
In the uptake of BIM there are new emerging roles, ranging from BIM director to junior technician. As more players emerge in the BIM sector, those who demonstrate successful BIM implementations will automatically command a salary premium. Additionally, companies that feel BIM has brough about commercial advantage for them will want to retain the staff. At this point, there is the realisation that BIM is more than knowing the peculiarities of CAD and information management. It is a combination of business processes and growth strategy. Therefore, the people with this new strain of expertise will be the custodians of longer-term business asset and opportunities. Just how much this manifests itself, is open to discussion.
Q3. How do we invest in training?
BIM emphasises that it is not the software but information management that primarily requires investment. Consequently, BIM adoption requires more information management training than technical training. This is because the construction industry has seen growth in its capability to generate and maintain complex information. Studies have shown that as much as 80% of this information is stored in unmanaged repositories, making it inefficient and ineffective. Furthermore it is generated at many different points, making it difficult to ensure accuracy, consistency and completeness. The importance of information management is not covered deeply in education, therefore many professionals in the industry neither grasp its significance nor its usefulness. This is not to disregard the importance of technical training for specific aspects of BIM such as parametric modelling, visualisation, formulating schedules and specialist consultant areas such as mechanical, electrical and structures design engineering.
Training plans are an integral part of the strategy for developing the workforce and therefore it needs to take into consideration the aspects of BIM that are already in place and their benefits. Furthermore, adequate time should be budgeted for trainees to acclimatise themselves to the new ways of working. It is the fusion of existing and new knowledge gained by education that will transform the skills and abilities at all levels in a business into a new and powerful force using BIM.
In the implementation process, there is the obvious purchase of training programme from the software vendor. However, training bought from a vendor will not do much in showing how a system mechanism plays its part in the business strategy. Users are left to formulate an opinion on how to maximise these mechanisms. For example, a training programme in Ms. Excel, might show the different computational techniques of the platform, but not how to process Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) datasets for facility management. Therefore, education about what these concepts are, and how they play a key part in information management is required to be able to harness their usefulness.
Conclusion
Since there is a varying array of alternatives regarding company size, the differing sets of skills within the companies, nature and strength of their relationships with other consultant firms, and whether the various stakeholders are private or public sector or a mixture; there is no generic business case model to adopt BIM. What is a fact is that the benefits of BIM adoption at operational, technical, and business levels are too enormous to ignore or leave to chance. Practices are called on to take a proactive approach on the uptake of BIM technologies which can be achieved through a thorough and personalised BIM Business Case.
