May 14_Track D_ BIM Talk, with apologies to the Car Talk guys (IP64)

[Andrew Fisher]

Michael Bordenaro of NF Publishing Company speaks on the subject of BIM.
But what is BIM? It is more than one thing. And Michael is valiantly going to combine humor and education in a discussion of all the things BIM is or could be.

[Andrew Fisher]

I'm not particularly familar with 'Car Talk', but the first act in this seminar was, I'm sorry to say, a bit dry. If there is something I would compare this to, it would be a bad night on SNL news. Facts and figures are hard to make interesting, much less funny. Knowing that 300 people stood in line to get 200 free copies of a book says more about the people than the tome of knowledge. (in this case the book was 'Big BIM, little bim' )

The first twenty presentation slides or so were meant to be a BIM newscast, complete with weather reports and celebrity interviews. The most memorable part was the 'BIM Sports report'. The report was: there are no BIM sports yet, but future competition could bring out the best in us.'

And yet, there were a few points of interest among the early slides that I think are worth sharing on this forum:
-In Singapore, the design professional must submit a model file to the AHJ. Before any human eyes examine the model, a code-checking software analyzes the information. If the model doesn't pass this analysis it is not reviewed.
-Despite initial and current struggles with the IFC file format, we should continue to support the IFC format. IFC should be the '.dwg of BIM'

A question was asked, I don't believe it came from the audience, because there was a slide to answer the question.

Q: How much money can you save by reducing change orders?
A: A boatload. Yes, exactly one boatload.

Fortunately, Mr. Bordenaro was able to transition from image-heavy jokes on a power point thread and into discussions with some key audience members (including Deke Smith and Kimon Onuma)
This was what I'd call the second act of this particular story.
Here I learned about other happenings in the industry... [to be continued]

[Andrew Fisher]

When this session moved into a directed discussion I realized that there is a lot of movement behind the adoption of BIM in our industry. This is more complex than leaving one bit of software for the next best thing, something that conference attendees were all interested in doing.

Some believe that we will follow suit with the Auto industry and use information modeling to imporve our product.
Others are more encouraged, anticipating a future where a design can come directly from someone's mind into form. (An early example would be the loblolly house:
http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek07/0824/0824n_bim.cfm )

But there are also those that are invested in seeing large firms, agencies and national governments endorse the use of BIM. Between the GSA, the National Institutue of Building Sciences, and the many Scandinavian countries that are promoting BIM, we can see the beginnings of acceptance and encouragement.

But it seems to me that if someone wants to evangelize the information model, they will be most successful by extoling its virtues as a 'value adding' tool. In essence we need to lead the invisible hand towards this. I for one think that the cheapest, or best money-making opportunity will be the one that succeeds.

When sustainable construction is cheaper to install than traditional alternatives, it will become the standard. Similarly, when BIM solutions are the more cost effective way to deliver a design, the old methods of 2D drafting will be largely abandoned. I think that the value proposition has been proven, particularly for small projects.
So why aren't we all doing BIM? There remains a pretty impressive learning curve and up-front investment to get started, and there are many that won't jump on board because they can't see their firm making this kind of investment so long as 2D project delivery still gets the porject apporved and the designer paid.