The process of implementing BIM is about change management, first and foremost. To do this successfully, the process needs to be carried out methodically. The best way is to make a ‘BIM implementation plan’, and the steps for this are outlined through the course of this series. This article looks at the strategic planning that will be needed for successful BIM implementation within your business.
Having made an assessment of the resources required for your organisation’s transition to BIM working, the next step is to put the findings into practice. The first task is to set up the appropriate systems and framework to enable this to be carried out effectively.
You will need to assemble a suitable project team, which comprises of personnel who are suitably qualified and experienced for the new way of working. Key skills to look for when choosing team members include:
As well as team members within your own company, you will also need to select team members from outside – collaborative working is, after all, about working in partnership with other stakeholders. To this end, and depending on the nature of your own business, you will need to consider your involvement with some or all of the following:
Whilst some of these may appear to be irrelevant to BIM, it should be borne in mind that not all stakeholders will have a design input – but they will need to be able to read, understand and interpret the design information. This is the reason why data and information exchange is such a fundamental aspect of BIM working.
As with any other task or project, it will be important to set targets and gather data in order to be able to measure the success of this first project. In addition, and accepting that there is always room for improvement, lessons can be learned by being able to analyse specific yardsticks, and hence identify precisely where efforts should be focused in order to raise areas of underperformance for future projects. By selecting a suitable test project, such lessons can be learned in a comparatively low-risk environment, and applied to higher-risk (and higher return) work in future. To enable accurate measurement and assessment, you should define and set KPIs that are specific and targeted to those areas you wish to analyse, and that are appropriate to the nature of a collaborative project. Example metrics can include:
The nature and extent of what is to be delivered should be defined. This will include not only the built asset itself, but also the information related to it. The government has defined information delivery stages (or ‘data drops’) which are analogous to work stages in the RIBA Plan of Work 2013
Added to this, the procurement route will have an impact (part six of this series mentioned that the most commonly-used construction contracts are being modified to be BIM-compliant, and the CIC BIM Protocol
Finally, you will need to write the BIM execution plan. This will essentially set out the methods by which you will carry out the project, and record all of the information that has been described in this and the preceding article. It can be likened to a business plan in a sense, as it sets out the key intentions and methods for achieving those intentions. In addition to setting out this information, it will need to refer to the principal standards associated with BIM working, and be written in accordance with those standards. You may benefit from appending ancillary documents such as the NBS BIM Toolkit.
The standards that are applicable to BIM include the following:
The next article looks at the actual process of BIM implementation within your business.
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