Maissoun Ksara - B3: What are the possible future problems with Revit/BIM?

What are the possible future problems with Revit/BIM?

BIM has many advantages, bringing to the table the ability of creating more complex designs using simpler methods. Softwares are becoming much more developed; BIM improves efficiency and coordination in the work environment. Despite its advantages, there are potential future problems associated with Revit/BIM. As mentioned in the Group A class discussion, these were divided into two main points a) inadequate processing power and b) loss of fundamental theory. 

The first point, inadequate processing power, relates to file sizes getting too large as a result of BIM’s complexities. As BIM is becoming more developed and intricate, file sizes will also become larger to hold the additional information. This will cause softwares like Revit to become very slow. Instead of having an efficient design thanks to BIM, this may be a detriment and may instead be the opposite of efficient since the program will run extremely slow. It is also possible Revit can crash and lose the information altogether. This will hurt the workplace environment and may delay project schedules.

The second point, loss of fundamental theory, is a problem that may come into play as a result of users being too dependent on BIM abilities to do the work. Since BIM is advancing and is a huge source of information, we will become too dependent on it. This will cause people to disregard fundamental design theory and want to skip the education. The education is important, however, because having a solid design skill set allows one to troubleshoot a design and find the small errors. An uneducated person who only relies on the software will run into problems in the long run since they may not be able to pinpoint what the problem is with their design should an error come into play. Because of this, the person can make his company look bad in front of competitors and may be detrimental to their reputation.

Another important problem of BIM is one that is discussed in an article written by Darius Migilinskas et al. about compatibility issues. Since different softwares exist that utilize BIM and since most projects are collaborative, data may not be completely transferred from one software to the other and from one firm to the other. This could be a problem for large projects where many different participants are entitled to a specific part of the project. It could mean extra time, effort, and cost in order to recover all the data. 

References

• Migilinskas, Darius, Vladimir Popov, Virgaudas Juocevicius, and Leonas Ustinovichius. "The Benefits, Obstacles and Problems of Practical Bim Implementation." Procedia Engineering 57 (2013): 767-74. doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2013.04.097.

Comments

Peter Dannemann: In one of my earlier blog posts, I also talked about drones. I think it would be a great advantage to survey by drones and collecting the data, which would be read by Revit. I agree that it would make the process accurate and cheap. I do think there are intermediate steps that require more work and sorting out since the field is new and the research isn’t complete. I also agree that the next step for BIM is in testing responsive environments.

Brandon Mengel: It seems like most of our peers discuss the lag and tendency for the program to become unresponsive when the file size becomes too large. I think your example of rotating a building is funny but also very true.. The learning curve is also very relevant. It would take more and more time to train new employees as the software continues to advance.

Ronald Park: I think its really important that you bring up scheduling. BIM allows for more efficient scheduling processes as it enables the engineers to keep track of services the building needs in a better way. This can also be a disadvantage I think, especially for the reasons I outlined in my blog post where the software becomes too unresponsive and can cause delays. Scheduling can definitely go both ways, I think.