The adoption of BIM into the
Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industry has resulted in a multitude
of a benefits, but nevertheless challenges and difficulties still exist. As BIM has been adopted further, clients that
were used to a traditional architecture or engineering workflow suddenly see
increases in fees at the beginning of a project. This is because programs like Revit requires
a heavy amount of up-front work to get the model to completion before
calculations can be run or drawings can be produced from it. According to Kelvin Donaldson, director of
the UK architecture firm Gilberts, this is a problem because many clients are
not willing to put forth the increased fees required to spend time producing a complete
BIM model at the beginning of a project.
They may fail to see the value associated with the increased cost, and
may just regard BIM as unnecessary complexity.
However, these such clients often
forget that early implementation of BIM means less confusion and more
efficiency in the later stages of the project, resulting in substantially
lowered costs. To solve this issue,
Donaldson recommends that the benefits of BIM should be demonstrated to the
client as early in the project as possible, and the billing process should be
restructured to better align with the modern BIM-oriented workflow. [1]
Another problem that stifles
adoption of BIM is its demand for improved hardware and software. The high computer specifications required to
run BIM efficiently put a heavy hardware demand on firms, especially smaller
ones where the cost of adopting BIM may be greater than the return on
investment of adoption because of the scale at which they work. In terms of software, the annualized upgrades
of BIM programs like Revit mean that firms must constantly update and become reacquainted
with the new version. If there are
substantial changes, it may take firms 3-6 months to make efficient use of the
new version, leaving them with less time before the next version comes out to
operate at maximum efficiency.
To mitigate the inefficiencies
that accompany continual software iteration, BIM software companies would be
wise to limit upgrade rollouts to biannual releases at most, and with minimal
changes to the program’s user interface so that users do not get lost in a sea
of new changes.
COMMENTS:
On Drew Hovey's Post:
Drew, I thought that the legal issues with BIM that you raised were particularly interesting. The problem of ownership of the model at the completion of a project is a bit of a puzzler. I can see it becoming especially complicated if BIM becomes further used for operation and management of buildings. If the model needs to be used continually over a building's lifetime, how should the ownership of the model be shared between owner, designer, and manager? It will be interesting to see how these issues are addressed as the industry moves forward with its adoption of BIM.
On Joseph Chaudhari's Post:
Joseph, I thought your comment on BIM becoming too advanced was particularly interesting. I agree that it's not a huge leap to say that BIM might become too user friendly, given the rate of software and AI development in other industries. A danger that could emerge is that the programs become so comprehensive that little room for engineering judgement is left, and fewer checks and balances exist to make sure what the program is doing is accurate and safe. Hopefully the developers of BIM keep this potential problem in mind as they expand of BIM's capabilities.
On Brandon Mengel's Post:
Brandon, you mentioned a problem with Revit that I ended up omitting from my post: the steep learning curve. I think that's one of the biggest obstacles to the adoption of BIM in the industry. During my previous two co-ops I worked for a firm that didn't use revit to generate construction drawings (only AutoCAD) and one that did, so I got to experience the different workflows firsthand. The Revit workflow for drawing generation is much more complex than the AutoCAD workflow. It took me my entire six months of co-op to become efficient with revit, and I'm still not proficient. Not only do users have to learn a new program interface; Revit is also littered with small problems and nuances that make creating a readable construction document painstaking and downright frustrating at times, compared to AutoCAD where you can get what you want to appear on the drawing by simply drawing the lines. I agree that better tutorials and help functions in revit would help speed up adoption of the software and flatten the learning curve substantially.
CITATIONS:
[1] Donaldson, Kelvin. "The Problem
With Revit." Web log post. N.p., 2013. Web. 28 Jan. 2017. http://www.augiuk.co.uk/index.php/articles/17-articles/31-the-problem-with-revit
As I said on Marias post, I agree that BIM, even with the difficulties that are present now, overall simplifies the process of modeling/designing and in the future will be even more important as technologies advance. I think a way of showing this benefit to the client is very important in order to go through the construction process as simply as possible.
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