Global BIM standards are necessary but they should not be overcomplicated. Man and Machine explain why it is imperative to keep things concise
BIM is littered with acronyms and standards, many of them overlapping and over-complicated. Don’t get me wrong; I am all for standards. And the need for standards on a global basis is critical if BIM is going to really impact the construction industry in the way we all hope. The hope being that new digital transformation technologies (like BIM-to-Field) will be used on BIM projects to drive collaboration, reduce waste (labour and materials) and drive cost improvements on construction projects. The UK Construction industry should be demanding it, as our skills are transferable and sought after globally.
So if we want our best people able to contribute and lead construction projects globally, they need to be able to know and understand all standards in the regions in which they want to operate.
A simplified BIM standard
As a result, BIM is crying out for one standard, one international classification system. A consistent standard globally. Organisations like buildingSMART are making laudable attempts to support and introduce global standards like IFC, BCF and bsDD (buildingSMART Data Dictionary), but we need to drive “user simplicity”.
Think about this for instance. This morning I checked some live internet stats, and there were 3.6 billion people online doing over 1.9 billion searches, and over 85 billion emails were being sent. Imagine that and how does this happen? It’s because we all use one underlying, single international standard protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). This has to be the single most successful international standard ever, and it enables every single online communication you ever make (email, web, social media, ftp, drop box and so on). As a user do you ever worry about the link layer within TCP/IP or the application layer or session layer. No, because it’s invisible to you. It just works, and it is simple to use. You just use the applications you need on the internet to do what you need to do.
I look forward to the day when BIM is simple to implement and uncomplicated because it has to come if we are really going to see the enormous impact that BIM promises. If BIM helps construction specialists on site to get their jobs done, then you won’t need them to change because they will “pull” rather than the industry having to “push” its adoption.
Man and Machine’s BIM Ready Training program attempts to educate construction specialists around the BIM process and workflow, with the possibilities of new technologies that sit beautifully on top of the TCP/IP stack.
Man and Machine
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