Mike Packham, Partner of Bernard Williams Associates and BIFM member details how BIM and Soft Landings have progressed recently with guidance from bodies such as BSRIA
It has been a few months since I last put pen to paper on the subject of BIM/Soft Landings. In the interim, the 2016 deadline for implementation in the public sector has crept inexorably closer – so has anything changed in this time?
I am happy to say that I think that it has – we are starting to get the message out there that adoption of the BIM/Soft Landings methodologies can bring tremendous benefits in all sorts of different ways for FM. By way of example, at the end of September I attended a BIFM Corporate Member Event, which was based around the generic topic of BIM and Soft Landings. Held in the impressing surroundings of the Admiralty building in London’s Whitehall it attracted a large audience (in fact it was standing room only!)
Over the course of the evening, attendees heard from speakers drawn from different sectors of the industry. What was heartening from my perspective was that the emphasis was very much on case study material. I think this demonstrates that at long last we are starting to move from “what is it?” to “how do we go about using it?” It was also good to see the Government Soft Landings Stewardship Group in attendance– an indication I think that GSL is going to be with us for the foreseeable future.
In this latter context, from BIFM’s perspective the emphasis has always been on Soft Landings/GSL, rather than BIM. This is simply because we see these initiatives as providing (virtually for the first time) a structured process for getting an organisation’s operational requirements built into the design from the outset. What I do not think the market generally had understood however, was that there are distinct differences between BSRIA’s Soft Landings and the government version. BSRIA’s latest publication: “Soft Landings & Government Soft Landings – A Convergence Guide for Construction Projects” therefore provides a welcome addition to the literature on the subject.
To deal with the similarities first, the document identifies these as being:
- The emphasis on there being a need for better collaboration between the design/construction team and the users/operators (i.e. the Facility Managers);
- Outcomes being agreed at the outset of the project;
- Using the process to learn lessons and in so doing improve design practice;
- Paying particular attention to the pre-handover stage (testing, commissioning, training, etc.) so that Facility Managers are better prepared for moving into the building;
- The need for a period of post occupancy evaluation – essentially to determine if the building in use delivers its designed intention.
Moving on, I believe that these are some of the key differences (and I think it is important that we FMs start to get our collective heads around these):
- GSL policy envisages that the Soft Landings Champion is an appointed member of the relevant government department. BSRIA’s Soft Landings however recommends that the Client has a Soft Landings representative and the Soft Landings Champion is appointed by the project team;
- GSL implementation is aligned with the government’s public sector policy for the implementation of BIM in 2016 (although it could still be implemented on a project without BIM).
The Soft Landings Framework does not necessarily require BIM to be implemented and as such can be viewed as a more self-contained process;
- GSL contract guidance requires capital cost and operating cost objectives to be set from initiation of a project and then regularly updated as the project progresses. For the Soft Landings Framework, consideration of capital/operational cost is optional;
- GSL requires functionality, environmental performance, FM operations, training, commissioning and handover to be addressed as part of a project’s objectives. The Soft Landings Framework is less prescriptive, leaving it to the project team to determine what the project’s key objectives should be;
- GSL requires targets to be set at RIBA Plan of Work Stages 0 and 1 and then reviewed at Stage 2. BSRIA’s version of Soft Landings recommends that targets are not set until RIBA Stage 2, after the project’s strategic principles have been established and the options appraised/reviewed.
One last point that I would commend the new BSRIA publication for is contained in Section 6, where they have mapped Government Soft Landings and the Soft Landings Framework both to one another and also to the RIBA Plan of Work. This is something akin to what we have been turning our minds to at BIFM.
As I am sure that at least some of you will be aware, we have established a Soft Landings task group. Membership of the group is drawn from all sectors of the FM industry and includes representatives from client organisations, academia, service providers, software solutions and consultants. One of the first ‘tasks’ that we set ourselves was to consider how we could best support (and promote) the role of FM in BIM/Soft Landings. The conclusion we came to was that the Standards side of things was more than adequately covered through existing publications, and what was required therefore was more practical advice about how FM can get proactively involved and in so doing add value to the overall building delivery and operation process. The result of our deliberations is something that we have termed an Operational Readiness Guide. Like the BSRIA document referred to above, this is mapped to the RIBA Plan of Work and provides details of the activities and tasks for the FM to consider at each Stage. It is intended as a useful checklist of activities and not a replacement for the knowledge and experience that a good FM will bring to a project. It allows for the FM to join a project at the outset and builds very much on work that has already been published (which is sign-posted in the text). Above all, it is not intended to be cast in stone — we see it as an open source document that will be subject to continuous development. Look out for the finished document which is due for publication later on this year.
So finally to return to where I started from – has the case for FM involvement in the BIM/Soft Landings initiative been progressed? I think that the examples that I have given in this article demonstrate that it has, and that FMs are starting to wake up to the tremendous opportunities that are on offer. We have moved beyond the theory of the subject as set out in the various Standards to starting to seriously think about what using BIM/Soft Landings involves in practice. Is there more work to be done – of course – but that is the way of life for most things FM!
Mike Packham
Member
British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM)
Tel: +44 (0)127 971 2620
info@bifm.org.uk
