- Title
- Building Information Modelling (BIM): an introduction and international perspectives
- Creator
- Brewer, Graham; Gajendran, Thayaparan; Le Goff, Raichel
- Publisher
- Tasmanian Construction and Building Training Board
- Resource Type
- report
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- For a number of decades the concept and practicalities of utilising high-level computing to streamline the design and management of construction work have been addressed by industry, academics, and software developers. Although many in the industry will have been aware of these developments they will also have experienced the cynicism and doubt of their colleagues as to the capabilities of such systems and the practicalities of their implementation. Currently it is increasingly apparent that development work on Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology, together with the processes and protocols associated with its implementation has reached such a stage as to make their widespread use likely within a few years. The implications of BIM adoption across the industry are far from clear, however the lead time to prepare for it requires business and industry leaders engage in serious strategic planning. With this in mind the Tasmanian Building and Construction Industry Training Board (TBCITB) has commissioned the Centre for Interdisciplinary Built Environment Research (CIBER) to produce a series of three briefing papers and accompanying seminar presentations to trigger discussion among stakeholders in the Tasmanian construction industry and assist in strategy formation. This is the first of three reports dealing with BIM. It provides a basic introduction to the history, development, and current state of BIM, together with an assessment of the value, both current and potential, experienced by BIM practitioners in other countries. Moving overseas the report attempts to identify trends in relation to technology development, and innovation through process and service development. The report recognises governments as a key client group with the capacity to trigger change, and reviews government leadership in BIM adoption from around the world, logically moving into a series of international BIM adoption case studies. The report concludes by summarising the key issues raised within it, and provides three supporting appendices dealing with the history of BIM development, the software this has spawned, together with a glossary of terms that might be encountered in BIM-related documents. A comprehensive list of references is included in footnotes, together with hyperlinks to sources where possible. This report finds that internationally a compelling case can be made for BIM adoption and integration at the level of the firm and the project, that return on investment is necessarily maximal over the medium to long term, and that this occurs where firms have achieved sufficient mastery of the technology and processes as to devise innovative ways to deliver additional value to their clients. This has as much to do with the way in which the technology is utilised as it has to do with the technology itself. The report also finds that there are a key challenge is to be overcome in relation to the technology itself in terms of interoperability and functionality, and in relation to the procedures and protocols required to ensure seamless inter-firm communication and collaboration. It concludes that whilst these challenges have yet to be completely overcome there is nevertheless a widespread will and determination at the leading edge of adoption to ensure that solutions will be found: when this becomes the case it is anticipated that clients and their advisers will increasingly mandate the use of BIM on projects of any significant size. It seems reasonable to expect that this will trickle down into the lower tiers of project organisations, including trade subcontractors, though the scope and expectations of such engagement are as yet unclear.
- Subject
- Building Information Modelling (BIM); Building and Construction Industry; Tasmania
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1357361
- Identifier
- uon:31915
- Language
- eng
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