What Do You Want to Know About BIM?

• By: admin
• On: 12/21/2009 13:48:39
• In: BIM Practice Group
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Ideas from practice group members included:

-    Using CSIWiki to develop consensus definitions. Consistent naming conventions and universal definitions are repeatedly raised as issues in BIM Practice Group meetings. Grant directed participants to the existing “CSI BIM Practice Guidelines” entry on CSIWiki, and the entry for “BIM Functional Elements.” He encouraged the group to log in to the wiki and add information to both pages, and to create definitions for other terms and ideas they feel are important to BIM.

-    More discussion about applying OmniClass to organize data. OmniClass has been described as the future backbone of BIM. Its 15 tables incorporate other systems currently used by the construction industry to organize data, including MasterFormat for work results and UniFormat for elements. More information on OmniClass can be found in these notes from a past BIM Practice Group meeting.

-    Managing information related to construction itself. Much of the construction industry’s BIM discussion has focused on equipment and furnishings. To reach BIM’s full potential, designers need to incorporate less tangible information into the model as well. “The functional elements (systems and assemblies) and work results used to construct the building,” explained a group member. “The management of information related to the building construction in contrast to past examples of medical equipment, spaces, etc.”

-    What data belongs in the model? The sources that could potentially feed a model are endless. But today’s modeling programs slow down when too much data is attached. The BIM Practice Group has noticed that many of today’s users are dividing their information between a database and a model that is in some way linked to it. (Both HOK and NASA  demonstrated this approach in recent meetings.) “I am interested in the mechanics of utilizing BIM documents from design to the trades,” commented one attendee. “I hear that a completed BIM projects can be multiple-gigabyte-size files thus making hardware a limiting factor to taking advantage of this technology.”

“I'd love to hear from a company that's advancing toward IPD, like KlingStubbins, and find out what information they do and don't integrate into their BIMs,” said another attendee.

-    Who owns, places and maintains the individual pieces of information attached to a model? BIM is challenging centuries of clearly drawn, legally supported lines between contractors, architects, subs, owners, and other parties. How exactly does the design team share the model with the contractor team? What is the workflow? Weygant feels today’s specifiers are tomorrow’s BIM managers because of their unique understanding of every phase of construction. "The specifier has a considerable amount of knowledge about roles and products,” he said. “He's a single point of responsibility."

-    What are the best practices and strategies for in-house training? The fastest BIM users are “young people, who don’t know which partition to use.”

-    What are the legal ramifications of sharing information about a project through a model?

-    The occasional less “out there” presentation would be nice, but don’t focus too much on a particular modeling software. The BIM Practice Group has seen how some organizations are pushing BIM further, including a presentation by NASA , and one on OmniClass’ potential to shape BIM. Members would like a more down-to-earth, tips-and-tricks type session now and then, but they don’t want to focus on a particular software or approach. “I'd like to see more topics about how to apply some of the topics we have talked about in the theoretical sense in a more practical way,” commented one member. “More of a ‘BIM in Practice’ group.”

-    What is BIM asking from manufacturers? In response to this suggested topic, Grant shared information on a project that CSI and SCIP have participated in with the Corps of Engineers and the National Institute of Building Sciences. That project, the Specifiers Property information exchange (SPie), will be presented and discussed at next month’s meeting.

-    What can be done to encourage software makers to use CSI formats to organize software interface? “Programs use CSI formats inside objects,” commented a participant, “but the methods of object selection and model organization are very crude by comparison to the potential complexity.”

Hear a recording of this meeting.

Do you have an idea for a topic? If you’d like to suggest a topic, volunteer to host a session or help in any other way with future sessions, comment below or email Grant at rgrant@csinet.org.

The CSI BIM Practice Group will meet by webinar at 1pm, January 22. As noted above, the topic of that discussion will be the Specifiers Property information exchange (SPie) project. Learn more about SPie here.

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