This document discusses collaborative BIM (cBIM) and the challenges of managing large amounts of project information from multiple parties. cBIM is presented as a solution to help project teams better collaborate by providing a centralized cloud-based platform for sharing real-time BIM data and documents. Key benefits of cBIM include enabling multi-party access to up-to-date project information from any device.
2. What is collaborative BIM?
BIM with other people
BIM to a common purpose to
achieve business benefit
BIM information when and
where you need it
In a BIM for SME’s spotlight in last week’s
Construction News, Julia Evans, CEO
National Federation of Builders, said:
“Changing your way of working
and working more closely with
other firms present bigger
challenges than technology.”
3. Information Volumes
Projects today are generating information into the Terabytes
According to a Fiatech Industry Survey (2012) 62% of industry
participants think that disparate data volumes impact their
efficiency in managing projects
They saw their greatest challenges as:
o Finding the right information when it is needed – 40%
o Collecting the information needed from multiple parties – 38%
o Managing the distribution of information to other parties – 18%
Their Answer?
o Multiparty Collaboration
4. Is Revit BIM? Is Bentley BIM?
The industry today is focused on
the BIM Authoring Tools
(yesterday’s CAD) as today’s BIM
What about BIM as a database?
As an open, interoperable,
database that evolves in real-time
as life moves on?
Does Revit or Bentley or
SolidWorks do this?
Or is there a need for something
else?
Revit
11. BIM – A Business Problem
Complexity, cost and control issues prevent project teams
from leveraging the knowledge in central systems to drive
project execution
Corporate
Accounting
Database
Business
Intelligence
Project
Control
Systems
Supply Chain
Automation
Design
Intelligence
Document
Stores
Project
Manager
Architect
Trade
Local Knowledge / Data
Supply
Chain Data
Project / Design Teams
12. cBIM – A Business Solution
Use the knowledge held in central systems to drive project
execution and greater profits through collaboration.
Corporate
Project / Design Teams
• Cloud-Based Collaboration
• Connect your supply chain
• Non-intrusive
Supply
Chain Data
Business
Intelligence
Design
Intelligence
• Web-Native, Device Agnostic
Project
Manager
• Low Barriers to Entry
• Low Cost, Long Term Relationship
Accounting
Database
Project
Control
Systems
Supply Chain
Automation
Document
Stores
Architect
Trade
Local Knowledge / Data
• Full Service Data Management
14. cBIM – A Single View
Partner 3
Project 1
Project 1
Project 1
Project
Information
Partner 4
Partner 2
Project 1
Partner 1
Project Team
Project 1
Partner 5
15. cBIM – A Single View
Collaborative BIM is
for the whole AECO
supply chain
Their job is to deliver
to the Asset owners
and operators.
Our job is to support
them and enable their
systems to connect
16. cBIM – Business Information
Design
Construct
_Project Management
Data
Business Process
17. cBIM – What can it do?
Model Server & Viewer
Cloud Storage
Publish and Subscribe
model – work offline then
synchronise
Integrate with existing
software
Provide Multi-Level
Versioning and Audit Trail
Connect to commercial data
Work on any device
18. cBIM is Software as a Service
Software like turning on a tap...
SaaS is paid for as it is consumed.
The customer has no software, hardware, or
infrastructure to purchase, install, or maintain.
Apart from a personal computer and an
internet connection, all parts of the solution are
provided by the SaaS provider.
You can configure your SaaS system to meet
your customers’ business requirements
SaaS Provider supports all end-users globally
24x7x365
19. Collaborative BIM and Trust
Cloud Computing – Unlimited Storage On-Demand
Akamai Web Acceleration and Edge Networks – International Scale
UK Government Security Accreditation – Audited HMG IS1
SAS70 Type II and Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance - Audited
PCI DSS Compliance - Audited
ISO 27001 Compliance - Audited
U.S. Safe Harbour Compliance - Audited
OpSource Global SaaS Infrastructure Partner - Audited
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Salesforce AppExchange Certified Hosting Partner
20. What can cBIM achieve?
cBIM can help supply
chains take continuous,
planned and measured steps
to improve their profit
margins, through
collaborative working
practices.
21. Build Sydney Live – Oct. 28, 2013
Build Sydney Live 2013 is the 5th
edition of our global collaborative
OpenBIM events
Check out collaborative BIM in
action in Sydney, Australia
Join us virtually Oct. 28-30
www.buildsydneylive.com
@buildsydneylive
* A working practice whereby individuals work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit* Not just working with softwareThe entire point of doing BIM is to generate something useful for other people at the end of the design and construction process. There are also many benefits to the project participants during the project at design stage – but unless we are delivering something which can be consumed.. Why are we doing it?
The same thing is happening right across the industry globally. This information needs to be managed collaboratively or else it all gets lost – or worse, it drowns us!
The CAD vendors have pushed straight on into BIM and look to deliver ‘complete’ BIM platforms.They are great at design – that is their core strength.But what about collaboration? Procurement and Project Management? Isn’t that part of the BIM?How will project teams deal with data being generated from disparate software platforms that needs to be in the BIM?
I met with the General Services Administration (GSA) in the US this summer – they currently receive BIM models as deliverables at handover from their contractors and project teams across hundreds if not thousands of their projects. What they are doing today is storing them all on a group of servers locked away within their internal infrastructure. They have an individual resource – a librarian – whose sole job is to safeguard those model assets. Their key challenge for the future is to actually make use of that model data. The question, of course, is how. Some might argue that hieroglyphics have stood the test of time – they’re still there and people are still able, just about, to translate them.But surely any form of data transmission (language) which requires dedicated experts to pursue life-long studies in order to, just about, decipher them – isn’t good enough for our purposes.We need open and interoperable data formats that are designed thinking of the end-use (operations and maintenance of buildings).
Google receives 2,000,000 search queries and Youtube users upload 48 hours of video – each minute of the dayBIM is supposed to feed a Matrix-style future for our built environment.The data uploaded to Adoddle each minute is equivalent to approximately 68,000 pages of textThis rate of data transmission is speeding up with every passing day – generating more and more information – but we must be careful what we wish for. More and more data is only good when it is managed!
Explain Tower of Babel and digital tower of Babel. A Cacaphony of voices shouting over each other in different languages – turns into a sea of babble.What are the answers?Learn Faster?Or maybe there’s a magic Babelfish to make sense of it all?When you’re looking to manage your BIM Data – look for a solution that’s done it once or twice before.
What we need is less babble, and more information.When data is managed it can become INFORMATION.Potentially the INFORMATION can even generate KNOWLEDGE – but let’s start with simply deriving some information out of all this data.
This is a diagram commonly known as the BIM-ramp.Explain origins of diagram and overview of levels.I’ve spent the last 15 years helping companies get onto this ramp and operating at levels 0, 1 and 2. We are working with our strategic customers today to build out their capabilities to deliver Level 3. We still see a lot of companies and project teams at Level -1 – operating in a total paper environmentThat fuzzy part up at the top right – Lifecycle Management, Data, Processes – where Level 3 fades towards the unknown future of Level 4, 5, etc. – is where we are pushing with the technology – Procurement, Project Cost and Commercials, Contract Management – then FM – moving the idea of BIM on from the design-bias and into the realm of a truly useful deliverable – a BIM that contains all the relevant information needed to operate and maintain an asset.Where are you today on this ‘BIM-Ramp’ ?
So Collaborative BIM needs to move the conversation on from ‘Do you speak Revit?’, ‘Do you speak Bentley?’, to.. Do you speak BIM? The relevant parts of the chatter from the Tower of Babel need to be managed and translated and turned into Information (maybe even later KNOWLEDGE).Collaborative BIM will never be the magic Babelfish – instantly translating everything everywhere all the time.What it needs to be is a tool to help the 80% of the BIM that is people to use the 20% that is technology to bring themselves together around information – and cut through the chatter.
This is the Collaborative BIM stool.The seat is your model. The model is design (geometries) + specifications and all the relevant commercial data for the asset.Our stool has three legs. Without all three of the legs the stool cannot stand-up on its own.The three legs correspond to the main areas of data management for any capital asset project:Pre-Construction – how do you find suppliers to work with, how do you manage the bid process, and get to contract.Project Management/Data Management – this includes design and construction management, contract change management, cost and programme control.Procurement – how do you buy the things (goods and materials) you need to get the thing out of the ground + how do you get them to site (logistics)?The legs are held in place by supports – the key system elements to support capturing all that business and asset information in a sensible way – Data, Audit Trail, Collaboration, and Business Process / Workflow.
These are the key characteristics of what we believe is the Collaborative BIM solution-set.It needs to be a true model server – with flexible model merging capabilities and object-level versioning and audit trail.It needs to connect up the systems and the data in use across the project team – not just design but also commercial systems.It needs to work across devices and workspaces – workstations in an office and mobile devices in the field.Crucially, it needs to recognise that data connectivity in the real world is hit and miss. Collaborative BIM needs to allow people to work on a synchronisation basis. When you’re on the network you pull down the data you need. When you’re not, you carry on working and sync up when you connect again.It needs to be collaborative! Having a bunch of data is one hurdle. Being able to easily communicate with your teams about that data in a controlled way is where we start to see real process improvement across a team.
With the SaaS model based on cloud-computing platforms, the risk profile of cBIM changes completely.SaaS makes cBIM a true utility model where you pay as you go – and when you don’t need it anymore you just turn it off.This goes not just for the software and all the techie bits – but also for the customer support, training, and integration expertise – leaving you to focus on designing and delivering a great built environment.The model just makes sense.
Join us later this month to Build Sydney Live and see Collaborative BIM in action!
That’s it from me! I’d like to thank you for your kind attention and I wish all of you luck in getting to true Collaborative BIM.