There’s no longer any question that Building Information Modeling (BIM) has revolutionized the way the AEC industry operates. BIM has delivered a significant impact on long-term projects in terms of economic as well as technical viability. Owing to the cost benefits and various other advantages from the power of BIM, many countries have mandated the use of BIM technology for public projects. This move, in itself, speaks volumes about the significant potential of BIM technology in a construction project.

BIM applies across the design as well as the construction phase of a project. Of course, the life-cycle of a construction project doesn’t end at the handing-over of a facility; it is a continuing cycle. Many traditional construction projects accepted the project life-cycle to end at the handing over process, but, in this era, facilities management is a part of the construction project, and BIM plays a vital role in helping the facilities managers in operating and maintaining a building.

So, the long-term application of BIM technology ensures the efficient design, effective implementation, and smooth functioning and maintenance of a building. The objectives of cost, quality, sustainability, and safety can be met efficiently with BIM technology. The collation and availability of large amounts of data at a centralized location have made operations easier for all the stakeholders of a construction project.

Let’s focus on one key community of stakeholders, the Project Manager.

BIM & Project Managers

To a large extent, the success of a project depends upon the capability of the project manager. It’s important that the roles & responsibilities of a project manager should be clearly defined. BIM aids the project manager in fulfilling the onerous responsibilities of the role and duties by providing a centralized system that allows all the expertise & knowledge of all the involved parties to be brought together. BIM offers the seamless integration of information and ideas that help in mitigating clashes faced during the construction phase.

Let’s look into how & why project managers can use BIM:

1. Effective Communication & Coordination in the Team

A successful construction project is a result of hard work and input of various involved teams. Traditionally, every team from architects, engineers, builders, electricians, and operations works independently. BIM brings all of them together and creates a centralized pool of information that is accessible to anyone from anywhere at any time. This feature has facilitated effective communication between all the departments, resulting in perfect coordination in the team. The main task of a project manager is to ensure seamless coordination amongst the different groups, and BIM makes this tedious task more manageable.

2. Accurate Timelines & Estimations 

Achieving timeline and cost objectives play a crucial role in defining the success of any construction project. BIM allows project managers to draw significantly more accurate timelines and cost estimations. The accuracy of the calculations during the planning phase helps in ramping up the effectiveness of the planning function and improves the financial planning of the project.

3. Phasing-out On-Site Redesigning

Every constructed building ends up being different from its original blueprint. The design tends to evolve as the construction process begins. Over time, these deviations tend to cause time lag and budgeting issues because of the impact on work that follows such changes. Such work ends up having to be changed on the fly, in response to the ground reality. This takes time, costs money, and consumes resources. BIM allows the Project Manager to document the ongoing work better and prevent such situations.

In addition, the clash-detection feature in BIM allows the project manager to identify any issues in the design that could cause clashes between different teams before the construction begins. This helps in saving not only time on redesigning but also the amount of raw material required and ensuring timely delivery of the project.

4. Accurate Estimation of Raw Materials

One of the most demanding tasks faced by a project manager is deriving estimations for the raw materials required. An inaccurate estimation, both over and under estimation, of raw materials, will result in time lag and over-expenditure. This directly affects the budget and timeline of the project. BIM helps in delivering accurate estimations and reducing the burden on the project manager of manual calculations.

5. Handing-over and Facilities Management

The role of a project manager in today’s times is not limited to the construction phase. An effective construction project is one that supports efficient operations of the facility even after the handover. The project manager has to ensure that the facilities manager has all the required information for operating and maintaining the building during its operating life-cycle. The centralization of data in BIM helps make it easier for the project manager to handover information to the FM. The BIM models, by virtue of being updated, tend to reflect the as-built state of the structure better. This ensures that the FM provides updated and accurate information to the facilities manager.

As is apparent, the application of BIM plays a vital role in the management of the project. A project manager can leverage the capability of BIM to deliver a successful construction project. BIM reduces the burden on the project manager of manually calculating and managing tasks. It seems clear that for a construction project to be successful today, project managers would do well to adopt BIM technology.

Construction projects have experienced considerable waste and inefficiency in the past. This has an impact on project completion timelines, project profitability, and even sustainability. AEC contractors specifically, and the construction industry in general, have chosen to adopt BIM to address these major challenges.

The utilization of BIM in the AEC industry is on the upswing as architects, contractors, and engineers are adopting Building Information Modeling (BIM) in their projects. BIM is finding favour with them as it is an extremely practical and productive approach towards project design, development, and project management. BIM offers engineers and architects a platform to better design and deliver structures based on standards and other environmental restrictions. BIM provides not only better data but also effective quality as the segments and workflows are fully digitized.

Effective inculcation of BIM enables an organization to set up an improved collaboration among the engineers, contractors, architects, and site-managers. An effective BIM consulting strategy empowers these organizations to integrate data-rich models and project databases to construct a virtual portrayal of the project before they build it and to then keep it updated as the project progresses. BIM provides all the team members easy access to all the data, making collaboration simpler, reducing dangers and improving profits.

There’s no longer any doubt that this technological advancement has deeply impacted structural design and project execution in the construction industry. In that context, let’s zoom in on how AEC consultants, contractors, and companies work with BIM?

How can the use of BIM benefit AEC companies?

Architects and designers are utilizing Building Information Modeling to control structure construction, project planning, and sequencing. BIM empowers them to generate multiple design alternatives and check the constructability of the structure for each of them. AEC BIM consultants can design better project plans before going on to the site. BIM also helps extensively over the course of the project delivery by improving collaboration, proactive clash detection, and transparent ongoing tracking and monitoring.

The AEC industry utilizes BIM for the following:

• 3D visualization, clash identification, practicality analysis, constructability review, quantity and cost estimate, environmental analysis, and data for facility management.
• Improved construction and development efficiency,
• Enhanced collaborative efforts and data sharing among the team members,
• Reducing on-site risks and danger throughout the project,
• Promoting efficiency by minimizing errors or mistake between designers and engineers,
• Ensuring accuracy and reliability.

It is well known that AEC projects are susceptible to various negative influences. The construction environment is extremely dynamic and there are multiple players simultaneously working on the site. It is also true that poor coordination is commonplace in such an environment due to inconsistent sharing of information, outdated data, and differing priorities. Issues such as loss of data during data transformation, errors in workflow integration, and lack of coordinated efforts are the norm. To prevent such issues, AEC companies are adopting BIM.

This allows the AEC company to:

1. Update info: With BIM, the team members get better control over the project information they have to work on. The BIM model gets updated as the project evolves. This ensures that any changes made in the structure are captured. The differences between plans and ground-reality are eliminated allowing for better-informed plans and decisions.
2. Use information throughout the lifecycle of a project: BIM empowers the project members to access all the available data throughout the various stages of the project. This is especially useful as the project keeps developing and ongoing decisions need to be made.
3. Avoid coordination errors: BIM helps with better workflow integration. With BIM, it is easy to establish a common language for the processes. Clashes are visible early and to everyone in the system. This reduces all the possible coordination errors in a project. That, in turn, reduces rework.
4. Utilize best-of-breed solutions: BIM provides a sound, consistent, data foundation that enables project managers to use diverse programming tools for various applications. With BIM, an AEC organization can choose tools depending upon the requirements of a project secure in the knowledge that the tool will deliver the desired impact based on comprehensive, current, and accurate data about the construction site.

BIM can deliver real value to the process of design and construction of projects. This is why a large number of AEC organizations are adopting this innovative technology to expand the delivery of their projects. Even as construction continues to stay challenging, SEC companies are on the frontlines of trying to bring about tech-driven change. The adoption of BIM technology is enabling more AEC organizations to address key concerns of efficiency and effectiveness.

The Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MahaMetro) recently reported that the Nagpur Metro project was completed in a record time of 27 months. That’s not the only feather in its cap. Nagpur Metro is being regarded as the greenest metro system in India.

There’s no doubt that the Nagpur Metro project stands as the perfect example for megaprojects in India and the rest of the world. So, what are the lessons we can learn?

Factors that contributed to the successful completion of the project:

1.     Effectiveness of consultation with stakeholders: This is a public infrastructure project first and last. It’s critical to make room for the role of the public to ensure success. From the conceptualization stage, the communication between the project leaders and the public should be strong. The public should understand the plans, the benefits to them, and the likely hardships they may encounter along the construction phase. No project of this size is trouble-free. Having the public in the project’s corner when the inevitable problems surface can be a critical advantage. This facet was one of the most significant characteristics of the Nagpur Metro project.

2.     Use of technology: The power of BIM was used by Nagpur metro to make the construction of the metro more secure, faster, and qualitatively better. This helped the team plan better, be more efficient with resource utilization, collaborate better, and prevent avoidable clashes and rework. This was key to being able to deliver a fast, efficient, and on-budget project.

BIM has not only been available and beneficial during construction but will play an equally important role in the operation & maintenance phase of the project. It has effectively addressed the massive document management challenge for the project. Nagpur Metro project is the first such effort in India to adopt the 5D BIM technology by incorporating ERP with BIM and various world-class software for project management. The single source of truth provided by the BIM platform enabled the entire team of Nagpur Metro rail project to get the right data at the right time for productive decision making.

3.     Intensive tracking and monitoring: Projects of this size are never lacking for the involvement of experts with experience in railway and other metro projects. The challenge has often been, how to make the best use of their expertise? How to ensure that their expertise is called upon just when it is likely to have the maximum impact? This is where BIM helped by providing the project managers transparent visibility into the real-time status of the project at all times.  Regular tracking of work undertaken by the consultants and workers was scheduled. This provided clear visibility of likely problems in time for action to be taken to mitigate their impact. Expert help could be proactively pulled in to offer fixes or workarounds before the problem got out of hand. This also made it possible to communicate the issues and the solutions to all the involved parties well in time. This also contributed to `bridging the communication gap and accelerating the tasks.

The Nagpur metro is a great example of quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and speed. It got that way by utilizing globally tested digital technologies, latest construction tools and techniques, green initiatives, and the passion and skills of its employees. Nagpur Metro Rail Project was planned, designed, and executed with many innovative and unique features.

1.     A multi-layered metro project: Nagpur Metro is a multi-layered metro with India’s first four-layer transport system. The continuous and ongoing work of the flyovers, roads, highways and the metro are coming up in a similar vertical space. The three and four-layer transport framework will be a modern wonder when completed.

2.     Greenest metro in India: The sustainable solutions used in developing the Nagpur metro makes it the greenest metro in India. 65% of the energy requirements of the Nagpur Metro project are met from the solar panels attached on the rooftop of the metro rail, depot boundary walls, stations, depot shed, etc. The energy generated from the system is also added back to the grid and the power required is drawn from local sources. The project also recycles every single drop of water it uses.

3.     Fastest completed project: The Nagpur Metro project is the fastest completed project of its type. The project foundation was laid in 2015 and the trial runs were held within just 27 months. This is an unprecedented pace for such a massive project.

4.     Ratings: All stations, administrative buildings, and depots have been planned and designed to achieve maximum rating from the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). All Green Norms are being implemented and observed for energy & water efficiency, enhanced comfort, wastewater management, and 100% segregation of waste at source.

The project has admirable sustainable and economic features baked into it right from its inception phase. And that is perhaps the biggest lesson to learn from it. Laurels are not achieved by accident. They have to be planned for, the details pored over and then transformed into reality with lots of effort and teamwork. I’m fortunate to have been a part of this path-breaking project. And I don’t think I will ever tire of saying that!

BIM or Building Information Modeling is rapidly becoming the “must-adopt” standard in building and construction projects. BIM, as a practice, spans the management of the physical structure as well as the other useful information of a construction project. The output of the process is what we refer to as BIM models. BIM is far more than mapping physical space. It incorporates embedded functionality and cost measurements within the plan. These models are the digital files that portray every part of the project and support decision-making throughout the cycle.

Some well-known advantages of adopting BIM are:

· Capture the most accurate representations of the location

· Capture reality

· Maintain control

· Organize steps and processes

· Better collaboration and communication

· Model-based cost estimation

· Improved coordination and clash detection

· Reduced cost and mitigated risk

· Stronger facility management

· Improved construction sequencing

BIM has multiple advantages that are beneficial for the structure and planning of a construction project. There are a few principle areas where BIM can have an impact:

· BIM enables visual representation at an early stage.

· It enhances site planning and coordination

· BIM helps for visual scheduling

· It provides accurate estimation and operational cost savings

· BIM helps to reduce costly errors

· It helps to improve construction predictability

· It permits visualizing the impact of changes in the design before construction

· It allows efficient energy analysis

But that said, the traditional sense has been that BIM’s, model-based approach is utilized for both planning and collaboration. But is that, strictly speaking, true?

Engineering and design are iterative procedures that have usually been manual. Architects, structural engineers and builders all need to view various snippets of information and utilize different layouts. BIM provides practical solutions to make easy changes whenever required. As the use of BIM is growing, the quality and nature of the information collected is increasing, as well. This collected data is precious for planning.

BIM is useful not only for assessing a structure for the achievability of the project but also to provide an insight into the building’s performances in terms of constructability and functionality. BIM helps to integrate knowledge, framework, and business structures in a collaborative process. The possibility of having a digital portrayal of the physical structure in the design and planning stage enables the prior detection of blunders and more transparent evaluation of the design. The control during the preconstruction phase will guarantee constructability by detection of errors, alterations, and irregularities in the project. Building Information Modeling helps reduce frequent changes and cost issues; thus, it can economically achieve space planning and coordination. 3D visualizations enable effective communication in the planning and design phase.

Some of the significant advantages of BIM utilization in the planning and design stage are the following.

1.      Project visualization during the planning stage: Building Information Modeling tools empower proper project visualization and planning at the preconstruction stage. 3D simulation and visualization of the structure enable the clients to have a post-development visualization that facilitates simple modification before the beginning of the project. The overview of the project thus lowers the danger of time-consuming, unwanted and costly changes.

2.      Assessment of cost based upon the project model: The incorporation of material specification facilitates effective construction cost assessment of the model-based project. The time-consuming challenges associated with cost assessment are effectively automated with the use of BIM. This enables estimators to focus on the most extreme element of significant worth that includes recognizing construction risk evaluation.

But what about during the actual construction?

As it happens, there are significant benefits from BIM at that stage too.

3.      Lower expenses and risk: BIM helps to save a lot of money and make construction smoother and more efficient. The data storage libraries in BIM provide better coordination and a single source of truth that lowers the possibilities of using obsolete data by any team. This ensures early clash detection and prevention. Better coordination and collaboration between teams allows more efficient utilization of on-site resources. It also leads to a reduction in the labour expenses put into documentation and miscommunication.

4.      More efficient construction: BIM helps to improve team collaboration and workflow productivity. BIM permits the specialists to access all the available data in a format they need. The frequent use of a single dataset implies that edits made in one configuration are automatically generated throughout the framework, removing the need to update various drafts as the project progresses. It further eliminates the necessity to manually produce other final-product documents such as schedules, colour-filled drawings and diagrams, and 3D models. These can be rendered quickly from the BIM database.

5.      Less “trial and error”: Another benefit of BIM is the increasing number of simulation instruments that permit the designers to envision things such as the sunlight during various seasons or to measure the energy consumption of a building. BIM can do all the investigation, analysis, and modeling beforehand. The model also guarantees an ideal fit of components that are produced off-site )precast and prefabrication), permitting these components to be effortlessly bolted into place instead of creating them on site.

BIM is one of the most reliable tools to share information in construction projects. It serves various purposes depending on the phase of a project, be it design or delivery. BIM is becoming ever more crucial to the digitization of the construction and development industry. It’s fair to say that projects using BIM have a greater chance of success today.