Current Filter: Construction>>>>>>

   

In addition to these public sector projects, many private sector clients are starting to understand the advantages of offering asset data sets to allow potential purchasers and tenants to drill into the 80% of the cost of an asset that lies beyond construction. Across the industry one hears reports of BIM deliverables in Requests for Proposal from the private sector client, although often poorly defined.

Many of these projects are large and as such have long gestation periods, but our industry should be under no doubt that a tidal wave of work, where teams are contracted to deliver to Level 2 BIM, is about to hit the construction coal face.

Much of the industry has been preparing for this; however, there is a substantial section that is not yet ready to deliver. Large projects have extensive supply chains and BIM can only succeed if all parties understand what they are supposed to do and when, and are able to collaborate to achieve the contracted objectives. Even the well prepared tier one contractor will, therefore, face substantial challenges in coordinating and defining what is required from the design and construction team.

We now have a framework of standards, guidance notes and supporting documentation which, if followed, will assist the industry in BIM adoption. The five parts are BS/PAS 1192, (standards and processes), the CIC BIM Suite of documents (commercial and legal), Government Soft Landings and the emerging Digital Plan of Work (level of information and detail required) and Uniclass 2015 (classification). together they define what Level 2 BIM is, namely:-

• A federated BIM (coordinated and clash detected)
• 2D contract documentation derived from the federated model
• Sharable structured asset information (COBie)
• Use of a Common Data Environment (CDE)

Viewpoint’s objective is to provide the industry with the tools necessary to deliver BIM projects through collaboration in their Common Data Environment (CDE). 4Projects was founded 15 years ago and quickly established a reputation as a cloud based collaborative Electronic Document Management System. The company was acquired by Viewpoint, a construction software specialist with its headquarters in Portland Oregon, just over two years ago. Viewpoint 4Projects is Viewpoint's offering to the Common Data Environment.

A CDE still needs to be able to deal with documents and drawings; at Level 2. These are still a key deliverable. A CDE, however, needs to be able to do much more than just be a repository for drawings and documents. It may not be apparent to established users just how far Viewpoint 4Projects has developed beyond its EDMS roots.

4Projects' Newcastle office is now the Viewpoint Company HQ for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. UK employees have doubled in number since the acquisition. Reflecting the increased investment and resources, software updates to Viewpoint 4Projects are now bi-annually, in Spring and Autumn.

The rest of the world had this software update since March. In the UK, however, the company has also just moved its entire server farm to a market leading provider, Rackspace. The change has delivered a substantial increase in speed to users, but has delayed the UK Spring software release until now.

With the challenges facing asset owners and design and construction teams with Level 2 BIM delivery they need far more from their chosen CDE than just a record of who has done what and when. At the early stages of a project a CDE should be able to assist with defining who will be required to do what and when. It should then monitor progress and validate submitted data, and be able to report back to all contributors on their progress with additional requests and tasks as necessary.

Page   1  2