Paul Wilkinson - @EEPaul BA PhD DipPR(CAM) FCIPR

#BeginBIM17

1. Why we need to go digital

2. How we need to go digital

(what is the ‘right’ software to adopt?)

Who am I?

• Working in UK construction since 1987

• in-house: Halcrow,

Tarmac, BIW

• consultancy clients have included:

Asite, Business Collaborator,

Conject, Viewpoint, etc

• writer, blogger, technology consultant

• Deputy chair, ICE IS panel

• CE collaborative working champion

c. 1987

‘Common Paper Environment’

Ongoing since 1960s … but construction lags behind other sectors

Mckinsey Global Institute (December 2015) Digital America: A tale of the haves and the have-mores

Mckinsey Global Institute (June 2016) Digital Europe: Pushing the Frontier, Capturing the Benefits.

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Digitising construction

• Type-writer – word processing

• Postal correspondence – email

• Film camera – digital photography

• Manual drafting – CAD* – BIM

• Book-keeping – spreadsheets

• Audio/video tapes – MP3/MP4s, etc

• etc

*BS1192 first published in 1998

ICT was once overlooked in construction initiatives

– “Accelerating Change” (2002): first industry report to mention IT explicitly

– “2012 Construction Commitments” (2006) said:

"IT-based collaborative tools and communication technologies will be exploited."

But…

– just two sentences on ICT in “Strategy for Sustainable Construction’ (2008)

– hardly mentioned in “Construction Matters” (July 2008)

Accelerating change…

Latham Report (1994)

Egan Report (1998)

Accelerating Change (2002)

SFfC integration toolkit (2003)

Be Valuable (2005)

Never Waste a Good Crisis (2009)

Government Construction Strategy (2011)

Digital Built Britain (2015)

Construction 2025 (2013)

Procurement / Lean client task group (2011)

2012 Construction Commitments (2006)

1994 2016

BIM Level 2 (2016)

2005 2000 2010

Low Carbon Construction

(2010)

Partnering, integrated teams, collaborative working, alliancing, lean … - over 20 years of industry initiatives Alliancing

Best Practice (2014)

Lean Construction Institute UK formed (2010)

Business web access Mobile web access

New procurement models (2014)

Building Down Barriers (1999) BS1192 (2007)

Chief Construction Advisor

2009

“... I need no persuading [of] the enormous potential that lies in more intelligent use of ICT...”

“... on my agenda … to encourage the take-up of existing and future ICT tools...”

(ExtranetEvolution, December 2009)

BIM Strategy

Nov 2010

Spring 2011

The myth of “BIM in a box”

“…no one software solution can produce a BIM project by itself”

BIM is not a technology - it is a collaborative process supported by people and technology

Stage 0: Strategy Stage 1: Brief Stage 2: Concept Stage 3: Definition Stage 4: Design Stage 5: Build and commission Stage 6: Handover and close-out Stage 7: Operation and end-of-life

Therefore…. many digital tools used, singly or in combination, at every stage of project delivery

BIM is a process supported by people and technology. Therefore, change is needed in industry structures and processes

BIM is not a technology - it is a collaborative process supported by people and technology

Software is just a tool …

It requires:

• inputs

• a process

… and we deploy software to support 100s of processes during BIM

'Disruptive' technology trends affecting software selection

Cloud / SaaS (plus new licensing models)

Mobile

Web 2.0

Building information modelling (BIM) and open standards

Starting … Web 3.0 – the semantic web

The 'internet of things‘, Data – linked, open, ‘Big’

Geospatial

Cloud - SaaS Disruption

Ongoing change since late 1990s Gathering momentum since mid 2000s (Google, AWS, Azure)

Slower pick-up in AEC sector Conservative, risk-averse Security, location concerns Hardware/comms cost issues (broadband capacity)

versus … Outsource risk Independent hosting

Growing integration capabilities (APIs, etc) Desktop virtualisation From perpetual licensing to PAYG models

Common Data Environment – central to Level 1 maturity

2016

CDE mentioned in BS1192-2:2007 - a "repository", eg: a project extranet or EDMS

Common aspects of online collaboration platforms

• (Mostly) externally hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) systems

• Resiliently hosted, available 24/7

• Accessed via internet using standard web browsers

• UK providers mostly license per-project (encourages supply chain uptake and use)

• Not just document/drawing storage – extensive workflow process management too

• Authoring-tool agnostic

• “A single source of the truth”

• Secure audit trails

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Online collaboration (c. 2009)

‘CDE’ providers - considerations

It’s not just about the ‘CDE’ application itself. Consider

• Do we go SaaS or can we host it?

• How resilient is the hosting? Where is it located?

• What about consultancy support?

• What about helpdesk support?

• Meeting UK BIM Level 2 needs?

• Integration with other applications?

• What about mobile tools?

• Future road map for ‘CDE’ platform?

Many of the collaboration vendors now also ‘CDE’ providers (2016)

Many of the collaboration vendors now also ‘CDE’ providers (2017)

Cloud – perceptions are changing

Mobile Disruption

Gradual change since mid 2000s

Gathered momentum since 2007

Apple iPhone, Android, Blackberry

Smartphone to tablet (c. 2010)

Move from stand-alone apps to mobile tools integrated with enterprise solutions

Growing demand for 'Cloud' (public and private), and for corporate mobile access to real-time business data (BI)

Web 2.0 - 'Social‘ (media) Disruption

• the use of web technologies and web design to enhance creativity, information sharing and collaboration among users.

• “globally distributed, near instant, person to person conversations”

“People having conversations online”

Geospatial disruption

Location intelligence

“Integration of BIM and GIS is a good place to start connecting BIM and Smart Cities”

from Shaping the Future of Construction, World Economic Forum/The Boston Consulting Group (2016)

It’s now or never….

“The current pace and nature of technological change and innovation in wider society is such that unless the industry embraces this trend at scale, it will miss the greatest single opportunity to improve productivity and offset workforce shrinkage.” (p.09)