Well Developed BIM. Implementing BIM Spec Sheet And Automation
Before we begin
These are the ideas for consideration. This is not intended to indicate these are all absolutely necessary and certainly not the only means to accomplish a desired goal. They are, however, observations from practice.
Are you satisfied with what you see?
A lot of the time BIM Managers working on a job with multi-trade coordination are not happy with the way their models are looking. Even though the team is working according to standards and everybody is following the BIM Execution Plan there are a number of things that won’t let the model pass the quality control phase. In this post I will try to describe my way of dealing with issues in the Federated Model that won’t necessarily “trade-vs-trade” clashes. Here we should classify them as important details that can’t be ignored during the BIM developing process.
Generally speaking, the BIM Execution Plan is not enough to outline all the topics that should be addressed for a project. Are the studs of a door frame go all of way up to the slab? I need to know it in order to position MEPF above. Do you need to provide minimum space between water pipes and electrical conduits? Is it acceptable if a duct is clashing with a pipe that is going to a sprinkler head? There are could be also a number of trade specific questions that you would normally have to “RFI”. For example, it is possible to change a duct size during coordination if the air velocity and the friction loss are going to stay the same?
Ultimately, BIM must be about better outcomes for the client. So, how do you adjust your project assets in the way to meet all the expectations? While the most common answer on internet is “It depends”, I dug a little deeper and highlighted a few other questions to consider:
- What is BIM spec sheet?
- Why are we developing our BIM spec sheet?
- What should our BIM spec sheet address? What should it omit?
- Where will this content live and how will it be accessed?
- How will this BIM spec sheet align with the organizational mission, goals, and objectives?
BIM Model Evaluation
Standard — an idea or a thing used as a measure, norm, or model in comparative evaluations, it is a required or agreed level of quality.
Let’s expend the terminology and, in addition to standards for a project, consider requirements and guidelines.
Requirements — consist hard and measurable standards, the topics addressed are cut-and-dried and considered not optional.
Guidelines — how-to documents and suggested workflows. By definition, the guidelines carry some degree of option with them. Guidelines should be considered a strong recommendation. If it is a workflow that you don’t want considered optional, ensure it is a requirement and not a guideline.
Working with different trade partners I realize that most of the BIM projects are often facing inconsistent guidelines and unconnected requirements. Neither prevents success on the project, but both reduce the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness in the long run. Requirements are unconnected whenever it has been gathered from various sources without the context of standards.
When you have this kind of knowledge and you are half way though the BIM project looking into the model you would probably think that you would never model things this way. Here is where the BIM Spec Sheet comes to play.
BIM Spec Sheet — modeling and conflict resolution guide. This guide will specified all the important items that have to be considered in the modeling process. You can think in lines of responsibility matrix (list of elements to be modeled and who is responsible for it), software capabilities, clash tolerance and what is to be clashed against what and Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie) requirements.
Automation/Computational Design Are Required
A Computational Designer, if there is one on the project, has to be mentioned in the BIM spec document. People in the AEC industry are interested to learn about the design challenges and describe a computational vision. Automation and Computational Design will allow you to equalize the outcomes.
Adding sleeves, fire/smoke dampers, access doors, checking the critical conduit length— all these things are trade specific, but they all will directly affect the coordination process. Good news is that these tasks can be automated.
Konrad K Sobon have written a good post on Computational Design a couple of years ago. It’s impossible to train everyone to be a Computational Designer or Computational BIM Manager. It’s important though to at least allow the Computational and non-Computational staff to co-exist, be aware of each other’s abilities, and empower the non-Computational staff to make inquires and requests of the Computational staff. It’s not required for everyone to know how to make their own Grasshopper or Dynamo scripts, but it should be required of them to know how to open one and execute it. Same should go for the BIM related tasks, it should not be required for everyone to write Revit-plug-ins, but at least show willingness to learn how to use ones that your Computational BIM Specialists have written. Show them that you are capable of recognizing what task could use a helping hand from a Computational specialist, and come forth to ask for help. This can only be accomplished if everyone understands what is possible, and one way to do that is to at least train them in basic understanding of computational logic and approach to design/BIM.
Wrapping Up
As we continue to develop and optimize the use of BIM processes to provide more professional and coordinated deliverables, maintaining consistent and constructible model will be increasingly important. As you build your BIM standards system, remember to focus on the system as a whole and keep it in alignment with the overall organizational goals.
