One of the main challenges preventing the industry from adopting BIM in its wider range is the lack of a clear understanding of the tangible added value of BIM and VDC technologies. The EllisDon VDC department has developed an in-house cloud application to achieve two main goals:
On any given project, and regardless of the scale and complexity of the design, the application can analyze a wide range of BIM information from both design and construction models. The data reflects the BIM modelling quality from a geometrical and information perspective. Once the data is analyzed and cleaned, a grading system with defined weightage was developed to allow accurate assessment of the supply chain deliverables. The assessment helped the project team to calculate BIM KPIs to be shared with the client. The KPIs, along with the scoring system, are able to provide a model useability assessment for planning, procurement, design management, and more. The tool is custom built which provides modification flexibility from a functionality perspective, addressing any given project and/or specific client requirements. In addition to that, the app covered the following reporting aspects: quantities take off, Submission status, BIM execution plan compliance, Coordination, and model health check. The application is data-based, which means it has the potential to integrate data from other applications. In addition to that, the tool is cloud-based so clients can access the reports in a live environment allowing them to always stay up to speed with project status. The reporting structure is interactive to facilitate the accessibility of various reporting modules. It also provided the end-user or client with the opportunity to customize their reports based on their priorities.
In addition to customization, this application provided clients with a simple and interactive reporting tool that illustrated how the quality of BIM models is affecting the design and the construction stages. For example, at the Design stage, the application can automatically assess the LOIN (Level of Information), LOD (Level of Detail), design completion, and design coordination. These 4 KPIs are essential to any client and developer to properly assess the design status and highlight areas of improvement and/or risk items that need an immediate response.
As a cloud-based and data-oriented tool, the evaluation of the design can be done in a faster and more accurate way as it is driven directly from BIM data. As the design progresses, the tool can be synchronized with the updated BIM models and provide a quantitative assessment of the progress and the new status of the design including but not limited to compliance, coordination, quantities take-off, design risk items, and more. This digitization makes the assessment process relatively faster in comparison to the traditional approach. Clients, whether they are BIM-oriented or not, can understand how BIM technology is supporting design and construction management. Eventually, the more BIM benefits are clearer to clients, the higher opportunities for clients to invest in BIM.
The solution was based on collecting data from various Revit/BIM models and evaluating that data using PowerBi tools. 4 main KPIs were continuously evaluated across the project BIM standards. Those KPIs are LOIN, LOD, model coordination, and model completion. The LOIN assessment provided an understanding of the amount and quality of the information provided by the consultant/engineer to the design. By utilizing BIM from a data perspective, the project team can have a better technical evaluation of the submitted work. The LOD assessment supported the decision-making to support the approval of the design intent. In comparison to traditional design evaluation workflows, which are time-consuming and sometimes performed in a silo, this tool automated the evaluation of a predefined QA/QC set of all design elements in a very short time covering all disciplines and specialists. The same methodology was implemented to evaluate model coordination and completion. On a weekly basis, consultants would load their progress models via the BIM360 platform, the tool would extract the LOIN data via Assemble platform and Dynamo scripts would run predefined QA/QC rules. The data would be cleaned, assessed, scored, and weighted against the guidelines approved in the BIM exe plan. PowerBi would utilize all the information, findings, and analysis and present them to the Client. The evaluation exercise also covers quantities take-off assessment including a comparison of values between previous and current submissions. All of those automated assessments provided the client with a clear understanding of how the consultants are performing and how the BIM KPIs are driving the design and construction stages.
The results were evaluated in 2 tiers: impact on design management, and client involvement. In regard to design management, the tool provided a quick turnaround of the design information. Typical technical evaluation per discipline would take between 2 to 3 weeks as the evaluator would go through the set of 2D/3D information to understand the progress of work and evaluate the compliance and completion of a given submission. The same exercise would have been followed by other evaluators to cover other disciplines/ systems. Once they are done, they would collate their findings to score the work at hand. Here, data extraction and assessment of compliance and completion will take around a couple of hours for 100 Revit files. The classification and categorization of the data are simultaneous, which means that the VDC specialists can save a lot of time in getting all the data ready and focus on analyzing the data with the technical evaluators. The process saved around 60% of the overall evaluation timing. The design management process improved significantly as the app provided an automated quantitative scoring for 4 main design KPIs: design data, design geometry, design coordination, and design competition. The second tier of result evaluation was in the form of client ease of accessing and understanding the data. Based on our experience, clients don’t review BIM reports in general as they are interested in the overall quality of work. The developed application provided an illustrative and interactive user experience to review the results and we have recorded weekly reviews and comments from clients in comparison to monthly involvement.
The project design stage was initiated using PAS 1192-2 BIM standards. The team utilized the standards to set up the BIM execution plan, Master Information Delivery Plan (MIDP), and Task Information Delivery Plan (TIDP). The Common Data Environment (CDE) for collaboration and sharing of information as defined by the PAS1192 standards the 4 main “gates”: WIP – Shared – Published – Archived. All Revit files submitted for revision were following CDE gateways. Data extraction was defined to follow such gateways. The information utilized for quantity take-off was the following 2 standard data classification: OmniClass classification and NRM Classification. OminClass was used throughout the Revit files at the design and construction stage and NRM was utilized by the cost consultants. Open Standards for Asset management: Construction Operation Building Information Exchange (COBie) template is planned to be utilized at the handover project. In parallel with this, ongoing work is being held with the operation team to map clients’ asset requirements to the COBie asset list to ensure a smooth transition to any given CAFM solution during the handover stage.
The given tool will have a direct positive impact on the industry as the application facilitated: assessment of the BIM data, provided a quantitative impact on the project design and construction models, and increased the awareness of clients toward the importance of properly BIM executed strategy on overall project stages. Projects where BIM is treated as a separate exercise and not properly integrated with the overall project execution management, do not achieve the real added value of the technology, and eventually, stakeholders will lose interest. The developed tool reduced that gap between the BIM technical work (usually done by the BIM Managers ) and tangible outputs that are understood and clear by stakeholders. Once that level of communication is built, non-BIM users on-site start to utilize the BIM data in a more integrated way and on a weekly basis. We have noticed the significant added value in the overall project management once the project team, including the client, become more involved in this BIM-enabled assessment as part of their day-to-day work. Clients and consultants have this tool handy to support their decision-making based on up-to-date information. That being said, the more involvement from project stakeholders in the BIM process the more the industry understands and acknowledges the added value.
