Several references I found all cited legal issues first when
discussing current problems BIM is facing.
These issues largely surround data ownership and intellectual
property. Often the project owner, who
is paying for the design, feels entitled to own the BIM model. However, the designers often put privately-owned
intellectual property into the BIM models which must be protected as well. This can lead to multiple parties feeling
inhibited to adopt BIM upfront, and can cause more legal headaches if
agreements are not contractually specified upfront [1,2]. Another legal issue stems not from ownership,
but from responsibility of the model.
Since BIM is inherently interdisciplinary, the issue arises as to who
will be responsible for inaccuracies.
While the use of BIM can lead to far greater cost savings in several
areas, these are still physical new costs that must now be considered and
allocated in the design process [1].
Discussed in technical detail in last week’s blogpost,
interoperability—or lack thereof, on a widespread scale—is another current
problem with BIM. Current firms are
experts in certain programs that are not operable with other BIM platforms, so
are hesitant to adopt the program.
Another disincentive regarding interoperability is that the lack of it
can require data to be inputted manually in other software, which is time
consuming, costly, and can lead to errors [3].
Additionally, there is a high upfront cost of implementing a BIM system,
and it is a challenge for firms to become skilled in the programs. This should subside in the future, as more
people learn to use the software and the technology becomes cheaper. [2]
The AEC industry also has a history of being relatively
resistant to change [2], and the culture of the industry may not allow BIM to
so easily be implemented. Traditionally
in design-bid-build processes, the architect creates a plan, and sends it off
to the various sub disciplines who all do their work individually, send it back
to the architect who makes revisions, and the cycle continues. This system puts each discipline into silos
that don’t generally interact. While
this is almost universally seen as a weakness of the industry from an external
point of view, within the disciplines it keeps workers in their niche. BIM in some ways integrates the
disciplines—who either do not always know how to collaborate well or are less
willing to collaborate. This, however,
makes the use of BIM ineffective. [3]
My previous CoOp was in the construction industry as
structural steel erectors for a building in Manhattan. Speaking from personal experience, on top of
these more general and legal issues, BIM currently can still be very bumpy in
practice. We used Tekla frequently, and
constantly encountered problems. Most of
these were regarding errors on specific information for a particular member. For example, roughly half of the steel
members in the models we would receive had no information stored in them, i.e.
they were just lines representing beams—no size, weight, or shipping information
would be present. This was probably
either caused by interoperability issues when the data was transferred, or by
human error in entering data. Another
issue is consistency. Often times we’d
have conflicting information on the plans and shop drawings, so we’d look to
Tekla for the definitive property.
Sometimes it would solve the problem, but sometimes the Tekla model had
information that conflicted with both the structural plans and shop drawings,
only increasing our uncertainty.
As BIM becomes more regularly used many of these issues will
invariably find solutions. A convention
for legal responsibility and ownership will likely be reached, and resistance
to change business as usual will gradually decline. In the meantime the biggest challenge will be
maximizing interoperability and minimizing errors in entering data.
[1] Azhar, S. (2011). "Building Information
Modeling (BIM): Trends, Benefits, Risks, and Challenges for the AEC
Industry." Leadership Manage. Eng.,
10.1061/(ASCE)LM.1943-5630.0000127, 241-252.
[2] Alabdulqader
et al. (2013). “Current use of building information modelling within Australian
AEC industry.”
[3] Migilinskas
et al. (2013). “The Benefits, Obstacles and Problems of Practical Bim
Implementation.” Procedia Engineering.
Comments:
James Redus
Dianna Vogel
Comments:
James Redus
Dianna Vogel
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBryan,
ReplyDeleteYour topic involved problems with BIM whereas my topic involved advantages of BIM, so it was insightful to learn about the “negatives” of using this type of design technology. I never realized how issues can arise regarding ownership of the models, but it makes sense since a project tends to focus on one model to which many individuals contribute. Before reading your post, I was already aware of the unwillingness of firms to adopt BIM software due to the uncertainty of adapting to change; however, people felt the same way when programs like AutoCAD were introduced to the drafting world. I agree with your statement that BIM technology will become more widely accepted over time, and hopefully the problems with ownership and inconsistency in material information can be addressed and resolved in a timely manner.
Bryan,
ReplyDeleteI used Tekla during my last co-op as well. I agree that it can be both helpful and frustrating in the same breath. Tekla was used by the contractors to model the building, but very rarely were the information fields for the individual parts filled out. I believe this stems from companies seeing the usefulness of BIM, so they want to use it. However, these companies do not fully commit to using BIM and continue a complicated half and half lifestyle. If they were to harness BIM at its full capacity, it would be difficult at the beginning to transfer everything over, but the end product would be very beneficial. Unfortunately, many companies are not willing to put in this initial investment of time, so the incorporation process is a slow one.
Bryan,
ReplyDeleteI used Tekla during my last co-op as well. I agree that it can be both helpful and frustrating in the same breath. Tekla was used by the contractors to model the building, but very rarely were the information fields for the individual parts filled out. I believe this stems from companies seeing the usefulness of BIM, so they want to use it. However, these companies do not fully commit to using BIM and continue a complicated half and half lifestyle. If they were to harness BIM at its full capacity, it would be difficult at the beginning to transfer everything over, but the end product would be very beneficial. Unfortunately, many companies are not willing to put in this initial investment of time, so the incorporation process is a slow one.
I really liked that you brought in a legal complication here; this wasn't something I had thought of before. On top of this, I agree with the frustration of transitioning to a new program. Suddenly transitioning to an (almost) all-encompassing program that intertwines disciplines is likely a difficult move, and although the advantages are evident, there is an upfront "cost" for a move like this. For firms that use Revit, I'm sure collaboration between disciplines gets more and more efficient as the users become more aware of Revit's possibilities. However, the initial jump likely leaves the user feeling unsure of exactly how to apply these new tools.
ReplyDelete