When is BIM good?

Everyone thinks that BIM is about the building model, just because that’s what the acronym directly translates to. But it’s not! Good BIM is about collaboration…

How the actors can work together.

For example, if the designers have a good point cloud of the existing condition, if they use the right tools, understand the rules of the game, if they see the same thing and don’t have to explain it, if the manual work is automated, then BIM is good. But if there is lameness, it is not BIM that is not good, it is collaboration.

Or if the contractors have a good CDE or project platform. Is BIM good then? If you can see the design, the point cloud, the model, the information content of the elements in 3 clicks, then BIM is good. If they can even see it in AR, God forbid in some glasses, then BIM is good. But if there is lameness, it is not BIM that is not good, it is collaboration. The tools are not good and the workflow is not good.

Technology is
no longer a barrier

But it is also important how project managers can work together. If you don’t have a thousand emails, but you have a platform where you can find everything quickly and it’s clear who does what, then BIM is good. But if there is lameness, it is not BIM that is not good, it is collaboration. The tools are not good and the workflow is not good.

And what about the operators? If they can work well with each other and with the users of the building, is BIM good? If the execution model is really what it is in reality, is BIM good?

Then it’s good.

But if the designers couldn’t cooperate normally, then the builders wrote thousands of emails, talked past each other and tortured themselves into building a different house than the one in the conflicting plans. If the ground fell out from under the project management’s feet because they were putting out fires and couldn’t keep track of the changes in the BIM tracking, and then failed to populate the model with information during the digital handover, then it wasn’t the BIM that was bad… it was the collaboration.

BIM is just a skeleton, dressed up by collaborative workflows.

If you put these together well, it really helps a lot and it’s a good collaboration.

If you do it badly, you will be “tool-less” through hard work and even despair your environment.