Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Building analysis can reach beyond just the design phase and into the whole building
lifecycle. Once the building has been constructed, the use of BIM doesn't need to end. More
advanced facilities' management systems support tracking—and thereby trending—building
use over time. By trending building use, you can begin to predict usage patterns and help
anticipate future uses such as energy consumption or future expansion. This strategy can help
you become more proactive with maintenance and equipment replacement because you will be
able to “see” how equipment performance begins to degrade over time. Trending will also aid
you in providing a more comfortable environment for building occupants by understanding
historic use patterns and allowing you to keep the building tuned for optimized energy
performance.
Strategizing
To maximize your investment in a BIM-based workflow, it's necessary to apply a bit of planning.
As in design, a well-planned and flexible implementation is paramount to a project's success. By
identifying goals on a project early on in the process, it allows BIM to be implemented efficiently
to reach those objectives. An effective strategy answers three key questions about a project:
What
processes do we need to employ to achieve our project goals?
◆
Who
are the key team members to implement those processes?
◆
How
will we support the people and processes with technology or applications?
◆
Ask these questions of your firm as a whole so you can collectively work toward expertise
in a given area, be that sustainable design or construction or something else. Ask the same
questions of an individual project as well so you can begin building the model in early stages
for potential downstream uses. In both cases (firm-wide or project-based), processes will need to
change to meet the goals you've established. Modeling techniques and workflows will need to be
established. Analysis-based BIM requires different constraints and requirements than a model
used for documentation or clash detection. If you're taking the model into facilities management,
you'll need to add a lot of metadata about equipment but at a lower level of detail than if you
were performing daylighting studies. Applying a new level of model integrity during a design
phase can be a frustrating and time-consuming endeavor. Regardless of the goal, setting and
understanding those goals early on in the project process is a prerequisite for success.
Focusing Your Investment in BIM
One of the common assumptions is that larger firms have a better opportunity than smaller
firms in their capacity to take on new technologies or innovate. Although larger firms might
have a broader pool of resources, much of the investment is proportionally the same. We have
been fortunate enough to help a number of firms implement Revit over the years, and each
has looked to focus on different capabilities of the software that best express their individual
direction. Although these firms have varied in size and individual desire to take on risk,
their investments have all been relatively equal. From big firms to small, the investment ratio
consistently equates to about 1 percent of the size of the firm. If you consider a 1,000-person
firm, that equals about 10 full-time people; however, scale that down to a 10-person firm, and
that becomes 1 person's time for five weeks.
The key to optimizing this 1-percent investment is focusing your firm's energy and resources
on the most appropriate implementation objectives.
