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Centre for Digital Built Britain completed its five-year mission and closed its doors at the end of September 2022

This website remains as a legacy of the achievements of our five-year foundational journey towards a digital built Britain
 
BIM Roundtable 1

The Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) and the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) are teaming up for a programme of high-level ‘roundtable’ discussions, which aim to further accelerate adoption of the Government’s digital strategy for the built environment especially the successful embedment of BIM across industry.

The first of the roundtables was held on the 27th September and focused on academia and training in relation to Building Information Modelling [BIM] and the wider digital construction agenda. 

Fiona Moore of the CDBB BIM Delivery Team noted that “we had a good mix of contributors at the session, including from client and CPD training organisations and also further and higher education; as a result, we heard a wide variety of views, but nevertheless there were some strong reoccurring themes, such as the need to further define, standardise and embed learning outcomes, with the aim of making them part of both standard construction education and ongoing training, which in turn raised the question of who it is that trains the trainer.”

There was a lively and positive discussion, a few of the key themes that were debated included:

  • There is inconsistency across BIM courses about what is taught at all education levels, and a focus on BIM rather than wider digital and information management – which raised the question ‘who trains the trainer’.
  • What skills would be needed in the future and are they aligned with the strategic vision articulated by the Centre for Digital Built Britain?
  • Need for development of a foundation skills requirement, essentially a set of digital approaches, skills and services required to deliver the digital built Britain vision.
  • The existing BIM Learning Outcomes Framework (LoF) was seen to have been very useful and there was now a need to update this document to align with current thinking.
  • There is a gap between the skills the education system turns out and what the industry needs. The absence of a mentoring system in the industry exacerbates the problem.

Amelia Burnett, Head of Engagement for CDBB, noted that “this inaugural roundtable has been extremely valuable and will help us scope and prioritise future education and training related activities as part of the CDBB programme. The feedback loop that these roundtables offer is pivotal to ensuring that the create research and outputs that are aligned with industry needs both for now and the future.”

Terry Stocks, Head of BIM Level 2 Delivery at CDBB and chair of the Education Round Table, said “Main Contractors play a pivotal role in the BIM Level 2 process, determining how we can help advance their journey in a consistent manner is a key objective of this next workshop. To date, we have seen BIM used by contractors mainly for 3D modelling at a project level, and we want to see more focus on data – how it is gathered, structured, verified and used to inform future work. Construction is ok working with data at a project level, but we want organisations to think at portfolio level, and then business strategy level.”