At the last in our series of roundtable discussions run by the Centre for Digital Built Britain in association with Chartered Institute of Building, we brought together asset and facilities managers to share their insights and consider the progress being made towards BIM as ‘business as usual’.
These eight sessions, which have also covered academia and training, constructors, consultants, manufacturers, SMEs, technology companies and specialist BIM consultants, are helping us understand the successes and challenges of implementing BIM and will inform our future work.
At this session, the participants were all persuaded of the benefits of BIM for managing risk, improving operational efficiency and asset performance. They agreed that it is will have a critical part to play in delivering the ‘Golden Thread’ of data needed to maintain buildings and infrastructure throughout their operational lives.
Participants shared some fantastic examples of BIM being put into practice. However, implementation remains something of a challenge for the FM community as a whole. One of the principal barriers it faces is a lack of involvement at the design and build phases which means that the information needed to operate the buildings is not being properly specified or captured. A change of mindset – from reactive maintenance to proactive asset management – is also needed, as well as a clear articulation of the benefits of BIM throughout the whole asset lifecycle.
The shortage of skills has been a recurring theme throughout these roundtables and this one was no exception. It was felt that there is a persistent lack of understanding of why BIM is important and the technical know-how to make it happen.
Several practical suggestions were made: developing standard taxonomies to describe assets which could be used by everyone across the supply chain and standard datasets which could help FM providers and clients who are are not yet fully conversant with BIM start to reap the rewards.
Read the full-write up of the event at Construction Manager.