‘I’m just a builder, how’d I know?...’

He says and in instant brings to my mind multiple ‘déjà vu’s’ from times passed long ago.

Over the 25 years of my career within the AEC more than one highly placed contractor-manager has started a sentence aimed at me with those – so modestly couched words...

So, I know the rest too:

‘...tell me why should I be looking seriously at this BIM of-yours when my job is to build buildings’...

I swallow, slow and deep, before I point out to the highly-esteemed, that his job is 90% about shuffling information around and probably 10% about the physically building. Consequently, he ought to take note of what I’m saying.

OK, the ratio is random, I plucked it from the air – but even if the opposite was true, and 10% of any contractors’ work was about handling the information related to the building they were to create, the high-level of risk those 10 percent were carrying should warrant the question being taken serious.

While these contractors rarely can influence the shape, format and quality of information coming through the door, there is no good excuse the situation to remain throughout the project-delivery.

A lot can be done to establish integration validation early, increase data integrity and minimise information fatigue.

If only the question from the title implied a genuine interest to understand what could be done....