Background info to a research exercise: ‘Public dissection of two highly influential BIM documents’:

Building on over 25 years of work experience within the field of AEC and extensive use of digital tools /processes in practice I recently embarked on a formal study-project, with the view to explore the field of BIM within a more structured, academic framework.

As part of this research I plan to define global-BIM’s status at present and assess its likely future within the AEC.

I’m particularly interested in how the manifestation of the Global Financial Crisis impacted on the shaping of BIM’s present and wonder if it will significantly influence its future?

My goal is to collect data that goes beyond the usual, highly speculative, ‘wishful thinking’ that the field is saturated with.

For such a diverse industry, all research seems to be too cohesive and in synch, simply too much consensus with little visible results in the field.

Part of my methodology is to analyse two publications in debt, one being the BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors authored by a group of experts led by Charles Eastman, the other The report for the

Government Construction Client Group Building Information Modelling (BIM) Working Party

Strategy Paper prepared for the UK Government by the ‘BIM Industry Working Group’ co-chaired by John Lorimer and Mark Bew. (I’ll refer to them as ‘The Book’ and ‘The Report’)

These two documents, while quite different in type/role and objectives, share a high level of ‘across the board acceptance’ and credibility in the industry.

Therefore, they make a good choice to form the base for my exploring some of the essential issues related to BIM even before I embark on the main subjects of its present and future.

Over the next couple of months I intend to compile a series of fundamental questions (and/or statements) related to the field of BIM, search for applicable data and quote from the above-mentioned publications and contrast or complement those with what I find elsewhere, including within my own humble experience.

I will also invite the authors and contributors to comment, argue, question or add to the discussion in any way they feel appropriate.

I will use the recently established E!BIM Group on LinkedIn to host these discussions with some of the more personal/background writing limited to my DebunkTheBIM BlogSpot.

Anyone interested in the subject is invited to join and comment; only extremely irrelevant/rude contributions will be moderated out.