There’s been a great little ‘article’
circling the web recently, claiming ‘How Building Information Modeling Saved
One University $10 Million’.
I managed to ignore the item for a while
– must have subconsciously filtered out the headline with dozens of others, on
how one person became rich by… or lost a lot of weight by… and other types of ‘easy
magic news’ that I’m bombarded with on a daily basis.
For some time I refrained from reading it
even as it kept tenaciously popping up on ‘serious’ industry forums and news –
though by this stage I could see that it was not a ‘spoof’ but pretending to be
a ‘real’ news.
When it started reaching me attached to
personal messages – sent by people I know have reasonably sound experience in
the field, noting how it validated ‘my work’ as well, I finally felt the need
to read it properly and comment on it.
Let me make it clear, I do not question
the ability and capability of BIM to save money, time or other resources.
If anything, a well applied BIM could ‘save’
funds for construction clients, contractors or consultants much higher than the
3% quoted here.
I also have no intention to question
that everyone involved on the project has done a great job either; we are
talking Portland, Oregon, after all.
However, in spite of its scientific
look, this writing is nothing but an infomercial for a series of BIM related
tools and consultants. And not that great at that, either.
The tools and processes are described in
a clumsy, exaggerated and superficial way, staying at a pretty safe ‘high level’
definitions, while the end results of the same processes quoted are surprisingly
specific, sometimes down to two decimals.
The author uses ‘design’ and ‘construction
related documentation’ interchangeably, mixes up tools with approaches and vice
versa, ‘confidently’ summarizes what BIM ‘is’ in a couple of sentences, gives
us a no-fail ‘How to save millions’ recipe and tops it all off, with the ‘Lesson learned: The machines
have won’.
‘C’mon – no harm done really’ – tell me
my friends and fellow BIM enthusiasts.
‘Hold back the vitriol, all publicity is
good publicity for BIM. Good for the cause’.
But is it really?
Is there no danger in letting
unchallenged articles like this spread over the global BIM networks?
Quantifying supposed ‘Realized savings
with BIM’ packaged under sensational headlines?
Junky Data on BIM to feed the BIM junkie
in you?
One can say it could be funny if it was
not quite sad – and dangerous – today it is a shallow article, tomorrow it turns
into a ‘proven’ case-study in a BIM Handbook, the day after, it morphs into something
a mandated requirement is based for everyone. (UKBIM anyone?)
I ask the author to expand on the story.
Apart from expecting a thoroughly explained conclusion on the savings as well
as the statement, that the machines had won, here are some further questions
that could be raised to make this effort of redoing the article worthwhile:
Who ‘pocketed’ the supposed savings? The
client? Did it go back to their Building-funds to be used on their subsequent
projects? Or was it not a ‘real’ saving after all – i.e. it would have been
additional cost, had the super-duper BIM not been implemented? How would that
additional cost been justified then? Especially if ‘normal’ approaches were
used.
The architects talk ‘billable hours’ – were
these hours already quoted for (and contracted to do) or left for change orders
to claim later?
Were the savings shared across the board
of all participants? Equally or based on a particular key?
Had the consultants been selected on the
basis of this, projected saving and their capability to deliver on it?
Was the budget set ‘realistically’ in
the first place or overinflated?
Were the savings part of the
contingencies, that by their nature could be spent or saved?
Were there NO variations claimed by the contractor
due to poor, inadequate documentation or had they been already deducted from
the ‘savings’?
I also have hundreds of ‘what if’
scenarios I could throw in the pot… what if different procurement method was
used, could the savings had grown? Or would they have shrunk?
If not Autodesk was the main supplier of
the tools but a competing company with their own (possibly better) products? If
there was more (or less rain) that year? If the team was more or less
competent?
These are all ‘guesswork’ questions,
some pure speculation.
After all, most building projects are
speculative endeavors. A budget is guessed – lots of processes, scientific,
technical and less so, take place over some time (months, years, decades),
wheeling and dealing sets the tone of the project and keeps it throughout –
some people do some pretend work and others some real, some companies come out
of it in black, others end up in red.
The process concludes in a building that
more or less fulfills the needs and requirements set up at the beginning.
BIM has a place in the process described
above and if used well, can benefit one, two or more (but rarely all) the
parties involved.
Exploring its impact on a project is a worthwhile
exercise from whatever angle it is done from.
But making off-hand claims that are
dubious to say the least, is reckless and can potentially hurt the entire
industry.
