Zero Fluff Policy (ZFP) – an alternative to the British Government’s way of mandating BIM on AEC projects

The British Government got it all wrong with regards to its plan to use BIM to fix-up its ailing AEC industry.

Admittedly, they weren’t exactly calling the industry ‘ailing’; neither where are they labelling BIM specifically as a ‘fix up-tool’, but that is what I read between the lines of both the original Strategy Paper published in 2011 and the "Pipeline for Growth" report put out at the end of 2012.

Most of BIM commentators, even those a bit remote from that particular market and ones that are normally prepared to be a bit cynical of ‘artificially pumped up BIM hype’ appear to find this government’s actions to be all positive.

Their comments echo the official mantra with its coats of sugar, then they add their own truckload of PC type encouragement: how every step in the right direction counts, how time will tell, how the proof will be in the pudding, how one must not discourage the proactive governments by criticising them, how absolutely fabulous and brave they are and… anyway, why get bogged down with the details when top experts in the field are publically declaring that the British BIM is the best in the world already…

(references available if anyone IS interested in the details)…

Time will tell I agree, how silly, ineffective, pompous and arrogant this approach is (was) but it will take years, decades even – thanks to the fact that the wheels of the global (and especially big-business) AEC grind even slower than those of justice systems, often quoted.

So why wait for the grinding to be fully completed and the ashes of failed BIMs finally get scattered over the corpses of many, at present still yet-to-be built public buildings?

Instead why not be BOLD NOW and try out something that I guarantee will make a positive difference to the industry and deliver results within 12 months of a launch?

And just to make it more palatable for those that like to be PRESCRIPTIVE on the subject of HOW as opposed to the WHAT, this is a highly prescriptive approach.

I call it the xxx Government’s

(or any public/ private AEC client that is

now/or intending in the future to consume the services of the AEC industry)

Zero Fluff Policy (ZFP)

ZFP is built on a set of highly prescriptive requirements on how project information should be managed (by all info originators and/or editors, like design consultants, main and subcontractors) on (any) the AEC job:

RULES:

1/ PDF – paper-sheet based and formatted, traditionally labelled, revision controlled, clouded drawings will be used for all communication between all parties and at all of the times, regardless of the stage of the project and/or participants involved.

2/ The numbers of drawings in the system will be strictly (and drastically) limited and policed relentlessly.

3/ All drawings will be managed electronically on a web based, fully searchable system. All drawings will have meta data attached to aid search;

4/ No written specifications will be allowed, everything will fit on the limited number of drawings (typically no project will produce more than 100 drawings; Absolute, mega project may go up to 250);

5/ No duplication of information will be tolerated, any discrepancy in information supposedly coming from one source found, will be rejected immediately and the originator penalised heavily.

6/ All drawings will be fully coordinated and buildable at any time, even at early stages of the project taking into account detail levels appropriate for design development. All drawings issued will always be of IFC quality, labelled such and an individual to take responsibility for this by a signature.

7/ The said individual will be made aware by the employing company that mistakes within the IFC documents will be traced back to him (or extremely unlikely, her) no matter how many companies he/she changes to escape being accountable for the flow on impacts those mistakes cost the project once construction begins.

8/ All drawings will be audited regularly (weekly) by an Independent BIM Authority and their comments forwarded to drawing authors. Immediate response will be required by all affected. Failure to respond in time or any repeated offence will be punished by dismissal of the entire company from the project.

9/ All participants will be contractually bound to pay SILD (Substandard Information - Liquidated Damages) – and these will be assessed monthly (based on failures to meet any of the requirements falling under points 1 – 5);

10/ SILD will be deducted from progress payments or if they turn out to be higher than progress payments due, from a bond provided by all contracted project participants at the outset of the project;

11/ SILD collected will be split into 3 equal parts and distributed monthly: 1 third to the IBA (Independent BIM Authority) agent on the project for work well done; 1 third to the client representatives on the project for accepting this crazy policy and 1 third shared out in the form of cream-doughnuts to regular citizens walking past the project in question;

12/ The acronym ‘BIM’ and anything associated with it will be exclusively used by those employed by the Independent BIM Authority; Any unauthorised and careless use of the term (or its derivatives) will be punished by dismissal.

You may want to comment on this hair-raising idea by joining this group:  E !BIM GROUP

This platform of alternative BIM views also allows you to share your own, inspiring, exhilarating, far-out or just generally provocative ideas on this topic.

To all the prima-donnas of the BIM world: Welcome to my Group!

Labelling me a prima-donna did it!

Call it a ‘coming out’ of sorts but when I looked up the meaning of it…

(‘A very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance.’)…

I thought, that’s it.

Time to set up a Group for BIM prima-donnas, like me… And, you know what?

If the membership stays at ‘1’ forever, I don’t give a toss…

I named the group E! BIM Group, where ‘E’ stands for ‘extraordinary’.

It is extraordinary, first, because it is set up to provide a refuge, a bunker to recover for ostracised BIM practitioners of ‘non-mainstream BIM-witchcraft’  that arrogantly enough still believe to be doing something good, positive, revolutionary, exceptional in fact!

It is extraordinary also, because it will not bow to the gods of ‘ordinary BIM’ that preach the forever-going on mantra of:

….LODs and national BIM standards and object libraries and CAD/BIM systems and BIM implementation plans and...clash detection of course...and… authoring programs…

Yet are unwilling to question global AEC corruption, incompetency to deliver projects, widespread and large-scale fraud, the sacred role of the drawing, mega-consultancies that set the rules…

It is extraordinary mainly, because ordinary BIM (as it is commonly known) does not work, has never worked and never will….

So, here is a platform to freely explore the alternatives.

There are alternatives! Welcome to my Group!


E-BIM-Group

With the UK Government mandating that all public sector projects will be delivered using BIM by 2016….

…Starts another email… A second like this, this week.

And one in many that I receive these days as various poor AEC vendor-souls try to enhance their market-share by clinging onto this rickety bandwagon…

No one knows what it means exactly, but most like it.

They can spell ‘BIM’, surely they can make advantage out of a regulatory-move like this somehow….

I know what it means exactly and I do not like it.

I agree, that a government as a building owner has the responsibility to ensure buildings are created in the best possible way for their owners; They need to get their ‘taxpayers’ the best value for money while adhering to all sorts of technical and social standards.

In order to get the best results, they are entitled to describe the outcomes in extremely high detail and be extremely demanding on what they will pay for or not.

They can also ask, that any end result (a building) is also accompanied by another, digital version of itself (‘as built’ – OM/FM ready model) and again be as demanding about its qualities as they see appropriate.

A bit like asking for a miniature remote controlled Hummer to be delivered when the real new one comes too.

Or a virtual, digital one of the said machine. No problem with this.

But, on what basis can a democratically elected government prescribe how the particular Hummer it is ordering for the stakeholders is made (to the last screw) without meddling with ‘means-and-methods’ of the delivery process itself knows so little about, as well as skewing up the market?

And a big market, that is.

One can think of similar interfering somewhat justified at the ‘production end’ of supply chains when sustainability is of concern, growing and supply of GM food, exploitation of child-labour or horse meet sold dressed up as beef.

But, constraining a large part of a chunky market to only those that will use only certain tools and only in certain way to achieve the results that are far removed from the tools themselves is dodgy.

It stops innovation, promotes corruption and works against the end user/payer of the bills.

Putting aside the professional/ethical reservations I have with this move, how practical is it at all?

How would the same voting public look at a government legislating, that from 2016 all legal/court hearings where ‘a’ citizen is involved and/or has some sort of a stake-in must be fully conducted in Latin.

No one speaks Latin at the prosecution side, hardly anyone at the defence end – but that will not stop us implementing it at all!

We just have to start somewhere, quickly create a ‘modern’, much more palatable Latin than the old, real one and give a free range to everyone to teach/learn.

Note to myself: must learn Latin by 2016.

Who is qualified to select/hire competent senior BIM managers (heads/directors) for AEC companies?

This post is for HR people doing (or considering to get into) the recruiting of BIM-people for strategic, senior BIM roles within AEC companies.

It includes a very simple message and an easy to use tool.

Success is 100% guaranteed.

The message is this:

1.       Currently and globally there are very few people that are properly qualified to identify, assess, rank and recommend people that may become good strategic BIM leaders with the right training and support.

2.       There are altogether only a handful of good, senior level, strategically clued-up BIM ‘operators’ off-the shelf existing worldwide.

3.       Equally, there are similarly tiny numbers of top executives wanting a strategically placed BIM person high level in their company for the RIGHT reasons.

This message offers two additional lessons to note:

BAD NEWS:

The likelihood of an HR person operating within AEC to be from group one (1) and to be given the opportunity to pair up representatives from the other two (2 and 3) is extremely low.

GOOD NEWS:

See above;

Because of the majority of group ‘number  3’ in the message above is extremely well established and strong in the field, you can place just about anyone in the position that has ‘BIM’ in its name or description as long as you use the tool described below correctly.

What you need to do (this is the tool):

1/ check that the client is definitely not an ‘enlightened, good 3’ – again, extremely unlikely but they do exist…so just to be on the safe side;

2/ ask for the serving CAD manager, BIM coordinator, incumbent visualizer, engineering manager, (or equivalent director, if the role is senior enough) to do the interviewing;

3/ do a good check-up on the weaknesses of the interviewer (start with the software packages that the company is ‘supposed to be using’ and how long have they been in their position);

4/ select a candidate that has moderate experience in the aforementioned software but is timid and will not challenge the interviewer, even if the role is on paper more senior than his/hers;

5/ sit back and enjoy your commission.

for further reading on a topic relevant to this one, check out my previous blogpost:

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2013/01/let-me-spell-this-out-for-you-footnote.html

cartoon from here:

http://baloo-baloosnon-politicalcartoonblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/army-recruitment-cartoon.html

Answer this question quickly! What is worse: incompetency or fraud?

It is extremely likely that your first-impulse response to my question would be that of ‘fraud’.

People tend to feel pretty black-and-white about this question;

few would even question the question before obliging with an answer.

Given the time to mull over it, would you change or qualify your response?

Would it depend on the context, circumstances, people involved?

Would you judge it differently in a personal situation than considering what happens at your workplace? Would the scale of ‘offending’ impact on your judgement? Your relationship to the perpetrators?

Would you tolerate a little bit of fraud and a lot of incompetency or would it be the other way around?

I’ve been grappling with this question for some time, even more since a number of people in high-management positions have declared to me that any ‘evidence of fraud’ is of much more interest to them than stuff that is to do with ‘incompetency’ within their organisation.

And the higher you go, the answer becomes more and more in favour of the ‘fraud’, a negative sort of way.

But, do these two types of ‘qualities’ really sit on two opposite sides of ‘a’ spectrum or do they at times come scarily close to each other?

Can a high level of ‘incompetency’ within an organisation be classified as ‘fraud’ as well?

Is it really so much better to lead a company incompetent to do its business where people are on the surface ‘honest’, than, say a company that plays a bit on the dodgy side but is performing brilliantly and making a lot of money for the shareholders?

This logic seems too much at odds for what I observe as general behaviour of large companies and their mid-to-top level managers.

Now, you may wonder what all this has to do with BIM?

Quite a lot, really!

Being good at BIM makes one highly sensitive to detecting incompetency within an AEC company, which in turn gets one into trouble with those that knowingly cover up for it;

(and act fraudulently judged by the BIM-mer);

Speaking ‘BIM’ at a professional level is not unlike ‘seeing’ through people or reading their thoughts.

As arrogant this claim this may sound, it can weigh heavily on the said BIM-mer.

Being able to pinpoint dodgy practices quickly in projects small and large, companies private and public is a peculiar bi-talent to have.

An asset and a curse.

See, any manager worth his salt knows when incompetency should be classified as fraud.

When you know it and do nothing about it;

Best to know nothing.

A ‘hard to cope with’ sort of attitude for a truly good BIM-mer.

An engineer and a manager

Yesterday I went to Tekla’s annual managers’ day, held in Dubai.

 As expected, the event was discreet, smooth and professional, good tea on offer in all of the breaks.

The presenters kept themselves to their topics, the timekeepers rang their bells in their allocated times, more or less;
Beyond the usual technical news and client presentations, half way through the proceedings a bunch of unanticipated little gems were given to the audience.

Just the right things for me to mull over on the long-drive back to Abu Dhabi.

Mick Hodgson from Tekla’s HQ was charged with providing global examples from real-life use of the Tekla-tools. I was pleased not to see ‘our’ HQ building showcased this time – while the little movie they made of it some time ago is sleek and impressive it is painful to watch at the time I’m banned from the real building.****

So, Mick had three wonderful new examples to show –

·         The first one was related to the Panama Canal’s expansion.  The current plan is for two new flights of locks to be built parallel to, and operated in addition to, the old locks; *

·         The second was on the structure intended to further secure the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, part of which was destroyed by the disaster in 1986. It is being built adjacent to the existing shelter and will be slid into place on rails. **

·         The third was to do with the re-floating of the trouble Costa Concordia that ran aground over a year ago. In order to raise the ship, I understand the contractors will install underwater platforms under the submerged side of it and use huge cranes to pull the ship upright. ***

Somehow, driving towards the sunset and pondering these wonders of engineering still happening around the world I thought of my father.

He was a mechanical engineer. Was and still is.

At the age of 82 and seriously ill, he no longer works unfortunately, is barely alive most of the time, but has spent every waking minute of his conscious life being an engineer.

Even these days when he comes out of his hazy world of diminishing thoughts, what he utters almost always has something to do with ‘engineering’.

He never worked on projects as important as the gates of the Canal, never got involved with anything remotely as risky as securing a nuclear reactor and never had the chance to contemplate the logistics of flipping the stranded monster ship back onto the surface of the ocean, still an engineer with every bit of his being.

Then, just as I passed between the boundaries of the two emirates (you know, where trees appear along the motorway ready to escort me all the way home) - somehow my thoughts slipped onto the CV’s of most of the engineers/managers my company employs these days – it was bound to happen, considering how much time I spend researching them and trying to figure out what on earth has gone wrong with this ship I’m on.

Consequently, I got entangled in questions like this one:

Is it not interesting how most of my company’s top managers’ CV’s start along the line of

“XY has earned his civil engineering degree (insert number – usually 20+) years ago then”…
Steadily climbed the corporate ladder never again remembering what being an engineer really means? Or should mean?

Thankfully I arrived home – to my ‘physicist/scientist for life’ husband and the ‘true to the core – whatever they choose to be in the future’ – daughters chattering at the dinner-table.

Life is good.

*http://www.cimolai.com/wip.php?id=1

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Safe_Confinement

***http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/refloat-of-concordia-wreck-to-be-biggest-in-history-20120521-1yzzd.html

****http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrLtsqYpGf4 (could not find the full length one)

Picture from here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161954/Raising-Costa-Concordia-Italian-sunseekers-look-salvage-team-start-year-long-operation-refloat-tow-away-stricken-vessel.html

(So many beautiful analogies to life, engineering and other bits of life are in it!

May be a bit too cheesy too)

I’m onto some rose-coloured BIM issues…and here is a tip for ArchiCAD users as a bonus

Having recently stepped onto one-too-many toe – I’ve been warned to tone my blog down a bit…

I’m not in a huge hurry to oblige; it would cramp my style a lot.

On the other hand, the ‘cat & mouse game’ that rules my work-life these days must be a bit tedious to endure by those that come here to read on ‘pure’ BIM topics.

So let’s talk BIM, the rosy, and pink, and lemon-yellow and forest-green…

For a long time I’ve been a strong advocate of proactively using colours in construction information management, often provoking condescending comments from ‘architects that wear only black’.

Applying a range of bold colours to represent different types of concrete (grey!) structures rarely made sense to people that happily documented everything in black on white.

Still, that has not deterred me to consistently use the colour ‘red’ on my construction models as a warning sign, highlighting that an element is either under-defined or wrongly defined by the design consultants or others in charge of it.

One of my colleagues once got quite upset and accused me of being environmentally irresponsible by promoting this rainbow-theory, yet I never did suggest (what he accused me of) that the fluffed-up drawing-sets they still produced in black-ink (and measured in tons) should be printed in full colour.

I said, that colours could play a large part in demystifying AEC documentations for clients, contractors and everyone else involved. Model based communication supports this idea splendidly.

Unfortunately, there still is very little interest in demystifying AEC information, not even on the lowest of, day-to-day levels of project communication so we’ll still experience quite a bit of the flawed approach:

2D draw everything as vague as possible with lots of fills/hatches and useless text on it;

Then reduce A0 sheets to A3s and make numerous copies of them before they get to the construction-site so someone with a ‘really high level of IQ’ can work out from a pile of blurry fluff where to put the wall, window, tea towel hook.

Prior to anyone get worried about me again airing controversial in-house work-practices I should not – let me share with you a little feature I discovered today:

In ArchiCAD, you can save different background colours with your 3D views;

I use ‘saved-3D views’ a lot while I work on my models – so this attribute of the view-manager is going to be very handy in performing my daily tasks in the future.

For example, I could have soothing green backgrounds saved on problematic jobs just to balance out all the red in the undefined elements incorporated in most of the views.

And to keep the options for improvement open, the green can then fade into something more neutral in pre-set views where things are coming together nicely.

Or I could have different backgrounds allotted to the views I work on morning time and the ones I deal with afternoons.

Or rose-colour them all, when I present to superiors unwilling to accept the reality we’re in…

The opportunities are endless! 

And all of the colours of the rainbow pretty much with a press of a button…

Let me spell this out for you… (a footnote to my ‘Qatarlist’ BIM-blogpost)

Prologue:

I wrote a post on a real and possibly ground-breaking BIM/AEC project some time ago (links below)

It turned out to be one of the most visited posts of mine (so far) and has ignited some lively discussions on various BIM forums.

My success to enlighten relevant people within my own organisation on the nuances of this phenomenon and possible implications on us not appreciating its weight has been (unfortunately) much less successful.

So, with the idea that one should never let a ‘good argument’ go to waste, here is my thinking behind the ‘why the client would have asked for this?’

and the corresponding

‘how a requirement like this should be treated’

for those that occasionally DO read-or-listen to me (i.e. visitors to this blog):

This AEC client on this particular project has asked for an unusually ambitious and highly demanding BIM approach to be employed on its information project management due to one of the following two reasons:

ONE:

Because it is very well aware that a project of this size, complexity and targeted timeframe can only be delivered through a genuine BIM;

Because it does not trust the AEC project information management processes that current ‘mainstream’ and ‘traditionally minded’ consultants and contractors use, misuse and abuse.

Because it wants to know what is going on its project at any time and manipulate the others as opposed to being manipulated.

Because it wants to carry on changing its mind about the design till the last minute but have someone else carry the can for it without jeopardising project success.

Because it wants the project to be finished on time.

Because it wants to know how much it is really going to cost at any time.

Because it wants the level of sophistication of the IM/PM of the construction to match that of the trains it will run.

Because it is a gold-plated client in a troubled market and CAN ask for whatever it wants.

TWO:

It was the next step on some aspiring BIM expert’s career progression plan.

Anyone bidding for this project should ascertain what the REAL reason was behind the BIM brief (ONE or TWO) and respond by:

For ONE – design and propose a robust, practical, working – possibly ground-breaking and smart BIM system  that will comply with the requirements of the brief; (very few people can do this, in the world)

For TWO – bluff through the process with whatever BIM-fluff you can get from the internet;

possibly outsource the entire problem to the cheapest bidder; (anyone can do this)

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-qatar-list-for-bim-or-just-sweet.html

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2012/09/note-to-qrail-get-in-touch-with.html

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2012/12/sorry-hady-will-not-make-it-this-time.html

image from here:

http://www.bitterwallet.com/man-reinvents-train-set-reality-gets-off-at-next-station/3975

Happy New Year everyone.... Let’s start this year with a blog on a positive note!

For the first day of this new year, I offer a sort of a pledge coupled with a request for all of my connections:

Please do not endorse me on LinkedIn for anything and I’ll do the same for you!

For at least two reasons:

One, a ‘rating’ system that only has ‘likes’ but no other option available to choose from to express one’s opinion on someone or something is not really a rating system. It’s collecting stamps.

Two, look at the ‘endorsement categories’ the thing will offer you to ‘pat someone on the back with’;

LinkedIn may have done spectacularly well in becoming the first ‘serious’ business-flavoured social networking site, but when it comes to learning the buzz words and specific fields I operate in (and am possibly good at) – it still has a way to go.

Admittedly, it is trying hard to catch up and is forever giving me new opportunities to stuff some more data about myself into their bottomless bucket of information.

Likely to regurgitate it and through endless analysis and data crunching make some dosh by selling it to someone else at the other end.

I have no problem with these practices in principle – I wrote on the subject before.

It is their right to try to manipulate me and the info I willingly share on the www, it is my right to say ‘no’ to certain offers they make.

Remember it is mostly ‘free’ and with that there is a price to pay.

Problems start when this system becomes so entrenched in the industry, that HR people will not look at you if you do not have (let’s say) 50 endorsements for BIM on LinkedIn.

Not that HR people bother me that much, really – yet to find one that is clued up on BIM to even intermediate level.

I’m always happy to give references for people I worked with on areas I know their capabilities in, work ethics, personalities and other stuff that makes them a possible asset to a new employer.

I do occasionally ask others to do the same for me and am grateful for anyone that has refereed for me at any time in the past.

I will never confuse these acts with clicking the ‘endorse x for y’ button, even if this will make me look heartless (for not doing it for others) or ungrateful (for frowning when others do it for me);

With that declared publically, I’ll take the risk of being unendorsed on LinkedIn for anything and everything.

This ‘fat lady’ has not sung her last song yet…

Merry Christmas iTech and stop spreading rumours: I’m still here!

Yes, I know it is the season of goodwill and all…

So in line with that, here is a well-intended advice from me to you on this occasion of Christmas:

Focus on your own performance!
Remember what you set out to do in May 2011?

In case you’ve forgotten some aspects of your commitment, let me remind you:

To successfully implement Building information Modelling (BIM) on Al Mafraq Hospital, you developed a detailed BIM Project Execution Plan. That plan included everything that would allow the project to run not just smoothly, but extra smoothly.

In fact to quote you direct from the document:

The BIM processes and solutions executed on the Al Mafraq Hospital are designed to set the example for successful contractor BIM implementation in the Middle East and North Africa regions.

 Even now, some one and a half years later, re-reading this sentence, the mixture of tenses puts my knowledge of English grammar and comprehension to test:

Have these processes already been executed at the time of writing the plan?

I do recall asking the project PD to clarify this at the time.
I also recall her getting extremely agitated about this question and some others I put up, since you so successfully charmed her into believing that you could deliver something no one else could.
Any type of scrutiny into the viability of this mutually held dream was unwelcome.

In fact, it still is.

As recently as in March this year we had your team promote ‘iTech uses BIM bang – whizzery at Al Mafraq hospital’ in local construction media, while opposing comments (mine) were left un-published.

 In your plan you also promised us that:

It would set the standard for processes and expectations for BIM deliveries in the region and the benchmark in efficiency and quality for the entire BIM process encompassing all involved parties to deliver a fully-coordinated, as-built BIM that can be effectively and efficiently used by the client for continued benefit of FM during the entire lifecycle of the facility.

OK, you said ‘should’ not ‘would’, but there were no ‘ifs and buts and maybes’ to qualify it so I assumed that this was just another example of the cavalier way you treat the language.

All the above underlined words were in your Plan and in exactly the same context as shown here.

I could hardly believe your arrogance and ignorance.

I still hardly can.

 18 months should be long enough to start really rocking the BIM/AEC world in the region, not just by talking and flashing up pictures at conferences but actually delivering the goods.

Merry Christmas iTech and stop spreading rumours about me: I’m still here!