Can smart manufacturers/suppliers of construction products make a real difference TO BIM and still look after their ‘bottom line’?

I promised, I‘d give manufacturers/suppliers of construction products hints on how to work well in the BIM arena;

However, before you (smart manufacturers/suppliers) get into analysing the 10 points I mentioned yesterday, there is another question to ponder:

Is the digital representation of your products going to be a free-standing object type, attached to a system tool or a self-supporting tool operating within the host program?

Now, if this sentence makes no sense to you, you need to go one step backward:

Is there anyone within your team that can answer with confidence the question above?

Here is my definition for the types:

·         Free standing objects are: Digital articles that can be placed in a virtual space without any additional tools (system provided or external). These can be very simple or very complex and their attributes (parameters) can be variable or fixed depending on the product they represent.

(branded furniture, fixtures, appliances)

·         System tool attachments are: ones that use program-supplied tools as their vehicles to build virtual representations for the products, most typically walls, slabs, roofs.

(branded walls, slab or roof systems; spouting, pipes, windows, doors)

·         Self supporting tools are: ones that work within programs but contain all applications that are needed; They self-execute themselves, look after their individual components and synchronise modelling/editing tools with their host environment.

(waterproofing- excavation- finishing systems)

Manufacturers/suppliers of construction products: Listen up!

What can smart manufacturers/marketers/suppliers of construction products DO to increase their market share and improve how buildings are communicated?

Stage ONE : Develop Model based libraries;

1.       Chose platforms carefully: the number of platforms you work with, depends on your target market and budget.

Don’t get fooled by numbers – important: influence the users have.

If you can’t do them all, do one and well!

2.       Explore who (from decision makers) has direct access to these objects.

You will pour a lot of money down the drain otherwise;

3.       Make your objects simple to use, reliable, highly branded and valuable beyond their original purpose.

Aim to help with at least one task the user performs regularly, has nothing to do with your product but makes their life easier.

4.       Allow other complementing products to piggyback on your digital libraries.

5.       Use off-the shelf tools to develop them, keep them low-spec (don’t overspec), maintain version currency.

6.       Give these objects the same level of consideration as your original products.

7.       Get on the road – Keep your presence felt in ‘everyday work’;

8.       Target kids (ethically) even before they get into the industry!

9.       Troubleshoot smartly and cheerfully.

10.   Stop spending money on marketing that does not work;

Over the next couple of days I will give you samples for each of these 10 points; Keep following!

The secret practice of ‘behind the scenes BIM Modelling’...

Let me share a secret with you!

There is much more modelling going on in the construction space than is given credit for. A lot of this activity is done behind the scenes. Often without building owners knowing about it at all!

Junior designers/documenters resolve building problems using digital 3D tools in secret and then output information in dumb-formats without principals knowing.

This is a weird practice, you’d think if you were someone outside the industry;

Does not surprise me at all. Even the most forward thinking documenters tend to bow to the “Master of Drawing” and for almost 2 decades have been instructing staff to break up models, cover over, white out and ‘dress up’ drawings. 

Two reasons are given for this behaviour: Contractual framework and Liabilities.

Occasionally hardware/software limitations. None of these can stand real scrutiny.

There should be no reason for building owners NOT to expect all building documents to be created Model based and retained in such environment, even when outputs are of lesser “D”.

Why do these companies, that may use 3D to lessen their own risks with getting things right spatially, refuse to play the game truthfully and share the benefits of the model with other parties?

Why do they instead share sheets- and sheets of artificially made ambiguous drawings depicting one lot of information published under various scales?

Steel detailers: BIM pioneers?

From all participants working in construction, steel manufacturers have managed to mimic manufacturing processes to highest degree. The idea of aligning  CAD with CAM has existed in this field for long time and the most sophisticated modelling related to construction-based shop drawings has been – and is being done by using steel structural software (Tekla, StruCAD);

I remember going to sites long ago and observing contractors looking at steel shop drawings to resolve coordination issues irrelevant to the steel-structure;

I’ve witnessed steel detailers being asked by clients to model ‘other’ (concrete, masonry, joinery) building bits to visually confirm design and assist with construction.

It was a matter of time for these guys to start taking advantage of their skills and reach over into the full ‘coordination’;

Nowadays many ex-steel detailing companies offer ‘coordination services’, clash detection (see yesterday’s post too!), sequencing, site logistics and other services loosely fitting under BIM.

On one hand, I am delighted this is happening – and about time it is!

On the other hand, am concerned. We are going down the road well travelled when Project Managers were established into construction;

Skills were missing, some that had those put their hands up and created a ‘niche’ service that soon enough dominated the industry;

Now, managing project information is at stake, steel manufacturers are at the forefront of becoming the project information custodians.

How do you expose BIM Bluffers?

Easy. Almost anyone that mentions “BIM” and “clash detection” in the same sentence and early in a conversation, is most likely bluffing. Not, that there is anything wrong with the idea of digitally identifying potential clashes between spatial elements; We all can get incited into this, quite unrealistic idea of construction information of unbuilt buildings fed into a machine that analyses data and spits out potential clashes;

The fundamental reason that this concept is unrealistic, is the lack of information integrity in construction.

Never during design and construction is it likely to have in hand a package that fully defines and documents a  building.

And in those rare occasions when this does happen the ‘clash detection’ exercise is pointless anyway, as it is almost certain that the designer/documenter that has fully documented the building has already resolved all the potential clashes as well.

So, be weary of parties selling anything that is based on “clash detection” either a service or software.

So, am I not a fan of clash detection? Actually, I am  - but not the ‘press the button’ and the clashes will be revealed type, but the one that within digital environment supports and enforces information integrity and honesty allowing potential spatial interferences to be identified before they become costly mistakes on site.

Sample available to download.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DAOGUzNDI0NDMtOGMwOS00ZjU4LTk2ZGYtYTVkN2YxMDg4Y2Nh&hl=en_GB&authkey=CPCI-LkL

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4GF8MRLb0DAODE3MjY3MmItMzc3My00YjE4LWJmMjktYzFiMzdlNDMwZTJk&hl=en_GB&authkey=CPPLoNYL

Bring on digital, online building permits!

Have you looked at the file I posted yesterday?

Most striking features? Navigation? Intaractability? For me?

The ‘honesty’ of the information model. What you see is what you get.

I mentioned before design consultants regularly and intentionally showing incomplete drawings with a lot of padding (irrelevant information) to keep the mental image of the proposed building as vague as possible for as long as possible. Interpretation of building documents is often like a treasure hunt – where clues are intermingled with distractions to confuse.

Problem is, this strategy can backfire.

A consultant may produce hundreds of sheets of drawings to justify their fees and/or pad the set up to cover for lack of competency in drafting staff. However, once these drawings enter the project arena they tend to hang around for some time, often rebound and become a liability;

This ‘detective game’ is probably most obvious when it comes to gaining approval by territorial authorities. Notwithstanding of significant efforts by most municipalities to standardise their requirements and put in place ‘conveyor-belt’ assessment systems – this process often ends up as a manipulative exercise against those seeking a permit (time extensions) and/or an unhappy building owner spending unexpected fees on unexpected responses to queries.

Assessing documents for permits seems to be another status quo that cannot be improved.

I believe it can.

Bring on digital, online building permits.

A press of a button will take me to...

‘Construction is not retail, the same rules do not apply!’ I said yesterday, risking offending small, mom and pa grocery operations that run like clockwork. No offence was intended.

I admit, the problem with my BIM hobby-horse(s) is that, there are so many.

Even in this narrow field of construction communication there seem to be at least a dozen subjects that I am fixated on as holding the secret of failure (or possible recovery) of the industry.

It would make me sound more credible if I continually pointed to one source of all troubles.

More people would take me seriously, it would do no justice to the issue.

The PROBLEM with this problem IS that there are so many contributing factors that a fractional drop in performance in any can cause major trouble for the entire machinery.

Take for example: navigation through information.

Today, another sample – I do urge you to download it, not a big file.

Actually, it is a remarkably small file for the information it contains.

Play with the buttons and consider this: a press of a button will take me to ... this information; Pressing another button will take me to....

You could have been seeing me as a ranting, raging, raving and rampant, BIM moaner so far.

Today, I take a break and delight in this little file; Join me!

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DANmE3MWVmZWMtMGQ0Mi00MTBiLTg4OGItZmZiZmM5MjZlNGZm&hl=en_GB&authkey=COzRg88D

Construction is run like a corner store!

Mentioned Autodesk yesterday, Archicad, Microstation, Vectorworks, etc...

I will come back to the battles that these products fought (and keep fighting) with each other in the building design/documenting landscape, later.

There is one party that has by now become a major ‘collateral damage’ to these battles – the entire construction industry, left to ‘lumber on’ using devices from the middle ages.

Other industries moved with time – the retail industry, for example has managed extremely well to separate what is ‘mundane’ from what ‘matters’ (see previous blog);

You go to the supermarket, fill up your trolley, pay for it; The machinery that supports this simple action is highly sophisticated, controlled, risk managed behind the scenes; Low level (as in skills and pay) people are employed along the process but the area that they can ‘mess up’ is very limited;

In contrast, construction is run like a corner store. Along every one of the steps from ordering, transporting, storing, through sorting, selecting, to paying for, packaging and consuming, the products are managed by people of various skills, understanding and knowledge that work within an unstructured framework – within haphazard systems. Any step can be messed up, and big time for that!

You raise this issue, and the answer is often: ‘construction is not retail, the same rules do not apply!’

Why not?

I have a suggestion, why not. Tomorrow.

Autodesk has been ruling the roost for 3 decades!

Autodesk has been ruling the roost for 3 decades. Hang on! - you say. What about Archicad? A major player since the eighties. Microstation? Vectorworks, Allplan, Spirit etc?

All controlled part of the patch but none really delivered on their promise or used an historic opportunity well, to make a real and positive difference to how buildings are communicated;

They collectively entrenched Flatcad?

Forget Flatcad! It did more damage than good;

I often mention the generation of current 10 – 20 year olds (maybe because my 3 children fit in that age group); Well, if you have the luxury to observe how they communicate – do so, as these will soon be the next architects, engineers, construction managers, but also crane drivers, digger tippers, joiners, carpenters, waterproofers!

Do you Mr Autodesk (and Mr Anycad) really expect that these kids will have the patience to learn programs that come with zillions of tutorials, strings of table-based commands and slow navigating? ..Will learn how a complex building is devised, broken up into dumb electronic lines and drawn at funny angles on a digital, flat surface? ...Or use a magnifying glass up the crane-top to work out from a reduced, crumbled A3 paper where their next load is going– while a smart I_something will be organising another, ‘real-life’ in their pocket?

Time to look at what our kids are doing!

A digital ethylene tetrafluoroethylene skinmaker?

The IKEA Home Planner.

It is intelligent: elements know their type, name, price, colour, material. They are constrained (a bed will stay on the floor, a power switch will go on the wall); The program is easy to use, intuitive and interactive. Good navigational tools. There are numerous other similar programs available on the market. As you design, you document and prepare a fully priced BOM.

Most serious professionals (architects and designers) frown at these ‘toys’.

They’d say the programs are restricting, square, boring, limiting. They hold back imagination, force conformity. They’re no good.

How come, most ‘real’ CAD packages are unable to hit all these targets?

Is the flexibility of design such a high priority with developers that all the other features described above are neglected? Can’t we have both?

I mentioned the opportunity manufacturers of products/materials have with providing clever tools: imagine if each one contributed to a pool of virtual-designing gadgets available free to architects and designers?

A digital ethylenetetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) skinmaker?  

When prompted, most manufacturers are willing to explore these ideas; The challenge is: what ‘platform’ to use? It is a near monopolistic market – one player has been ruling the roost for 3 decades: Autodesk.

They have ruled but not really delivered; Time for an open source, wiki-platform!

Who’ll fill the need? Google? Sims? Second life? Some other gaming company?

A website of a toolmaker that had been courting the above described idea for quite some time:

http://www.cadimageworld.com/