After working to these BIM standards on many projects it has become clear to us that for the industry to cope with BIM, work must be done to abridge or condense these standards into a more manageable format.
The illustration shows the core BIM Level 2 standard documents (and other guidelines) that are frequently required on BIM projects. Not all of the documents have to be read by everybody on the project, it will depend on their role, but someone needs to know about them
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In addition to these the following are also often required before embarking on a BIM project:
- BIM capability statement
- IT assessment form
- Resource assessment form
- BIM Execution Plan contributions (TIDP, task team arrangement etc).
- BIM-specific PQQs
Do you know how many pages of standards and project documents that equates to; that must be read, understood or filled out? 432 pages!
That’s using CPIx templates as a guideline for the pre and post BIM Execution Plans.
I worked out an average word count and discovered something else that is about the same length!
During industry events, and whilst working on projects, the common refrains we hear are:
‘The BIM standards are too complicated.’
‘The standards are written by administrators, not operators.’
‘The BIM standards are only suitable for a certain type of project.’
‘Smaller firms do not have the resource or the capability to fulfil all BIM requirements.’
Now the Level 2 BIM standards are published we have to make a decision:
Do we continue to adhere to these standards as they are?
Or do we try to adjust them to be more suited to reality?
We believe that doing the latter, is the only way of ensuring that BIM is adopted by the entire industry. So in subsequent blog posts we’re going to put our heads above the parapet and offer some suggestions as to how the BIM standards can be condensed and abridged, without sacrificing the advantages that a national standard brings.
Hopefully we’ll be able to provoke a discussion, and if we’re noisy enough perhaps get the authors of these standards to listen.
