It's been a slow start for Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Australia but industry is confident that the creation of a Global Infrastructure Hub in Sydney this year will provide the momentum necessary to really get the ball rolling.
At the same time government and industry have developed a formal framework for the adoption of BIM which will enable industry to realise the full benefits of using more robust methodologies.
The $15 million-a-year Global Infrastructure Hub based in Sydney will be funded by eight countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Mexico and Singapore.
The initiative, which was endorsed by world leaders at the G20 Summit in Brisbane last year, will have a four-year mandate to improve the quality of infrastructure investment across the world. The leaders' communique said the hub would contribute to a "knowledge-sharing platform and network" between governments, the private sector and other international organisations.
It will be a not-for-profit company established under Australian law.
"The hub will foster collaboration among these groups to improve the functioning and financing of infrastructure markets," it said.
The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said the hub would help improve how infrastructure markets work.
"The Hub will work internationally to help countries improve their general investment climates, reduce barriers to investment, grow their project pipelines and help match investors with projects," he said.
The B20 – a business group affiliated with the G20 – says the hub can help unlock an additional $2 trillion in global infrastructure capacity between now and the year 2030.
Industry is hopeful that this initiative, which will provide a solid investment base, will help push the adoption of BIM across the Asia Pacific region.
Countries in the Asia Pacific region are forecast to spend $700 billion a year over the next three decades on infrastructure. Acknowledging these drivers, coupled with the lessons learned from the successful adoption of BIM in other parts of the world such as Scandinavia and the UK, will provide the foundation Australia needs to begin using BIM processes for infrastructure projects.
Australian industry will finally have the opportunity to realise the productivity gains that accompany BIM processes.
At the launch of the BIM guidelines, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Bob Baldwin, said that when the guidelines are applied it will improve the quality and delivery of major infrastructure and construction projects.
“By providing consistent procedures and protocols, the framework ensures BIM can be consistently applied on projects and its data shared among all project parties,” he said.
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