Dubai mandates BIM for most large-scale projects

Dubai Municipality (DM) mandated the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools for most large-scale projects in the emirate last year. The new regulation will apply to buildings that are 40 storeys or taller.

Facilities and buildings that cover at least 300,000 sq ft, hospitals, universities and other special buildings, as well as those being delivered by an international party are also subject to the new rule.

The regulation comes in the wake of increasing global adoption — the European Union made BIM a mandate last month, while Singapore has made it mandatory for all public housing projects.

In announcing the regulation, DM said the decision was taken based on the ability of BIM tools and workflows in improving construction quality, enabling collaboration between project participants across phases, lowering costs, reducing time, unifying specifications and standards as well as cost planning.

Experts view the move as an opportunity for Dubai to embrace sophisticated design technology to build its projects more efficiently and even establish a technology-driven construction industry.

The purpose

Steve Anderson, Design Systems Manager at Atkins, says, “BIM is the purposeful management of information through the whole life cycle of an infrastructure project, not just for a building or during design and construction. BIM starts with the end in mind — the intent and context for an asset and how it will be integrated, operated and maintained. It describes the activity, not an object, and is much more than a single technology or tool.

“It’s a quantum change in practices, processes and behaviours around the infrastructure industry.

“This benefits the construction market to drive efficiencies in the design and construction process.”

The growing importance of BIM stems from governments collaborating with stakeholders to modernise

the industry. “The key objective is to reduce capital cost and carbon burden from the construction and operation of the built environment,” says Anderson.

According to a report by Kuwait Finance House (KFH) Research, a subsidiary of KFH, the UAE’s construction sector is set to grow at an average annual rate of 5.1 per cent until next year. Dubai’s new mandate proves to be both timely and strategic as the KFH Research study also indicates that contracts to build roads, airports, seaports and other infrastructure in the UAE could cross $30 billion (Dh110.19 billion).

With the Dubai Metro expansion and World Expo 2020 in the pipeline, Suhail Arfath, Head of Autodesk Consulting — Middle East, says the emirate will be seeing a lot of major infrastructure developments, and the key challenges when building such huge ventures mainly include delivering the projects on time, at optimum cost and making an impact on residents.

“With the use of BIM, Dubai can improve its overall project deliverables by developing more sustainably, on time with safety and quality in place.

“BIM can help the emirate continue and expand on its global leadership in building and infrastructure — not only improving productivity but also becoming a role model for the rest of the world in terms of sustainability as various successful projects worldwide affirm.

“The region offers the perfect opportunity to demonstrate BIM’s implications for the creation of efficient, sustainable and beautiful buildings that can set a global standard.”

The technology

BIM is an intelligent model-based process that allows architects, contractors, engineers and property owners to plan, design, construct and manage building and infrastructure projects faster, more economically and with less environmental impact, says Arfath.

“The BIM technology turns information into insight, which helps professionals deliver the infrastructure and building project in a much more cost-effective and timely manner.

“The model also aids in predicting what will happen at varied phases of development before the project actually hits the ground, hence the elements of clashes are eliminated.”

BIM to enhance the strategic position value of companies

BIM is in most of the cases related to a specific project, with beginning and end through what he like to call the full life-cycle of any facility. It is a fair statement, however because BIM is more than information, relates with the process and the workflow to create and manage that information, hence it has a huge impact on companies. How companies can use BIM to impact the market and compete in the industry?

‘In the AEC industry, BIM has become much more than just an acronym for Building Information Modeling. It has become a business strategy for gaining a competitive advantage.

The BIM revolution is affecting competition in three vital ways:

• It is changing the industry structure and in so doing, altering the rules of competition.
• It is creating a competitive advantage by providing BIM-enabled firms new ways to outperform rivals.
• It has begun to spawn whole new businesses, often from within a company’s existing operations.

Industry-wide acceptance and maturation of BIM technologies is significant as a business practice. This evolution toward BIM did not occur by flipping a switch. The industry move from dependence on 2D CAD to 3/4/5D BIM required a learning curve that many were not prepared for culturally. Before you can turn your organization into a BIM-integrated business, you will need to ask many questions about the role that BIM might play in your overall business strategy. To start, you will need to assess how BIM can redefine your project methodologies and how your efforts can provide a return on investment.’

BIM can be a lot of things, but why can BIM help your company to be competitive?

• BIM is a process;
• BIM is a technology;
• BIM is a mindset;
• BIM can enhance staffing;
• BIM can open new opportunities for current and future clients, and build better client relationships;
• BIM is a business strategy.

So, especially if your company has a project-based philosophy, because BIM cares about the project information in so many different ways, the link is obvious and is a great ‘everything’that can create impact in every single area of your structure.

In a nutshell, ‘BIM has become an opportunity to deliver better designed and built projects to our customers.’

BIM and traditional documentation - Measures to mitigate the conflicts

BIM is a collaborative process to create a single source of data. Ideally, BIM shall be used since the first sketches of any facility, allowing the generation of all information from the same source of data. However, we are living a transition era where BIM documentation and traditional documentation are mixed up, creating a complex arrangement of data. Paul Prescott and Gabriel Olufemi of Pinsent Masons, a law firm, suggest some measures to mitigate conflicts for the different stages of the construction process.

‘If BIM is used on a project, hard copy drawings may continue to be used by the design team. Difficulties may, therefore, arise if there are any inconsistencies between the drawings and BIM models. For example, the drawings may show different dimensions or layouts to the configurations on BIM models.

There are some key contractual concerns to consider when using BIM on a future project.

BIM at tender stage

It is common for bidders to be issued with BIM models and drawings as part of the tender documents. If there are inconsistencies between the two, bidders may not know which to use to determine the correct quantities to calculate the tender price.

Employers must ensure that BIM models and drawings are consistent at tender stage. The tender documents should also clearly indicate the document or model, which would take precedence if there were any inconsistencies between them. If bidders do identify inconsistencies and there is no ‘priority of document’ clause in the general conditions or they make no reference to BIM models, bidders should, ideally, raise a tender clarification. In any event, bidders should always bring an inconsistency to the attention of the employer to avoid problems post contract award. 

 BIM at contract award

The contractor’s obligation is to execute the works in accordance with the design documents. If hard copy drawings are included in the contract documents, there may be inconsistencies between the drawings and BIM models. Disagreements may arise as to the extent of the scope of works under the contract (that is, whether the contractor is required to execute the works in accordance with the drawings or BIM models if there are inconsistencies between them).

While contracts usually contain a ‘priority of documents’ clause, they do not always identify which ‘design’ document is to have priority in the event of inconsistencies. In the Chartered Institute of Building Contract for Use with Complex Projects, precedence is given to BIM models over drawings. But the International Federation of Consulting Engineers Contract  – t he preferred form in Qatar – is silent on the use of BIM and so careful consideration should be given to how inconsistencies will be resolved.

Given that drawings and BIM models are both likely to be treated as design documents describing the scope of works, there should, ideally, be no inconsistencies between them.  It is therefore sensible, as they are documents forming part of the contract, that the drawings and BIM models have the same priority. However, as there is no set rule, bidders should carefully scrutinise the contract in cases where BIM is being used.

BIM post contract award

One of the challenges with BIM is to ensure that all the parties on a project buy into and use BIM software. Some design and build contractors may have challenges getting their supply chain to use BIM –  usually due to a lack of expertise or the increased cost of recruiting a BIM manager.

Some of the parties on a project are likely to continue to produce drawings, but irrespective of the priority given to the design documents in their contract, BIM models must be regularly updated throughout the design process. Failure to do this may result not only in inconsistencies but also incomplete or inaccurate design documents, which can have severe time and cost consequences.

In a traditional construct-only contract, the responsibility for correcting inconsistencies in the design documents issued to the contractor and updating BIM models should sit with the employer. The contractor should, in theory, be entitled to additional time and cost resulting from such inconsistencies if they delay the contractor in executing the works, although not all contracts will address this.’

BIM is becoming BIG in GCC states

If the saying is true that a week is a long time in politics, then the last year in the GCC construction industry has been a veritable lifetime. And while Building Information Modelling (BIM) was one of the buzzwords last year, it is now a common part of the vocabulary used by the consultants, architects and contractors involved in reshaping the Gulf’s construction sector.

 A market that was taking tentative steps towards a recovery 12 months ago has progressed in leaps and bounds, with the volume of announced, restarted and planned projects in the UAE alone in 2014 expected to be valued somewhere in the region of $315bn.

With each passing year, the list of major projects across the globe demanding use of the system grows.

Jeddah’s 1km tall Kingdom Tower, Abu Dhabi International Airport’s Midfield Terminal Building, and Doha Metro are just some of the mega-projects underway in the GCC to have embraced the method. Now it is not so much a case of whether BIM will be implemented on a large project, but how it will be executed.

Paul Madden, business development director at BAM International said: “It is now well accepted that BIM is probably the most efficient tool for managing the full life cycle of any building – right from the concept stage through the construction and during the operation and maintenance phase.

Indeed, BAM has embraced BIM to such a degree that it has set a mandate for fully integrating BIM support into all of its projects by 2020.

“BIM allows a building to be built digitally before the actual construction,” Madden continued. “The advantages of digitally constructing a building cannot be overemphasised as this will assist us, as a main contractor, to optimise the site set-up, streamline the construction methodology and extract accurate quantities together with a correct visualisation of the project.

“These were far-fetched thoughts during the era of blue print and 2D drawings.”

Unlike with traditional 2D drawings, the theory behind BIM is that the data in a BIM-led project remains consistent, co-ordinated and more accurate across all stakeholders, regardless of how many times the design changes, or who changes it. As a result, BIM is designed to ensure building and infrastructure projects are created and completed faster, more economically and sustainably.

According to Tim Cole, executive vice-president of research and development with BIM software provider Causeway, “the world did not change overnight just because we realised that BIM was a great way to help transform project outcomes”.

And while progress is certainly being made, he believes BIM needs to be embraced better to allow its reach and benefits encompass the entire lifecycle of the built environment.

“BIM is often described as being a process and not a technology, perhaps by those hoping to avoid stirring an underlying fear of technology,” said Cole. “I think BIM is best described as a technology-enabled process that is built on collaboration and early engagement’.

“Take out any one of these elements, and the benefits are greatly reduced.”

Elsewhere in The GCC, with BIM being used on some of Qatar’s headline construction programs, there is confidence that the technology will become even more important over the next 12 months as significant contracts are awarded.

Rene Schumann, managing director of Hochtief ViCon, said: “This year will be another important and interesting year for Qatar in its BIM history, especially through significant projects like the football World Cup and rail projects, which require BIM from the tender stage.”

However, despite its many advantages, Mohannad Altabbal, general manager for BIMES Middle East, warned BIM alone is not the answer to all problems.

He said: “BIM has previously been promoted as an easy, magical software solution. The number of times I have heard the phrase ‘with one click’ is quite saddening.

“BIM is not just about software. The big challenge is understanding the change that comes along with BIM and that requires a change of mentality.

“Many were promised big results, yet they couldn’t deliver what they used to deliver in 2D. This had a negative impact on BIM in the region, and we are trying to change that by focusing on the real, achievable BIM goals.”

If the full potential of BIM is to be realised throughout the GCC then a shortage of qualified BIM engineers is a particular issue which needs to be addressed, with adequate training put in place to keep up with market demand.

Global Infrastructure Hub to enable BIM adoption

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.

BIM Award in Constructing Excellence North East

The awards ceremony, which celebrates the great and good of the North East construction industry, will take place on Friday May 8 at the Newcastle Marriott Gosforth Park Hotel.

There are 13 categories for individuals or companies to enter which includes awards for integration and collaborative working, leadership and people development, sustainability, SMEs, innovation, value, health and safety, heritage as well as young achiever, achiever, client and project of the year.

Catriona Lingwood, chief executive of Constructing Excellence in the North East, said: “Our awards celebrate everything the North East construction has achieved over the past 12 months and to reflect that, this year we are introducing a new award which will focus on the use of BIM technology in projects.

“We are keen to recognise those who are taking a leap into new markets to make their projects as successful as they can possibly be- whether that be an SME or larger organisation.”

This year there is also a new addition to the usual awards line up, with an award that will recognise a project that has used Building Information Modelling (BIM) to dramatically improve the design, delivery and operation of its built assets.

The winner of each category will go on to compete in the National Constructing Excellence Awards, held in London in the Autumn. Last year, four of the North East winners were recognised nationally in categories including young achiever of the year and integration & collaborative working.

BIM Paves the Way to Success

As BIM (building information modelling) is increasingly being adopted as a standard in architecture and construction, civil engineers are now seeking to identify the role it can play in their field.

Civil engineers who are regularly engaged with architects or structural engineers may already be familiar with BIM, but for those who are involved in designing roads and highways, the process is a whole new world, but one that is highly relevant now and will continue to grow in importance.

BIM helps not just in constructing ‘buildings’ but also in building any sort of infrastructure.  It is an integrated process built on coordinated and reliable information about a project from design through construction and operations.

BIM can be considered a thought process that governs work through various stages of the project in the shape of information that stays digital, consistent and coordinated.  Hence, the chief benefits of BIM are that there is no duplication of information.  It is a constantly updated centralised database model and streamlined flow of information from field (survey) to design and finally to construction and maintenance/operations.

BIM and civil engineers

Implementing a BIM process for road and highway design starts with the creation of coordinated, reliable design information about the project, resulting in an intelligent 3-D model of the roadway.  The elements of the design are related to each other dynamically, not just points, surfaces, and alignments, but a rich set of information and the attributes associated with it.

For example, halfway through a roadway design project the profile may need adjustments to a vertical curve and the grades. By adjusting the profile, all of the related design elements update automatically, allowing the designer to instantly see the impact.

In this way, BIM facilitates evaluation of many more design alternatives. As part of the design process, civil engineers can leverage the information model to conduct simulation and analysis to optimise the design for constructability, sustainability and road safety. Finally, with a BIM process, design deliverables can be created directly from the information model. Deliverables include not only 2D construction documentation, but also the model itself and all the rich information it contains, which can be leveraged for quantity take-off, construction sequencing, construction stake-out,  as-built comparisons and even operations and maintenance.

In the case of construction stake-out, digital points are added in the office to the information model and can be sent directly to total station equipment on site. This equipment has the ability, once coordinated to stake-out numerous points robotically removing the need to generate stake-out points from 2D CAD or paper drawings. This process allows a more efficient and accurate way to link the office to the site and through verification of the as-constructed, links the site back to the office.

The use of modelling, 3-D visualisation and analysis is nothing new for road and highway design professionals, but with traditional drafting-centric approaches, design, analysis and documentation become disconnected processes, making evaluation of what-if scenarios inefficient and cost prohibitive.

By dynamically connecting design, analysis, and documentation in a BIM workflow, most of the effort in a roadway design project is shifted back into the detailed design phase when the ability to impact project performance is high and the cost of making design changes is low. This allows engineers to spend more time evaluating what-if scenarios to optimise the design and less time generating construction documentation.

Machine guidance applications can benefit significantly from a BIM model, an object based model supports attribute meta data associated to work packages for specific machine types. High accuracy paving machines require parametric models, while earthmoving machinery can work will with surfaces, string-lines as well as parametric models.

Benefits in civil design

The most immediate benefits of BIM in the case of road and highway design are better designs and increased efficiency and productivity. Because design and construction documentation are dynamically linked, the time needed to evaluate more alternatives, execute design changes and produce construction documentation is reduced significantly. This is particularly important for transportation agencies because it can shorten the time to contract letting, resulting in projects being completed sooner and within more predictable timetables.

Beyond efficiency and productivity, BIM facilitates roadway optimisation by including visualisation, simulation and analysis as part of the design process. Many criteria can be assessed to achieve an optimal roadway design, for example in terms of constructability, road safety and sustainability.

Constructability

Civil engineers typically design for code compliance, not for constructability. But incorrect interpretations about design intent made in the field because of ambiguous documentation can lead to delayed schedules, change in orders and RFIs (requests for information) after construction begins.

Consider a typical new highway construction project with bridges and interchanges budgeted for £100m. Typically, about seven to eight per cent of the investment will go into design development.

Reducing the design spend by 35 per cent with a more productive process saves £2.6m. But reducing the construction portion by 15 per cent by considering constructability during design saves nearly £14m. These savings don’t take into account litigation that can result from mistakes in the field. Designing for constructability can help reduce these mistakes before they become a problem.

Rich BIM models allow the machine guidance to reach new levels of data capture and as-built object modelling.  Machine control, with a CAD based model improves productivity on a job site, by eliminating the need for traditional stake-out methods.  However, the BIM model offers the ability to work with specific objects, and update at an object level the specificity of as-built information. This includes capturing more than just points; it includes layers, material type, and underground utilities, contributing to a rich model to be used further in the process.

A single BIM model can be updated from a variety of machine control applications simultaneously, and shared across multiple systems, minimising duplication of work.

Road safety

Analysis to ensure safe stopping and passing sight distances is a key factor driving design decisions. Traditional sight distance analysis is based on mathematical equations applied to vertical curvature in the road profile. But, this approach fails to take into account factors such as horizontal layout and visual obstructions. Integrating interactive visualisation and sight distance simulation into the design process allows the civil engineer to identify quickly whether the road geometry meets critical safety parameters related to sight distances, including grades, curvature, and visual obstructions such as barriers, berms and foliage.

Probably the most significant advantage of BIM compared with a drafting-centric process is the ability to extend the use of the information model beyond design, analysis and simulation into the field (construction) through solutions like Leica’s BIM Field Trip. For example, transportation agencies increasingly are using the 3-D model for operating construction equipment with GPS (Global Positioning System) machine guidance. Benefits include increased productivity and accuracy, reduced survey costs, lower equipment operating costs and an extended work day.