BIM Drives Cost-Efficiencies for Plumbing Design

                 Since our construction industry is grappled with severe productivity issues and tight margins, the AEC industry is striving hard to come up with new ways of improving productivity, reducing construction costs and delivering a better-built building. Building Information Modelling, a new technological advancement in the AEC industry after CAD seems to have the potential to address these issues. As per the definition of BIM by The National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS), “BIM is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility and it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life cycle from inception onward.” BIM has evolved from being just a buzzword to the centrepiece of AEC technology and it has significant benefits for plumbing design.

            BIM enables a 3D virtual representation of the plumbing systems thus helping to better understand the final outcome, make more informed decisions and detect collisions. One of the major benefits BIM technology serves for plumbing is interference-checking. Using BIM to detect early collisions helps to prevent costly design changes during the actual construction process whilst also reducing guesswork and errors. Since the underground plumbing lines are located in reference to the foundations; BIM enables a plumbing designer with actual building footings marked by the structural engineer to preserve the structural integrity of the building. With the help of the building footings, a plumbing designer can easily coordinate the underground routing without compromising the structural design of the building.

             Building Information Modelling entails developing an information-rich model. In addition to building shape, costs, design, construction time, physical performance, costs and logistics, BIM also provides information about two additional parameters in the case of plumbing fixtures – information about the required GPM flow of the standard fixture and the reduced GPM flow. With an aim to conserve energy and natural resources, there has been an increased focus on green building projects. BIM facilitates easier identification of systems in LEED Plumbing Design by creating different colour systems. Since there is a variation in colour, identifying grey water routing becomes easier and hence helps to prevent cross contamination with other waste systems.

                BIM creates a unified working environment with multiple disciplines working together on a single file. A plumbing engineer can create a design for hot and cold water and simultaneously check the HVAC design worksheet for conflicts.BIM serves a plethora of benefits for plumbing design such as increased efficiency, accuracy and coordination of the system as well as reducing the time and cost involved in it.

BIM : An Effective Way to Reduce Rework and Increase Efficiency

                As the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry faces tremendous pressure to deliver optimal projects within stringent deadlines, improving process efficiency and reducing rework is certainly the need of the hour. The design and construction-related rework is one of the critical factors that adversely affect productivity, profitability and timely completion of projects for both contractors and owners. Besides, it impacts designers, subcontractors, MEP (M&E) engineers, consultants and the entire downstream chain. In comparatively larger and more complex projects, the design-build rework can negatively influence the entire project workflow, delay project delivery, and cost more than what was originally estimated.

            As mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems account for a significant value of the project, the prudent use of building information modelling (BIM) tools to effectively coordinate MEP (M&E) systems helps reduce rework and increase productivity. On the other hand, the lack of well-planned interdisciplinary MEP (M&E) coordination results in duplication of efforts, major interferences and design clashes on site, as well as fabrication changes and errors.

             Since BIM requires comprehensive pre-construction planning and   multidisciplinary coordination, its adoption by the MEP (M&E) team increases technical interoperability among various members during building services coordination. In BIM-led MEP (M&E) coordination, building services designers, consultants, and subcontractors are involved during the design and planning stage. One of the most crucial factors for an effective and accurate coordination exercise is to decide on a specific protocol for creating virtual architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection models of the same facility. Subsequently, the team should agree on mechanisms to merge the models from different trades and create a combined coordinated services MEP model.

              All the above positive effects of MEP (M&E) BIM coordination make the design-build process more efficient by increasing project’s schedule compliance whilst reducing design and construction-related rework.

BIM adoption

                        BIM is about linking data together efficiently and meaningfully in a central location so as to subsequently facilitate high levels of collaboration between project participants. BIM implementation has great potential and this is necessarily scalable, to meet the needs and budget of the client. However, in order to be successful BIM deployment for a particular project must be clearly tailored to the client’s needs, and these relayed to all project team members, so that their rights and responsibilities are equally clearly understood.

              Internationally BIM adoption is on the rise. A number of value propositions justify its use, and this may be accrued at the level of the firm or project. The use of BIM can enhance the attractiveness of individual firms, through improved service delivery and productivity, consequently improving their marketability, potentially resulting in repeat business. It is argued that early engagement with BIM hastens the point at which maximal benefit will accrue. At the project level BIM can provide greater value during design development, document development and construction/fabrication stages. During construction BIM has the potential to add value to the client through improved information flows, better project control and reduced conflicts.

Failure to adopt BIM would affect consultants ability to work internationally

                     Building Information Modeling (BIM) could achieve worldwide popularity and acceptance in a short span of time. Various studies report that around 70% of engineers, architects, contractors and owners are engaged with BIM on their various big and small projects. Dramatic adoption of BIM by contractors is started to experience since 2009 for virtual coordination and prefabrication.  But, it was the engineers, who were least convinced of BIM’s value in 2009. However, they left the reluctance to adopt BIM, when they found that they could solve the issues of content and technical analysis with this technology.

                      BIM is an innovative approach to design and construction, which is now taking its place firmly in the mainstream of construction industry. Like any other technology, BIM also has emerged enough standard and maturity to achieve attention of professional organizations. It expands its use to new tasks and integrates its rich data with many other vital technology tools that will help drive innovation.

BIM IDEAL TOOL FOR ARCHITECTS

                    Several advanced technologies are there, which are serving several industries to make overall working process a simpler one. Building information modeling is one of the best. It is a technique of generating data to present the work done, in digital form. The result of services related to BIM becomes a shared knowledge among the professionals working together. Besides its use in several other sectors, architectural industry is getting out most benefit from it. Information provided by such techniques make it easy for architects, builders , contractors, and workers to share the knowledge about construction very easily. Information is stored as data in computer; therefore, it becomes easy to get relative knowledge. There are various advantages of using such a tool. It provides accurate and overall information about the construction process. High quality documents that contain information can easily be produced.

BIM enables better informed decision making.

During the process of building design, an architect has to consider many options and he also needs enough information to select one. With the help of BIM, the architect can create and study multiple design options within a single model.

BIM, which is powered by high-resolution graphics, qualified details and a 3D modeling interface, helps create an accurate virtual model of a sustainable building project. It is also helpful for creating various types of analysis like quantity takeoffs and clash detection. BIM also enables creation of a 3D model in a quick, easy and cost-effective way that helps architects create multiple alternatives and select the most suitable sustainable design for a construction project.

BIM-based design model ensures that designers and architects get easy access to the information needed for creating sustainability in design. The sophisticated software tools used in BIM enables quick information processing and easy revisions.  The amount required for building materials to complete a project can also be easily calculated using BIM.

Most importantly, BIM helps establish a single point of contact for various participants in a project that will be useful in executing a sustainable building design effectively.

BIM – DNA of Future Construction

            BIM will really lead to a more collaborative way of working across the industry and therefore, we with no doubt can say that it is the DNA of future construction. It helps record all physical and functional information and characteristics of a building digitally from the earliest stages through design and construction. It can be used as a manual for the operational life of a structure. The shared knowledge throughout by BIM will help decision-making and make all process drastically time efficient.

         BIM, more than a just about software, is about process and changing mindsets on how to acquire, construct and transfer information from one stage to the next. As construction industry requires the involvement of many people in different stages including, designing, building and delivering projects, there are possibilities to lose information groups of people. Moreover, starting from scratch to retrieve some pieces of data, it is expensive and time consuming.  BIM really can be a solution to all these problems.

          As a vital information model, BIM can be developed continuously, when a new team takes control of a project. The more extensive information provided by BIM can help simplify more complex structures. As the information is created collaboratively, all involved get a head start with no resourcing or backtracking. BIM can offer a wider scope of digital information at an earlier stage of development that cannot be possible by traditional plans and two dimensional drawings. It records and tags everything including spatial relationships, geographic information, light analysis and quantities and properties of building components.

         The modeling and analysis with the helps of BIM is not only beneficial to present scheme structures, but it also aids the long term care of a building. It helps the owners save a lot of time and money, which is very valuable advantage in construction industry