Wednesday 4 March 2015

Ecobuild 2015 - The buzz around BIM

I spent all day yesterday at Ecobuild checking out the BIM Buzz.

Of all of the years I have been attending Ecobuild, this year must have been the busiest so far when it comes to delegates wanting to know about BIM a year before the Government mandate. For some of the sessions at the BIM Theatre there wasn't even enough standing room for people to see each session.

Dave Philp gave an update on the UK Government's level-2 strategy and the journey to level-3. In terms of the level-2 BIM package Dave spoke proudly about how UK will have a world-class set of standards and tools by June this year to put the UK industry at the vanguard of BIM world-wide.
UK Government's BIM Task Group Dave Philp runs the show at the ecobuild BIM Theatre
"The Government will launch their completed level-2 package of world class standards and tools in June 2015"
After showing some screenshots of the NBS BIM Toolkit, Dave passed the mike to myself and I gave a 30 minute overview of the the project. For those wanting to watch a video of this - please click below.
What is the BIM Toolkit?
Professor Steve Lockley then demonstrated the verification aspects of the BIM Toolkit. This work from BIM Academy is really pushing COBie/IFC open data to the next stage. 
Professor Steve Lockley from BIM Academy demonstrates verifying modelled information using open data (IFC/COBie)

For those wanting to be at the launch of the BIM Toolkit. Dave Philp, Steve Lockley and I will be launching this at BIM Show Live on April 8th. BIM Show Live is probably the main BIM event in the UK each year - so grab your tickets below...
bimshowlive.co.uk/seminar/stage-1-the-new-bim-toolkit-and-digital-plan-of-work/

Andrew Duncan from Arup then presented about the fantastic Project Ove before going on to describe how they are taking the time now to review all of their technical data sheets and concentrating on the I in BIM by creating consistency across their in-house library of objects. The image below shows Arup's BIM Room - a huge screen to review models when they are coordinated.
BIM in practice with Arup's Andrew Duncan
Ian Chapman from NBS hosted the session on BIM for manufacturers. Why did leading manufacturers such as Armstrong Ceilings, Ideal Standard and Iguzzini start providing BIM objects for their customers?

Leading on from the Arup presentation, again, and maybe unsurprisingly it primarily came down to standardising the digital information that the industry needs first and foremost. On this point, it's great to see so many organisations (designers, contractors and manufacturers) all looking to NBS in terms of the minimum standard we have set with our free-to-use NBS BIM Object Standard. It has always been our intention to try and create the national library for UK BIM objects in a similar way to how we standardised specification in the 1970s. And where practices want to create their own "office masters" then they extend this to meet their needs.
The BIM for manufacturers debate chaired by Ian Chapman
BIM for manufacturers is also about creating added value for customers and having a new innovative angle to speak to the market. Looking around the rest of ecobuild - it does seem to be the case that the manufacturer community is starting to really take up BIM.

Celotex nationalbimlibrary.com/celotex
Celotex with Augmented Reality technologies
Assa Abloy nationalbimlibrary.com/assa-abloy
BIM-ready Assa Abloy
Boon Edamnationalbimlibrary.com/boon-edam
Boon Edam's objects on display
Kingspan Insulationnationalbimlibrary.com/kingspan-insulation
Working with digital data to calculate U-values from Kingspan Insulation
Ideal Standard - Working towards the NBS BIM object standard
Joining the National BIM Library and authoring to the NBS BIM Object Standard - Ideal (BIM) Standard
Crown Paintsnationalbimlibrary.com/crown_paints
Crown
Dulux Trade - nationalbimlibrary.com/duluxtrade
Dulux
So - it's fair to say the BIM is the word at this year's ecobuild. I'm also attending today (Wednesday) and then Team NBS will also be there on Thursday.

Manufacturers wanting to learn more about BIM please see:
nationalbimlibrary.com/bim-for-manufacturers

...and while we are in East London, meanwhile in China...
Do we have a new member of the UK BIM Crew?
BBC News - Prince Williams promotes British companies at the Great Festival of Creativity in Shanghai

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