Wednesday 7 October 2015

BSI BIM Conference – BIM Toolkit – Post 3 of 3 – Digital Plans of Work

Following a six week prototyping phase, a six month funded development phase and then five months of industry testing and further enhancements it was really good to be able to remove the ‘beta’ logo from the homepage of the BIM Toolkit in time for the 2015 BSI BIM Conference this year.

The removal of the ‘beta’ logo doesn't mean that the toolkit journey is at an end - but it is a sign that all of the functionality is working correctly and that it is ‘release quality’.

At the BSI BIM conference I presented three of the main concepts behind the BIM Toolkit: Classification; Levels of Definition and Digital Plans of Work. I have written three short blog posts to go through these slides as an introduction to these. This third blog post is on digital plans of work.

A digital plan of work allows a collaborative project team to define who is doing what and when throughout the project timeline. The PAS1192-2 graphic below shows how information is developed throughout the eight stages of a construction project. Using the digital plan of work tool within the BIM Toolkit provides a structured way of generating some of the key information that is required for documentation such as the EIR, the BEP and the MIDP.
The information delivery cycle
The slides below show how the free-to-use BIM Toolkit can assist project teams that would like to work to level-2 BIM.
Sign up and access your projects area of the site
Defining the tasks for inclusion in an EIR
Referencing the PLQ, the specific EIR and providing a brief against the task
Developing the response for inclusion in the proposed BEP
Defining modelled deliverables and responsibilities at the briefing stage

Defining the high-level building fabric elements at the concept stage
Defining the high-level building services at the concept stage
Defining the specific systems to meet the concept requirements as the designs progress
 Accessing the LOD guidance from the context of the DPOW
Accessing the LOI guidance from the context of the DPOW
Each LOD and LOI banding is broadly aligned against a typical stage of the plan of work. So LOI-4 is typical for the end of plan of work stage 4. However, it must be stressed that this may vary from system to system and from project to project. For example on a leisure centre project at stage 4:

Variation of LOI at a particular stage of a project
  • The floating floor system may be at LOI-5 where all products are fully specified through the manufacturer product references. For example, this is a centre for excellence for gymnastics and the client must have a specific floor from the manufacturer Harlequin.
  • The partition systems may be at LOI-4 where all products are fully designed, but the choice of manufacturer has been left to the contractor – providing the specification is met.
  • The surveillance system may be at LOI-3 where the overall system performance and how this will be tested prior to handover has been specified. But the choice of compliant products is the design responsibility of the specialist sub-contractor.
  • The paving system simply has an LOI of ‘2’. A brief description indicates what the aspirations are and what provisional sum has been assigned to the item in order to fully specify mid-way through the construction process.
Summary slide
An example digital plan of work that I used for these illustrations may be downloaded below. Disclaimer - Please excuse any technical inaccuracies, please treat it as simply showing the principles. The download has an MS Excel version of the file, a little thumbnail image and also a .DPOW file which can be imported into the BIM Toolkit when you create a project.

- Download the Lakeside Restaurant DPOW file
Step 1 - Select to create a new project, then select to use a template
Browse to the DPOW file to import this project file
Further information:

BSI BIM Conference – BIM Toolkit – Post 2 of 3 – Levels of Definition

Following a six week prototyping phase, a six month funded development phase and then five months of industry testing and further enhancements it was really good to be able to remove the ‘beta’ logo from the homepage of the BIM Toolkit in time for the 2015 BSI BIM Conference this year.

The removal of the ‘beta’ logo doesn't mean that the toolkit journey is at an end - but it is a sign that all of the functionality is working correctly and that it is ‘release quality’.

At the BSI BIM conference I presented three of the main concepts behind the BIM Toolkit: Classification; Levels of Definition and Digital Plans of Work. I have written three short blog posts to go through these slides as an introduction to these. This second blog post is on levels of definition.

At the conference, I attempted to work through an analogy reflecting on how content for an event was developed. Three months before the conference the speakers would provide a description of their presentations. Two months before the conference they’d provide an outline of the proposed slide sequences. Nearing the conference date a final draft would be provided and then the actual presentation would be published as a record.
The incremental stages of putting together a presentation
This process provides just the right amount of information at the right time. It allows the client (the conference organiser) to have confidence that the content is progressing and to sell the event. It allows the team of speakers to share their intentions and align their messages. It is not onerous in terms of the demand for too much information too soon.

These principles apply also to the construction industry. These levels of definition can be split into ‘level of detail’ which relates to the geometric detail and ‘level of information’ which defines the information related to the model. The slides below illustrate this:
Technical Article from Alistair Kell BDP and Stefan Mordue NBS
Expected geometric development for building fabric and services examples
Expected information development for building fabric and services examples
Example LOD-2 illustration for a tunnel lining system
Example LOD-5 illustration for a tunnel lining system
Example LOI-3 illustration for a tunnel lining system
As part of the BIM Toolkit so far we have published around 500 sets of LOD illustrations and 5,700 sets of specific LOI definitions (and associated Microsoft Excel templates). All LOI information is available for free in a documented software API.

Summary slide
Further information:

BSI BIM Conference – BIM Toolkit - Post 1 of 3 – Classification

Following a six week prototyping phase, a six month funded development phase and then five months of industry testing and further enhancements it was really good to be able to remove the ‘beta’ logo from the homepage of the BIM Toolkit in time for the 2015 BSI BIM Conference this year.

The removal of the ‘beta’ logo doesn't mean that the toolkit journey is at an end - but it is a sign that all of the functionality is working correctly and that it is ‘release quality’.

At the BSI BIM conference I presented three of the main concepts behind the BIM Toolkit: Classification; Levels of Definition and Digital Plans of Work. I have written three short blog posts to go through these slides as an introduction to these. This first blog post is on classification.

Before looking at classification in the construction industry it is worth looking at a world-leading web application like ebay. As a seller, it couldn't make it easier to classify the item you are selling. This allows ebay to gain valuable intelligence in terms of the millions of assets within its data store. It also allows potential customers to quickly find items they are interested in by filtering bases on specific properties. For example, a DVD has a ‘region’, a ‘length’, a list of ‘special features’; a t-shirt has a ‘size’, a ‘colour’, a ‘material’ etc…
Classification made easy by ebay
For the digital construction industry, a unified classification system is important for the same reasons. A part of the BIM Toolkit project we have accelerated the Uniclass developments and have now published a number of these tables. There is consistency between the tables and each table covers objects of the same scale. The slides below illustrate this:
Uniclass2015 – based on the ISO 12006-2 framework for classification
Technical Article from Sarah Delany, Head of Classification at NBS
An example ‘Complex’ is an ‘Airport’
An example ‘Location’ is an ‘Aircraft standing area’
An example ‘Element’ is a ‘Barrier’
An example ‘System’ is a ‘Jet blast deflection system’
An example ‘Product’ is a ‘Jet blast deflector’
As part of the BIM Toolkit so far we have published nearly 11,000 classifications. We believe that this is the first truly digitally classification system. You cannot buy it in a book or download it as a PDF. It is available only in digital form – query it online, download it in a spreadsheet/database or query it using the documented software API.
Summary slide
Further information:

Thursday 1 October 2015

London's most recent famous buildings

I was around the Tower Hill area in London yesterday for the BSI BIM conference. It was a beautiful clear day. Photographs from a few of London's most recent famous buildings below... impressive feats of engineering.