NBS presentations at ecobuild

At ecobuild this week I have been doing live software presentations of two of our products, National BIM Library and NBS Create.

The RIBA Village - presentations from NBS every 30 minutes

1. National BIM Library

Ref: nationalBIMlibrary.com
This time last year the National BIM Library had not even been launched. It is amazing to see how far it has developed in just one year. The screenshots below shows how the focus of the National BIM Library will always be on the standardised information within the objects.

Update - A video of this presentation is now on our website:

NBS TV

Fig 1 - Building designed using some of the 500+ National BIM Library objects

Fig 2 – Example of the standardised information structures

Fig 3 – Example of recent work for the BIM Task Group labs area on information structures

2. NBS Create

Ref: theNBS.com/NBSCreate
NBS Create has revolutionised the way that specifications are thought of and how they are developed. The screenshots below show how by creating an object-based specification system, it is possible to coordinate with the equivalent objects in the 3D design model and also develop the specification content through the project.

Update - The video of this session is now on NBS TV...

NBS TV

Fig 4 – Aligning objects in the design model and the specification allows for clever functionality

Fig 5 – Specify early in the project timeline in terms of system performance requirements

Fig 6 – As the project develops then specify each individual product

Fig 7 – Within the information structure, add your own practice notes

Fig 8 – With respect to drawings and schedules are required, coordination with the specification is now easy

Thanks to Twitter you get all of the pictures afterwards that the twittererers have taken immediately

ecobuild 2013 - Day one photographs

Photographs from yesterday, come and visit us today - RIBA Village S1230.

ecobuild 2013 starts here

RIBAProductSelector catalogue and website

Free market research reports into 

Clare Watson gives Team-NBS their prep talk

The SpecMaster demo stand - Twyford Bathrooms developed by NBS

The Better with BIM main seminar series

The BIM Show Live lounge - complete with storm trooper and cow - good banter from the fellow #BIMGeordies

The storm trooper gets asked out on a date

Good to catch up with Jonathan, Martyn, Simon, Dave and Benedict at the open BIM zone

A big up to the guys from Soluis for producing our fantastic promo movie in time for ecobuild

Has COBie ever looked so good?

London - Trips Out

It's not all work, work, work at ecobuild. Today I managed to travel to the venue by the Emirates cable car across the Thames. This evening I had a trip up The Shard...

Millenium Dome from the Emirates cable car

Travelling to work in style

And travelling home from work - the sun setting

A few scribbles on a piece of paper - wonder what the finished building will look like?

London Bridge from the top of The Shard

Steel and glass at the top of The Shard

The potential of BIM to reduce waste during design and construction (part 1/2)

Today I chaired and presented one of the Better with BIM seminars at ecobuild. Can BIM be used to reduce waste during design and construction?

Ultimately, in my opinion, this question boils down to the simple fact that with better information, more informed decisions can be made. Taking this away from construction for a moment, could you eat more healthily if the content of your food was labelled more clearly? The answer is clearly “yes”. And this is analogous to construction – the information about the objects that buildings are built from must be better. This will allow us to build better buildings, lower energy use, less waste and cheaper.

I include a few screenshots, below showing better information delivered to designers around recycled content. This is possible through well-structured information. Better information from manufacturers can be delivered. Information from different providers can link together to produce a more coherent information set.

Fig 1 – Standard guidance on recycled content

Fig 2 – Suggested values for each product on market values

Fig 3 – Actual values from product manufacturers

Where this standardised information becomes even more valuable is when analysing this content in the context of a building model. By performing digital take-offs from multiple objects the benefits of consistency of information become clear.

Software functionality can also help. Where standardised objects sizes are included then “clever apps” can instantly show information. If plasterboard is 2400mm high for example, then partitions can be highlighted where cuts will have to be made. Spaces can be optimised to ensure that waste is minimised.

Fig 4 – Standardised properties

Waste on site can be reduced further if whole assemblies can be fabricated off-site. Within the factory, the design of these assemblies can be optimised. This means that the construction process on-site has a greater proportion of “assembling” and less “building”.

The screenshot below shows a model representing a standard column assembly from the Laing O’Rourke manufacturing plant. Models, guidance and standard specifications such as these can be given to design teams early in a project. The time savings are obvious as are the environmental impact benefits. Waste on site is clearly only part of this overall picture.

Fig 5 – Standardised BIM objects

So in conclusion, the digital information revolution is happening. Where information is well-structured, designers can then make well-informed decisions that can help reduce the environmental impact of buildings. And finally, where factory built assemblies can be used then the information can be even better controlled and issues such as waste-on-site can be greatly reduced.

National BIM Report 2013

Results from 1,350 professionals

The NBS National BIM Report 2013 is now published. Again, this year, it is completely free. It is launched at ecobuild this week at the RIBA Village S1230/S1330 and also will be a free download from http://www.thenbs.com/topics/BIM/reports/. With 1,350 responses to our survey, this is the biggest ever UK investigation into BIM to date.

As an overview, I give some extracts from the expert articles and survey results below...

The report opens with an introduction from RIBA Enterprises Chief Executive Richard Waterhouse.

Waterhouse

"As we delve deeper into the word of digital construction, we find that the fundamentals of delivering quality information have not changed – don’t expect quality output on poor quality input! The foundation of BIM must surely be the delivery of standardised and consistent information...

...BIM adopters can see that BIM is more than just ‘seductive graphics’ and ‘sexy 3D’.They can demonstrate that effective information management leads to business efficiency and profitability." 

 The Cabinet Office's Head of BIM Implementation David Philp then discussed the "how" of BIM. David makes the point that the "what" and the "why" of BIM have now been replaced by the "how".

Philp

"We need to support and demystify BIM throughout the entire supply chain, especially the SME and manufacturing community, who are vitally important in the UK’s whole sector approach to BIM.

...We should, as an industry, be especially proud of what has been achieved and indeed many industry commentators are now asserting that the UK has become the world leader in BIM through adoption and the central government policy and the requirements of the Government Construction Strategy."

A week before the report was released, some of the key findings were passed to a collection of "influencers" in the BIM community for their comment. It's interesting to read the short snippets from those pushing BIM methodologies at organisations such as Hilson Moran, BDP, Balfour Beatty, Arup Associates, EC Harris and PRP Associates.

Adrian Malleson, Research and Analysis Manager at NBS then takes us through the findings for 2013. I include two of the charts below. What is especially interesting this year is that the findings from the previous years can compared to look at the trending. As there is "BIM stamp" of certification, adoption or capabilities are largely self assessed. However, it is very interesting to look at.

Malleson

The second chart below is particularly interesting. As the UK Gov defines it, what level of BIM have you worked to (for those aware of this)? I wonder if anyone is truly working to level-2 BIM as the classifications, information structures and software capabilities (in my humble opinion) are still being developed for the 2016 vision. If the 8% working to level-3 BIM could leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post I'd be interested in their thoughts.

Year on year BIM awareness in the UK

What level BIM are you?

Adrian concludes...

"A majority think the Government is on the ‘right track’ with BIM. Those who are looking to BIM see its advantages, but tend to understate them. Those who have adopted BIM tell us that there are real benefits to be had, and they’re greater than expectations. The anticipation of future adoption remains high. Delaying BIM implementation may reduce expenditure – but the risk is an even greater reduction in future income."

Adrian presents the report findings at ecobuild 10.30am on Thursday (RIBA Village S1230) - so if you are at ecobuild - don't miss out on his presentation!

Four more articles follow. The first from Dale Sinclair the Chair of the RIBA Large Practice Group and the brains behind the soon to be released RIBA Plan of Work 2013. 

Sinclair

"BIM as a term is being used as a wrapper for many subjects. The RIBA Plan of Work 2013 sows the seeds to encourage many subjects to be considered. It acts as a stepping stone as the construction industry harnesses BIM in order to be more efficient and effective."

The recent BIM Task Group Labs work all hangs off the plan of work and the tasks and information development. The new RIBA Plan of Work aligns itself to the new CIC work stage headings and should be a fantastic tool in the UK (and abroad) for those who work on BIM projects.

My article is next up. As I was writing an article for the third BIM Report in a row, I tried to look at a bit of a new angle. The digital revolution has had a big impact on the construction industry in the last seven or eight years - so, if we had a crystal ball - how will it look by 2020?

Hamil

"Digital construction is here to stay. The ideas described in this article will become reality. Maybe this will be by 2020 – or maybe at a more leisurely pace. But it will happen. What the UK industry must do is to make sure that it is leading the world. We have to continue to invest in our digital capabilities so that we can build better buildings at home and also be a net-exporter of services abroad."

On the majority of large projects nowadays, both the design and the build are contractor led. In this year's report we asked one of the biggest tier-1 contractors Laing O'Rourke to tell us how they work with BIM. Christopher Northwood gives an insight how through "build-off-site" and modelling they are seeing great efficiencies.

Northwood

"We work with our supply chain to develop the model in accordance with the methods described in the Laing O’Rourke digital engineering protocols. This enables us to produce a model export which is set up for use by our Explore Industrial Park (EIP) manufacturing facility in Nottinghamshire. The design model can be developed containing data sets and attributes for all manufacturing information accountabilities. The attribute data is used to populate the designers’ drawings and schedules"

The screenshot below shows an example object and associated guidance that models a built-off-site standard assembly. It's great to see that National BIM Library classification and naming principles have been adopted and also the references to the equivalent NBS Create clauses.

Modelling "built-off-site" assemblies

The final article if from Elrond Burrell from Architype. Elrond is well known in both the sustainability and BIM UK communities. Early in the year he presented at our Green BIM Conference and I asked him if he wouldn't mind putting the presentation in the form of an article for this year's report. This mix of digital technology and improved process to help reduce environmental impact is a powerful message.

Burrell

"There are many definitions of BIM, but a key to differentiating it from 3D CAD is the information that the model contains. In a BIM process the right information can be made available at the right time and to the right parties. In this sense BIM provides quality assurance and plays an important role in the reduction of waste and repeat work at each stage of the building lifecycle."

I wonder if in 2020 or 2030, people will look back on these reports and reflect on this period of change. It certainly seems an exciting time.
NBS National BIM Report 2013:
http://www.thenbs.com/topics/BIM/reports

BIM Task Group - Labs Area - Overview

Update 20/04: The latest plain language questions pulled together by Nigel Fraser following client sessions with MoJ, SL, DfS + BIM4Retail groups have now been refreshed. At NBS we have updated the information requirements tables to reflect these changes. The latest CIC digital Plan of Work modifications are also reflected in this.

On Friday the BIM Task Group released a huge amount of information detailing how their digital vision will be implemented. At NBS, we played a small part here in terms of helping with the object information requirements part of the documentation. However, it's extremely interesting looking at the final package together. All of the material is free to browse at the URL below...
- http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/task-group-labs

I've only spent a few hours reviewing the material - so a big disclaimer that the overview below is "first impressions only" - but here are some thoughts.

1. Digital plan of work

The screenshot below shows how information typically develops over the project timeline. Information is defined as a combination of the geometry and the property-sets. So for the geometry, early on this may be just enough information for space planning - later in the project it may be enough to fabricate the object. For the property-sets... more on this later in section 3 of this blog-post. In the screenshot below the green circles are the digital plan of work stages that align to the data drops.

Information developing through the project stages

Objects can be anything from the complex (eg a hospital) down to a material (eg the sand that makes up the concrete). Each of these objects have property-sets - this is the y-axis below. The x-axis defines the digital plan of work stages. The z-axis are different views of the data for different actors on the project.

The information cube

The document shows what format the information drops must be in. In the screenshot below, to the left, the native file formats and the 2D PDFs are required. This information package could be a collection of say a few Revit, ArchiCAD, NBS files and 2D pdf drawings, schedules and specs (no paper). However, the big change it the inclusion of a COBie dataset that has coordinated information from all of the models. This is then used for validation purposes and for reporting based on the information requirements (section 3 of this blog post). The data is all classified by the new object-based classification system Uniclass 2.

The information "drops"

In terms of the validation of the COBie data - there are a few screenshots showing this in action in a MS Excel spreadsheet. I suspect that over the next year or two then this will develop on from basic tools built around MS Excel. A number of the big project management/hosting web portals are working on these currently.

Using COBie as a requirements validation tool

To demonstrate the complexity of objects being broken down into smaller objects, the NBS example looking at a sandwich is used to illustrate this point. A sandwich is an object, made of smaller objects (bread, butter, fillings). Each object can have properties and relationships between each other. Once you put a bit of thought into how much effort may be needed to specify a sandwich, then this puts into perspective why specification is so important for systems like floors, heating, structures etc...

Objects have properties, objects are made from objects, that have properties too

2. Uniclass 2

The Uniclass 2 work has been live for a number of months - so nothing radically different here. It's a combination of the main tables in PDF form and also Stuart Chalmers BIMGateway interactive UI.

I would say that it is worth reading my colleague Ian Chapman's introduction to Uniclass 2 in parallel to the material on the BIM Task Group site:
- http://www.thenbs.com/topics/PracticeManagement/articles/anIntroductionToUniclass2.asp

3. Plain language questions and information requirements

This is the area of the website that NBS contributed to the most. There are 22 objects from complex (eg hospital) to entity (eg building) to space to systems to products. Each is classified by Uniclass 2. Each has around 50-100 properties. In parallel to these objects and their property sets there are also a set of "plain language questions" - the sort of questions that a client needs answers to at each stage of the project.

All of this is presented in the labs area in an easy to navigate interactive website.

22 example object definitions are provided

The screenshot below shows some of the example properties for a Window System. Hovering over the property name shows the IFC equivalent. Each property has a clear definition. In addition there are also "little green ticks" to indicate when during a project that this information must be provided to the client.

Each property has a definition, IFC is the starting point

The screenshot below shows that the user can hover over each "green tick" to see what plan of work stage and which questions each property relates to. Clicking on the "green tick" takes the user to those questions.

Exactly why does the client need this information?

The questions are written in a simple to understand way. So in the example below, the client may need to know how the windows perform at construction stage. To be able to answer that question, they must know the security performance of the window.

So nothing incredibly complicated. Nothing new. Just now it will be (a) digital and (b) consistent on every project and when comparing projects.

The reference back to the plain language questions

4. IFC examples

There are some IFC examples included that show example completed property sets at different plan of work stages. The principles are exactly the same as the information requirements section. So in the example below for a classroom, there are a number of properties that are completed for an early stage of the project. The exact specification of each product in the space are not known. But the top level performance of the space is.

Early in the project the information is against the space

As the project develops, the design of the space develops to include the various products and the specification for each of these. The screenshot below shows the property sets for the doorset that are now starting to develop.

As the project develops, the information is developed against each system and product

A few thoughts to finish on...

A. The BIM vision is definitely on the right tracks
This is a logical and solid vision around digitalising the information that is needed throughout a construction project.

B. Open standards are the way forward
IFC is not going to go away, it is referenced throughout, it is *the* only player in town in terms of a neutral format for 3D+PropertySet data exchange. However, all parties have to up their game when it comes to IFC  (see the NBS COBie/IFC Report) - For example, I couldn't open the IFC samples in the first three applications I tried. The free DDS-CAD IFC Viewer eventually came to my rescue. But even then the sample files where visually  not quite right (see the luminaires on the wrong face of the ceiling in the image above).

C. Keep the focus on the information structures
It's all about information, information, information. Fantastic to see the LOD focus is mainly about the property sets and not the level of geometric detail. Both are clearly important, but BIM to date has mainly been about geometry (drawing generation, visualisations and clash detection) - it's time for some balance. However, the work to standardise these property sets that extend IFC (the data dictionary for the UK) has to be accelerated now.
This will not just help the client in terms of the information they receive. But with solid classification and information structures it will allow manufacturers info to flow through into models. It will also allow cost data, third party approval sources, environmental impact databases, in use data all to flow from the cloud onto construction professionals desktops to help them make informed decisions and great buildings.

Anyway, just an overview from me - but to check everything out go to:
- http://www.bimtaskgroup.org/task-group-labs