BIM Implementation – A true story

I came accross a very intersting article on BIM academy recently which I feel brings more relevance to my last blog post and leads me on to an interesting discussion about implementation plans and education in this area. I will post a small section of the blog and suggest you head over to this link ‘Building Information Modeling; A True Story‘ to read the full article on their blog site. The article was originally written by Neil Thompson and published on the site by George Mokhtar.

“Traditionally knowledge has been propagated via academic publication, institutional guidance and by on-the-job experience. Since the introduction of the internet, a tool that connects the world at almost the speed of light, we have been given an almost unlimited medium for individuals to share their knowledge. But it’s not only the individual that has been empowered by the web, large organisations have innovated their business models to suit the fast moving world that the web has cultivated.

New technologies however, do come with significant social change. This change is not necessarily a direct influence of new technology, but rather, a reaction to that technology. The failure to appreciate this is what makes some technologies fail to spread in to the wider society or explode into applications beyond the inventors’ original ambition.

Neil Postman, an American academic and media theorist said: “technological change is not additive; it is ecological. A new technology does not merely add something; it changes everything.”

This statement is very interesting when implementing BIM processes. Some early adopters think that BIM is a supplementary add-on to their business, and it’s not. BIM requires business to rethink their processes from first principles.”

I feel that this is a very relevant and interesting article. Everyone who is planning to implement BIM methodology in their practice should read and understand this. BIM is not just an extra peice of software that you have to learn, but instead a complete change in planning and stratergising projects. Many mistake BIM for a peice of software for instance Revit. Revit / 3D modeling tools are only part of the process. This complete overhaul of projects and planning  is what is stopping many companies and individuals from switching over to a BIM methodology. Comapnies need to accept the change or be left behind, as we all know the UK government will require all building projects to use the process of BIM by 2016. It’s time to get on board or be left behind!

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