A BIM Mandate

29 February 2016

There is a BIM Mandate - how does it work?

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is mandated for April 2016, but what does a mandate do, and how does it work? There are economic and environmental benefits for the whole asset cycle from concept through design, construction and the life of the asset.

A further blog will explore enablers for BIM.

Notes:

This is how I see the mandate working. I could be wrong, but this is what this mandate seems to me to look like in practice.

Firstly, it is very difficult and time-consuming to develop formal legislation, and it is not always necessary to do so.; I have worked on other programmes with central government; none required primary legislation for them to be carried from concept, through pilots and early adopters, and rollout to become part of business as usual. This mandate is an example of how people and organisations can be encouraged to take on a major requirement, involving significant change, without the need for formal legislation through Parliament.

So without primary legislation, how could a mandate work?

1. Concept

a. Overview of the industry and where costs arise

b. Overview of where efficiency savings can be obtained

c. Generate a basic case

2. Pilots and Benefits

a. Run some pilots to demonstrate the real benefits for the client, in the public sector;

b. Capture those benefits and extrapolate, still within the public sector;

c. Provide convincing arguments; communicate these with the public sector and its suppliers;

d. Start with new build or major works which might be easier to deal with than a maintenance or refurbishment contract.

3. Roll out, early adopters

a. Require government departments to include BIM when procuring construction work; this does not need primary legislation. It can be encouraged through a general policy determined by Treasury and/or Cabinet. Setting dates is helpful in providing targets.

b. This needs clear guidance on how to include BIM in contracts, and it does need clear processes for procurement.

c. Procurement processes should always include financial review.

i. For example, major new works such as a hospital would require review by the Department of Health and by Treasury.

ii. Without approval, there is no funding.

iii. If Treasury could not see BIM included, would they provide funding?

d. Use realistic figures. The target has to be achievable. Procurement of work at £50 million or over is a relatively small proportion of all construction;

e. This caters for major construction, set so that anything over £50 million requires BIM. But there is no lower limit;

f. So a mandate from central government for government departments reflects the policy of always including BIM.

4. What else?

a. Major industry, eg rail, is effectively included in the mandate

b. The whole supply chain adopts BIM

i. Main contractors have to include it

ii. They encourage their suppliers

iii. Manufacturers adopt it in accordance with specifier

c. This makes it ‘more normal’ for BIM to be included

d. This leads to …

5. Next steps:

a. Adoption by local authorities

b. Adoption by utilities

c. Adoption by major companies – property developers for example

d. Adoption by smaller developers

6. Business as usual

a. Including BIM is the new normal

b. BIM develops, and adoption of Level 2, Level 3 becomes part of continuing improvement

The major points behind making the mandate work are, I think,

1. The benefits have to be clear and convincing, for new build and for the whole asset management cycle

2. Clients include BIM contractually

3. Client funding approval requires BIM

4. The process of adoption cascades and is client-led with encouragement from their advisers and suppliers

References:

“The Government Construction Strategy

The Government Construction Strategy is a policy paper issued by the UK Government that sets the target of reducing the cost of government construction projects by 15-20 percent “by the end of the current Parliament." One of the key initiatives is to mandate "fully collaborative 3d BIM [Building Information Modeling] by 2016."

This means that in two years, anyone involved with a government project in the UK will be contractually obligated to use BIM” (from https://www.augi.com/library/how-small-firms-should-prepare-for-the-bim-2016-mandate)

The above quotation is largely here, too:http://www8.hp.com/us/en/pdf/october_augi_advertorial_tcm_245_1819279.pdf

There are several other references, including these:

http://bimcrunch.com/2015/10/april-4th-2016-official-date-set-for-uk-government-mandate/

http://bimcrunch.com/2015/12/bim-mandate-for-transport-projects-in-germany-confirmed-for-2020/

http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/oct-2015/government-launch-new-october-2016-stretch-bim-target-validate-data-quality

http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/oct-2015/life-beyond-bim-level-2

http://www.gcu.ac.uk/media/gcalwebv2/business/DPhilp%20GCU%20BIM%20Seminar.pdf

http://bips.dk/files/3f_david_philp_britiske_bygherrekrav_-_uk_government_construction_strategy.pdf