BIM-plementation – Do you have a BEP?

Reproduced from my Atkins blog of  01.07.2011
The key new question that all Project Directors and Design Managers need to ask before they sign up for that new project is:

“Is there a BIM Execution Plan?”

In the recent ‘CAD era’ everyone we worked with, internally and externally, knew a CAD strategy could be sorted out as the project got up and running. Several decades of development meant the industry knew its way around the standards and protocols

Welcome the ‘BIM era’! It’s all going to be more confusing for a few years.

Atkins' Ray Purvis, Anne Kemp and I attended the annual Excitech BIM Forum on Thursday 30 June. The need for BIM Execution Plans (BEPs) right at the start of a job was being clearly heard around the room. The BEP might come from the Client, or it might come from Design Team, but if there isn’t one you are heading for trouble.

Atkins has been at the forefront of developing BIM standards for the industry. The AEC (UK) BIM Standard was the work of our Global BIM Excellence Group and they are developing our own proforma BEP.

According to Excitech’s presentation typically a BEP will define:

· Project initiation

· The modelling plan
· The analysis plan
· The collaboration plan
· The technology plan

It’s not rocket science, but if you don’t have one agreed across the whole Client’s team sharing information is going to cause frustrations and delay.

For our project in Jeddah Atkins are implementing Revit modelling on a scale we haven’t done before - pan-office, pan-region. Jeddah is a key step on our journey from 3D-CAD towards BIM – there is no turning back after this! The ongoing dialogue across our CAD community (evolving into our BIM community) has been key for collaboration for a project where there is not a client sponsored BEP.

Networking at the Excitech forum we heard that BIM interfaces between some other consultants are not going quite so smoothly. Good to see Atkins ahead of the game.

So Mr Project Director, next time you are about to land your next multi-consultant mega-project, pause and ask the Client if he has a BEP in place. And if he hasn’t, sell him one.

You’ll regret it if you don’t!