Instilling Pride in our Budding Brunels

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of being the key note speaker for the launch of this year's 'Budding Brunels' apprenticeship scheme by the Construction Youth Trust. Around seventy future engineers attended the day. These seventeen year olds came from targeted schools around London, with the aim of encouraging those who have the talent but might have been put off by the cost of further education, support from their peers or other negative forces.

There was great engagement and energy from the future Brunels who had presentations from Atkins and Balfour Beatty in the morning, a chance to quiz potential employers, and then a visit to Tottenham Court Road CrossRail site in the afternoon. It was great to see the big hitters from UK's consultants there to woo them - Atkins, Arup, Aecom, Motts, Mouchel amongst them, with Balfour Beatty being the only contractor.

It was interesting to think how an 'old bloke' like me could sell our industry to an East-End teenager. In the end I decided to focus on the pride we all have in the things we do, and the fact we actually make things. We had a great reaction and, combined with Ben Green and Jessica Elliot selling the 'Energy' of Building Services, the feedback from the CYT was they all wanted to come and work for Atkins rather than the rest! Job done!

Below are the basic notes I used to sell our industry - as normal I ranged widely from the script, but you may find then useful if faced by a roomful of hopeful teenagers!

Good morning. I could introduce myself as a structural engineer or as a design director. But that doesn’t really describe to you what I do every day.

I work for Atkins and we are responsible for designing a huge range things: buildings, roads, railways, aircraft, airports, telecommunications systems, power stations, cities. Amongst our 17000 people there will be someone who can design pretty much anything.

I am a structural engineer and I lead teams of fantastic people who make buildings. For the last 25 years I have been getting out of bed and coming into work because I find I get a huge buzz out of making things. Our clients trust us to spend huge sums of their money and we decide how to use it to best achieve the things they need and to do this we need a wide variety of types of people with widely differing skill sets.

At the start of projects we need people who are great at coming up with ideas and providing a vision. We then need people who can take that vision and create the drawings, plans and models that explain what it could look like and how it could work. We then need people with the experience and dedication and skills to create all the information required to manufacture all the components. We finally need skilled people who can make those parts and then more who can bring the glass, the steel, the concrete, the wires, the pipes, the hardware, the software together on site to make that first vision as good as it can be.

  

Now think back to last summer and the Olympic Opening Ceremony. The whole of the the UK engineer industry was thrilled to find we were the centre piece of the opening 'Pandemonium' section of the ceremony, with Brunel presiding over the forging of the Olympic rings in steel. Engineering has been at the heart of this country for the last 200 years and it was at the heart of delivering the most successful, most sustainable games ever. Atkins as The Olympic Engineering Provider was key to the success, but every contractor and consultant in this scheme played some role in the Olympics, and we all are thrilled with what we have achieved.

And the Olympics are not the only huge success the UK's construction industry has had recently. There has been Heathrow Terminal 5, High Speed 2, Crossrail. You are entering an industry that has more confidence in its ability do deliver what the world needs than at any time I have seen in the last 25 years.

So the word I'd like you to think about today is 'Pride'. The construction industry is hugely proud of what is has done, and what it can do. Every company here today is proud of its achievements. And if you talk to every engineer here you'll find they will be keen to tell you about their projects, their achievements - because they are proud of what they do, what they make.

And I have a huge amount of pride, perhaps even a feeling of ownership for the things I have had a hand in making. I have probably worked on hundreds of buildings but let’s pick out just a few. I missed out on working on the Olympics - I'm gutted about that by the way. But if you are going to miss your Olympics you might as well be somewhere interesting whilst our are doing it.

I was living in Hong Kong designing two stations for the South Island Line, the first railway down the south of Hong Kong Island. The team there did fantastic work snaking the route through a dense urban area. I'm also proud of the team I led in Bangalore designing many parts of the Gautrain Metro system that opened in time for the last World Cup. Huge amounts of work were done against very tight deadlines to achieve what was needed.

I could go on about towers in Bangkok and Islamabad, baseball stadia in America and glass roofs of Canary Wharf Station - but I won't.

Now I’ve just talked about all those projects as though they were mine alone. And that of course is not true. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people have contributed to each of those. And the great thing about working in this industry is that they all have that sense of pride and ownership about these buildings. Our ideas, our thoughts, our hard work are in the buildings around you and we’re proud to tell people ‘I did that’.

So my question to you is whether you would like to feel pride in your career in the future. If you would like some of that I think you are in the right place today.

Now, I am really excited by the fact this country is getting back behind the idea of apprenticeships as a route into engineering. Alongside Atkins there are some great companies involved in this Budding Brunel’s scheme here today and there is the potential for you all to become some key people in the future of construction.

So, I am really pleased that you have taken time out of your weekend to think about engineering. I hope that you’ll be excited enough to grab this opportunity. Use your time today to find out as much as you can about what engineers do and the sort of companies they work for.

We need a new generation of engineers who are going to play the central role in solving these issues. And I hope that generation is you and I hope I get the chance to work with you in the future.

Climbing on top of my email!

Thanks to Paul Morgalla’s internal blog article I feel I am taking the first step on my ‘be better with data’ resolution. Can I get on top of my email inbox?

As recommended by Paul I made time last night to watch Merlin Mann’s ‘Inbox Zero’ lecture to Google on Youtube. Very good!

Merlin’s point is that email is not work, just a medium for communication. Rather than feeling we should check our emails all the time we should only go there at fixed times with the intent to process what is there. And he thinks there are only fine decisions you can make: Delete It, Delegate It, Respond to It, Defer It (the dangerous one) or Do It.

As a lone worker I think he has the luxury of being able to store everything in a big heap and rely on searching to find stuff. I think as team project workers we have to add the subsequent action of Archive It.

So, inspired by Merlin so far I have:

·         Decided to close Outlook apart from three times a day when I have a meeting with myself to deal with it.

·         Turned off the noises and vibrationson Ipad and Iphone when emails arrive – no distractions from doing real work.

·         If I need to do or defer something because of an email I’ll turn it into a meeting in my calendar.

·         Moved my 400 legacy pre-Christmas emails into a folder and set up a meeting for myself to filter out what was important.

·         I have unsubscribed from five sites that send me stuff I haven’t got around to reading for ages – just admit it, I never will.

And this morning I have done stuff I should be doing and not looked at emails! OK, we are only 8 days into 2013 and it could all come crashing down, but I am ever the optimist!

Checking and Reviewing my New Year BIM Resolutions

A New Year always sparks thoughts of resolutions, and two foci have emerged for mine over the Christmas break - and both of them grow out of key initiatives in 2012.

Over the past year I have spent a lot of time talking about and developing the thinking around BIM and the Design Principles. This year I think all my efforts should all be about personally living these and delivering all they can achieve.

Looking back on my blog a year ago I was congratulating myself at having finally learned to draw using Revit. Being capable of doing it myself is always a key step towards me believing my own propaganda. Over the year I have spent time talking with many of Atkins' BIM practitioners and presenting to many of our key clients and contractor partners. I think that both personally and as a company we now have a BIM message that resonates closely with their needs and aspirations, that cuts through the 'BIMwash' and focuses on what we can all realistically deliver together.

However, despite industry experts constantly repeating that BIM is all about the 'I for Information' the collective eye keeps getting drawn back to the 'M for Modelling'. This in turn reverts back to 'we need more, better, up to date, modelling software' to which perhaps a bit of information can then be tagged onto in the future - although we are perhaps not clear why.

This eventually dumbs down to the 'BIM = Revit' message that is sometimes heard. However, this is the equivalent of saying you live a green lifestyle because you have a solar panel on your roof. There are so many other changes you should be making, and similarly having a box of Revit is only a small part of the BIM journey.

My growing realisation last year, and one I am hearing from several others in Atkins, is that we can't move on to the parallel 'BIMs' models of Level 2 shown in the upper part of the Bew-Richards Maturity Model without first delivering the bottom line shown starting in Level 1.

The key differentiator between Level 0 CAD and 2D Level 1 BIM is the introduction of 'IM for Information Management'. Many in industry concentrate on the top part of the diagram and the new 3D toys this needs. However the necessary first step is for us all to consistently deliver on CIPIC, Avanti and BS1192 as shown in the bottom part.

And, as is true for all change programmes, this comes down to the behaviour of individuals. Atkins has had systems for managing our information in place for years. We now need to make sure we all consistently, religiously follow them. We need to make sure every one of our staff and contractors knows how our data gets handled – and then does it.

This should be true for all our emails, instructions, incoming, outgoing and work in progress drawings and models - everything. As soon as something is put in the wrong place or copied into a personal area we have destroyed the 'single source of the truth' that we say BIM is about.

So, 2013 resolution No 1 is to personally become red hot about the way I handle all my data, and to evangelise this vision for others! It might not be as much fun as 'let's go 3D' but if we all did this we'd be well ahead of the pack chasing the Government's 2016 Level 2 BIM dream and Atkins would reap the benefits.

Time for resolution number 2! I've been really pleased with the work many of us put into launching the Design Principles. At times it seemed to be a huge amount of talking to get seven simple points explained across the company, but it’s great that so many people feel they represent the way we need to deliver our projects. I am hugely encouraged that over 1000 people (sometimes over 2000!) have kept tuning into the webinars to participate in discussion around these key topics.

Now, the Design Principles were never meant to be an end in themselves. Rather they are an armature around which several ongoing initiatives can fit – and hopefully make sense as part of a whole. BIM is one of these. Our evolution towards more common ways of working across the company is another. The one I personally want to focus on this year is improving the way we Review and Check our projects.

As with Resolution 1, this is not something new. Our BMS has defined the need for check and review since before it was called a BMS! However two events in December show me that we need to keep quality in sharp focus.

Firstly some of our 2D deliverables, despite coming from a sophisticated BIM model, didn’t get annotated as well as they should have been. Perhaps an emphasis on BIM had distracted the team from the fact their deliverable would be judged as a 2D ‘old-school’ sheet. It is clear that we must not take our eye off the quality ball, especially when our processes are being disrupted by evolving needs of clients, ever tougher programmes and new technologies such as BIM.

Secondly, three projects wanted me to review work in the last week before Christmas. I had only been warned about one of these, so some serious diary editing was needed to allow these to be fitted in. When I picked up some deficiencies in an approach it all became a panic at a late stage, with me being drawn in to help redraft a report. It could have been planned and processed so much better.

Thus 2013 resolution No.2 is to revisit our existing requirements for checking and review, and to redefine, rearticulate and recommunicate what is needed and expected on all our team's projects. It’s going to be all about behaviours again! I have been asked to contribute to an upcoming Design Principles webinar on Review, so no doubt you will be hearing more from me on this one soon!

So, 'Information Management' and 'Checking and Review' are my two 'Back to Basics' themes for 2013. Sometimes you need to take a look backwards before going forwards in confidence.

If we can nail these two issues Level 2 BIM will just mean playing with some new toys!

2016 & the BIM-enabled graduate

 (I just realised I never got around to posting externally this article from my Atkins internal blog on my external one - so here it is! These are the words and some slides for a talk I gave in April 2012 at the ICE to ACED - the Heads of Department for the UK's civil and structural degrees. Por Ray Purvis also presented, as did Costain. You can see the full slide deck at http://www.jbm.org.uk/uploads/ACED_Atkins_John_Roberts.pdf)

 
Assets in the built environment: How it was 

o    The client wrote something

o    The designer drew something

o    Contractor A dug something

o    Contractor B poured something

o    Contractor C bolted something on

o    The client paid the utility bills

o    Contractor D added some stuff

o    One day it got knocked down

These were separate activities by separate entities, carried out in a potentially adversarial contractual atmosphere. At each step there was a loss of data and inefficiency crept in.

We are now moving towards a nirvana that has been talked about for a decade or so now, but now we are starting to smell it, see it and are almost touching it. Instead of the old process we move to one where there is a clear flow of data through the project, being added to, evolving, refining and eventually being usefully delivered to end users, informing and supporting the lifetime use of the asset.

This flow of data is one key way to achieve the key aims of the Government's Construction strategy. It is a key step towards improving the performance of the government estate in terms of its cost, value and carbon performance: "the purposeful management of information throughout the lifecycle of an infrastructure project”. BIM becomes is the key vehicle for information on its journey through the project lifecycle in a managed process.

So let's think about the key abilities and behaviours all team members are going to need when working with information on this journey. Two key aspects are going to be:

o    Understanding data management

o    Ability to work within a virtual environment

In fundamental terms all our team members need to understand how to receive or source data, use or develop data and then finally issue or archive data.

Let's think about civil infrastructure projects - as there is much more diversity in its data formats than for building projects. When starting a project the simple phrase 'survey' has been replaced by an increasing range of geomatic data types, file formats and all sorts of geospatially related information.

Understanding what you have got and what you can get is a key first step for any project. It is also vitally important to understand the level of reliance you can place on received data. It is easy to fall into the trap that digital data is accurate to multiple decimal points. Since this information is about to become enshrined in everything that follows it is important that engineers know the issues to question about data accuracy.

Next new data gets generated within that context. At the moment that is mainly the model data that we use to generate our 'drawings', but generation of, or linkage with, our analysis, programme, cost and carbon data is now all feasible and adoption is mainly limited by the speed our teams are able to incorporate multiple parallel innovations into their standard practice. A key skill will be how data sources can be combined to efficiently generate optimised designs.

And once a design has been developed that information needs to be issued and be suitable for its legacy end use. When we just issued paper drawings to a contractor we didn't need to anticipate how the end user would once day be interfacing with that data. BIM is going to require our designers to understand much more about our client's future needs.

So you can see that one of the key requirements of BIM is that team members understand how to manage data on this journey. Data sources, file types, data reliability and the way it can be combined are all key issues that engineers must understand to make sure a project's information journey is successful as it passes through their hands. 

Alongside that it is vital that all team members are able engage in a collaborative 3D virtual project environment. I have great hopes that that BIM is going to reverse a fragmentation that has crept into the industry with CAD.

Once upon a time design offices were places with big drawings boards where everyone could see how the design was developing over the days a drawing took to produce. It was naturally a social, collaborative environment and experienced eyes naturally saw everything going out of the office.

The CAD-based office at its worst has been a very different animal. Potentially you have the Nintendo generation all focused on their own small screens. The team of engineers are each looking at a series of unrelated analysis models. Meanwhile a separate CAD team are working on unrelated 2D plans and sections. This is not a naturally collaborative diagram.

If we get it right the BIM-enabled design team could look like this. Design, analysis and delivery  teams all looking at a single shared version of the truth. We're not there yet as an industry but this is an implicitly collaborative diagram.

Our ability to move to this way of working is based on all our team members being able to engage in a 3D virtual project environment. They need to be able to conceptualise, scheme, analyse, review and deliver in that environment. If you can't work in 3D you will effectively be locked out of the project.

A final thought about interfaces and design management. Once upon a time kids played with wooden blocks. They were loose fit, but if you were careful and didn't knock them over you can lots of fun building stuff. 

Then there was then an unrelated series of technology changes enabling highly accurate plastic injection moulding. A Dane invented an interface standard that remains unchanged to this day.

Now, it always feels that new rules are going to tie your hands and stifle creativity. However that is evidently not the case with Lego. There are now a huge variety of block types and colours and you only have to go to Legoland to see that that interface standard has allowed a toy to move well beyond what could be achieved with mere wooden blocks. I was proud to see my Canary Wharf Station roof there two weeks ago - fame indeed!

So, why am I telling you this? A technology change has triggered as similar revolution in the way the building blocks of design data fit together. The best run projects have always been the ones that implement best practice design management. Our Lego standards are BS1192, BIM execution plans and a planned delivery process.

Of course, management of these interfaces actually isn't new. If you are good you are naturally doing all this already.

o    Ray and I call it design management

o    Costain might call it construction management

o    The operator would call it facilities management, and

o    The client might call it asset management

The only thing that BIM changes is that you absolutely can't get away with ignoring the issues about how your work relates to the overall project.  It is no longer good enough only for your technical work to be technically excellent. Introducing your wooden block into a Lego project will not work. Your work needs to be delivered to BS1192 and project standards and your data has to be reliable and reusable by the other team members who will rely on it. BIM requires us to be much sharper on our Design Management.

So, it is now 4 years time. You are delivering this year's batch of 4-year course Masters students to the industry. It is 2016 and the Government's Construction Strategy has provided the catalyst for the whole of UK construction to be at or above Level 2 BIM. 2D AutoCAD is dead. Why am I going to employ your graduates?

Why I'll employ a grad in September 2016:

o    To understand data

·   the sources, formats, reliability and use

o    An ability to be engaged in a collaborative 3D virtual environment

·   to receive, review, evolve, create, share, deliver

o    To have a clear appreciation of design management

·   the lifecycle of data from inception to completion 

If you can give me that I'll be happy. At one level I think this is quite a simple list of 'new' requirements.

Note however, this is isn't an 'expert' list. These are not PhDs from your new department of BIM. This is not Ray's new BIM team. This is 'entry level' for grads. This is right alongside wl2/8. If they don't have the potential for working this way there isn't really a place in the UK construction industry for them.

They will be wooden blocks in a Lego world.

Simplicity - and safety

I was attracted to last night's ICE and Costain Prestige Health and Safety Lecture at Great George Street by one word - Simplicity.

A lot of what I've been thinking about and doing for the last couple of year has been around the fact that life is already complicated enough without us adding to it. The Design Principles are an attempt to cut through all those processes (that I either don't know about or don't follow) and to try an express something simpler that we all 'get' and actually 'do' all of the time.

There were three good speakers on behavioural safety, but the first, Gareth Llewellyn from Network Rail resonated with me the most. Up until recently Network Rail had over 1600 standards and procedures around safety (four to do with the right colour orange for safety gear). As a result they had over 4000 non-compliances. What sort of message did that send out to their employees at the sharp end, down at track level amongst the trains?

Working with the support of Trade Unions they have now agreed 11 "Lifesaving Rules" - clear messages that address the vast majority of their risks. Which are:

Contact with trains:

- Always have a valid safe system of work in place before going on or near the line.

Working with electricity:

- Always have a valid permit to work where required.
- Always test before applying earths.
- Never assume equipment is isolated – always test before touch.

Working at height:

- Unless it is clear other protection is in place, never work at height without a safety harness.
- Always use equipment for working at heights that is fit for purpose.

Working moving equipment:

- Never enter the agreed exclusion zone, unless directed to by the person in charge.

Driving:

- Always wear a seat belt while in a moving vehicle and always obey the speed limit.
- Never use a hand-held device or programme any hands-free device while you are driving a road vehicle.

Taking responsibility:

- Never undertake an activity unless you have been trained, assessed as competent and have the right equipment.
- Never drive or work while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

I understand that - and apparently the feedback is that Network Rail's teams do as well. This is a great example of removing unnecessary complexity and there are strong parallels with what we have done with the Design Principles.

Network Rail's next stage was to create a culture where reporting was encourages and reporting. However, this was not focused on making sure the guilty could be punished though. Only 10% of incidents were deliberate of malicious. 90% were due to system failures and the feedback received meant that something could be done to address these problems.

Beyond that Network Rail worked with the Unions and asked them to set what the consequences for infringements should be. This has removed many debates about 'fairness' and everyone understands the consequences of their actions – a key aspect of developing a safety culture.

 A few additional fun soundbites to think about:

“Nobody has ever been regulated into a world class safety culture.”

“The highest standards we can expect are the lowest standards we personally exhibit.”

 

"If you don't like the cost of compliance, try non-compliance".

And the weight loss analogy: For success you need to do the right thing all the time and check once a week. So why do often stand on the scales daily and agonise about what we ate last night? Less measurement and more behaviour!

My letter in NCE

A on 4 October "The Origins of the Species" almost struck a chord with me, but had one very duff note. It wanted us all to be more focused on doing our existing activities correctly before complicating life by adding BIM. Yes, it is important we get better at this stuff, but BIM is a way that can help us achieve this. Don't hold back but think carefully, simplify, clarify and focus on purpose and quality.  

The letter below ended up published on 18 October as 'BIM is here if we want it" - not my title!

"Michael Redhead implores “the construction industry to improve working practices before adding to the complexity of the design process” by introducing BIM. BIM requires our industry to improve, standardise and simplify the way we share information throughout procurement, delivery and operation.

Technology and skills have made production of 2D drawings from a 3D model cost effective. Now these models exist, many ‘downstream’ activities in the supply chain, such as pricing and programming, can attach data to a project’s advantage. Legacy operational data is beginning to appear over the horizon of the possible.

We recently bid our first project where we received a BIM model as part of the tender package. This radically improved the way the design and construction teams worked together to bid the job. As models of the permanent works become the norm I am sure better, faster, cheaper temporary works will follow. 

Better basic information will be a key output of BIM. Mr Redman can look forward to always knowing where ground level is as his borehole logs will be geospatially fixed within industry standard BIM workflows. The technology is already there for the log to ‘know’ where it is. Our industry just needs to organise itself."

Raining Olympic Champions

I hope it stops raining before the Olympics. After all the effort put in by the country (and Atkins!) it is important that UK plc gets its moment in the sun.

These games will be the greenest ever – or as it was put at the snappily named ‘Green Building Council’s London 2012 Lessons Learnt Grand Finale’, perhaps we should say the least non-sustainable games in modern history.

So there will be a strong sense of irony if these become the first games disrupted by climate change.

New Scientist (7 July 2012) returned to its task of clearly showing that climate change is real and here. ‘Freak weather is fast becoming normal’, evidenced by not only this terrible UK summer, but the US’s ‘Summer in March’ with one weather station breaking its record by 17 degrees Centigrade (yep – not Fahrenheit).

One key issue it addressed was how “our weather is getting wilder – more variable as well as steadily hotter.” Decade by decade the land temperatures over the northern hemisphere (see graph below) show the bell curve both shifting and widening as the planet warms. Whilst the average has moved up by around 0.8 degrees Centigrade the bottom temperatures have remained similar, but the top of the range is up by almost two!

So how’s that going to look when the centre of the bell curve is 4 degrees higher? By pumping 30 Giga-tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually we are conducting the world’s biggest science experiment. And since we are pretty sure of the answer, and it is not good, why are we carrying on?

New Scientist finishes off with our new favourite weather phrase – the ‘Lazy Jet Stream’ that has so far wrecked our summer. Firm predictions of its movements seem difficult – apparently partly because the meshing on our climate change models is still relatively coarse at around 2km. Think about that next time you are meshing a flat slab for analysis!

Still the BBC seems to think the Jet Stream is going back north next week. After reading this article I fear that may be more hope than science.

Fingers crossed then! I hope it stops raining before the Olympics.

Thoughts after too much code

Reproduced from my Atkins blog article of 09.03.12

I have just spent a few hours going through aspects of BS1192 with some of our key CAD and BIM people. This code will be central to our data management as we make a success of adopting BIM across all our Infrastructure projects – it is not just for buildings!

Three side thoughts I need to remember to take forward (hence being jotted here):

1. What review and when: Central to BS1192 is the idea of moving data through a process of WIP (Work In Progress), Shared and Issued. What are the differences between the levels of check, review and authorise as data moves up these two steps. Does WIP to shared have a lower level of review that Shared to Issued for instance. How does this fit into the process required by our BMS (and reiterated in the upcoming Design Principles)?
2. How do we slickly review our BIM data? At the moment we are stuck in 2D, with engineers looking at the drawn output. Perhaps this is appropriate when the client wants a 2D deliverable. However can we start making the leap to reviewing 3D dwfs and marking these up using tools from Autodesk? I need to make some experiments as this is probably the way for effective 'high level' reviews before drawings start to get spat out.
3. Finally, how do we communicate the status of data when items in one model have different levels of completeness and firmness? One key thing to remember is that we can’t replace the effectiveness of team members actually talking to each other, but are there ways we can tag objects within a model so users are clear of their status. Ray Purvis says he has a cunning plan........

Autodesk BIM Conference 2011 – Crossing the chasm

Reproduced from my Atkins blog article of 22.11.2011
I just spent a valuable day at Autodesk’s UK BIM conference in London. The event had its focus clearly on ‘not Why, but How’ and had been aimed at senior managers rather than users. There were a huge number of grey suits and no one demonstrated software, so I think they succeeded in gaining their audience. Key presentations included:

1. The conference was opened by Phil Bernstein, VP of Industry Strategy & Relations at Autodesk and, interestingly, the guy who made the decision for them to buy Revit. He contrasted progress either side of the Atlantic towards BIM as:

· UK - solid theoretical progress with papers being written by industry leaders supported by government, but meanwhile slow uptake ‘on the ground’ with small and sustained groups of enthusiasts being watched by the industry to see what they will do, and...
· US – lots happening but no organising principles being developed to tie industry together as BIM develops further.

Phil felt BIM in the UK was an good example of ‘Chasm Theory’ (Geoffrey Moore) with adoption having happened for the Techies and Visionaries, but still being in the chasm just before take up by the Pragmatists, Conservatives and finally Sceptics. In the last 12 months the force that is finally driving the UK across the chasm is the Government Construction Strategy which aims to realise improvements in construction, productivity and the environment with BIM as the key enabler.

 2. Next up was Paul Morrell, who is leading implementation of this strategy. As Paul put it this is the transition from builder’s bum to builder’s BIM (I worked with Paul in the 90s and the jokes haven’t got better!).

Paul sees the requirement for industry to move to Level 2 BIM by 2016 as not being a ‘Big Bang’ requiring major change. The focus for his team is very much on determining what future Plans of Work will require as part of the Data Drops at key stages for client review. What information is needed for all teams’ models to talk to each other? Only ask for what you will use and what gets taken out of the model is a key focus for deliverables.

No one so far found a coherent case against BIM once they have started using it. Every business is undergoing a journey and his message was (and I quote) “INTEGRATE YOU BASTARDS!”

Paul’s message was followed up in the afternoon by David Philp of the Cabinet Office. His view was that the UK’s approach is now at the point where ‘the US will start to learn from us’, a view supported by the fact that Paul Morrell is just back from consulting in Washington how the US government can rein in multiple BIM initiatives by various departments. David saw that early adoption of Asset Information Modelling and COBie 2.4 potentially gives the UK future export opportunities as ‘our way’ becomes a default world standard. Makes you proud!

3. There were two very good presentations from HoK, who are rightly seen as industry leaders. In the second Andrew Barraclough noted that their implementation had been based around a firmwide view with no exceptions.

Shared internal guidelines and standards were created and a ‘tipping point’ of what success would look like set, with 65% of technical staff using BIM software daily (now just being achieved in their leading offices – some are much further behind). It was important to choose the first projects wisely to ensure success, and designers needed to be on board, moving away from tools such as SketchUp, to avoid Revit being seen as only a delivery tool.

4. James Middling’s description of progress at Motts closely fits where Atkins is going.

Motts is currently in the business of joining up ‘islands of excellence’ driven by a strong message from the top. Senior management have developed a clear view of how BIM will support their existing business plans, thought of how they can make it happen, and then appointed Champions to push this change ‘top down’.

Meanwhile local centres of learning, seeds and superusers are being developed around the globe to provide ‘bottom up’ pressure. They have an interesting ‘virtuous triangle’ joining up experienced 2D technicians undergoing conversion, new graduates and senior professionals who all can feed off each other’s experience, enthusiasm and skills.

James’ key message was ‘it won’t happen without the top down pressure’. He saw the main blocker to adoption as the ‘blancmange layer’ – his unfortunate name for the PMs and PDs who have all be keeping us in business for the past few years through their pragmatism and labours. Getting them to take what they see as a risk to delivery is a key issue, but all people pushing BIM adoption need to work on the message and their support at this level as these guys will eventually be the key supporters.

Other fun facts and thoughts:

5. Phil Bernstein mentioned that the US military consumes 1% of the world’s energy and one third of that is in their building stock. They see huge savings to be made through improving energy and facility management through BIM.

6. To date Autodesk have spend $600million on Revit and are just hitting break even. Scary though this number is, in reality they have managed to replace the cash cow that is AutoCAD financed off only part of the cash flow it generates. Here’s to the next 15 years for Autodesk I guess!

7. Chris Millard from Balfour Beatty: How come UPS can tell us exactly where our parcels are in the world but we don’t know where we store stuff on site?

8. David Miller, who leads a Revit based architectural practice presented how they have grown from 4 to 20 people in four years of recession. It was impressive to see what clear direction and a small empowered group can do. At the coffee break all us ‘big boys’ were discussing ‘wouldn’t it be nice to do it that way’. Interestingly it was strange to see how late BIM execution plans appeared in their development timeline as everyone sees them as a key implementation document for collaboration.

9. Jamie Johnson of Brydan Wood noted the financial advantages of tying BIM development into a company’s R&D tax credit scheme.