Acceptance of BIM in UK and European Countries (Part II)

Posted on: December 28, 2018, By: Divya Dave

Preface:

This is the second part of our blog “Acceptance of BIM in UK and European Countries -1”. In our previous blog, we had talked about the global BIM scenario and the standing of UK and European countries when it comes to acceptance and implementation of BIM standards. UK government’s mandate on implementing Building Information Modelling in government and centrally produced projects from April 2016 provided a major boost to its acceptance across all industries. This policy saw the UK emerging as a global leader when it comes to BIM implementation and standards. Not far behind the UK are the Scandinavian countries where the popularity and use of BIM have gained traction. We will discuss a project that was executed in Denmark to understand how it helped to gain a contractor’s confidence in utilizing Virtual Design and Construction in their subsequent projects.

BIM in Denmark

One of the prominent contractors in Denmark had bagged a large project of renovating an educational complex housing Kindergartens, Schools, Sporting facilities, and other institutes. There were close to 200 buildings in the complex with a total constructed area of approx. 200,000 m². One section of the project team believed that employing Scan to BIM Services for this project will be highly beneficial. However, there was one section who wanted to renovate the buildings the traditional way. Ultimately, it was decided that Point Cloud to BIM Modeling be applied on one of their smaller projects and if that turns out to be successful, BIM modeling will be employed for this project after scanning the buildings.

A smaller project was selected for the pilot. It was a residential project with approx. 15,000 m² of area which was divided into 3 buildings. Exteriors and Interiors of all the three buildings along with their respective sites were scanned with laser scanners. The point cloud data generated was then registered and was ready for use. Due to the absence of an in-house BIM team and non-availability of skilled resource amongst the existing workforce, it was decided to outsource the project to a BIM Service Providers company. To learn more about the benefits of outsourcing Scan to BIM Services, click here.

After zeroing in on one of the BIM companies, the registered scans of the project were transferred through the cloud. The scope of work was to create a BIM model of LOD 250 in Revit to include the following components:

• Architectural Exteriors (walls, wall openings, ventilators, doors, windows, elevators, stairs, railings, ramps, parapets, etc.
• Architectural Interiors (walls, wall openings, glazing, doors)
• Structure (floor, slabs, Columns, beams, and trusses)
• Site Development (upto a perimeter of 5 meters around the building)

Once the model was ready, new design was developed using this information. After the construction was completed, the project was analyzed for its cost efficiency and productivity. The contractor realized a reduction in costs of upto 40% when compared to traditional method. This convinced all the stakeholders on the benefits of BIM and eventually, it was decided to implement BIM for all projects in the company.

To be continued….

Written By:
Divya Dave

Divya Dave is a Senior Manager with Tesla Outsourcing Services. An engineer and management graduate, she has been working with the outsourcing industry now for more than a decade. With a passion for writing, she writes on topics that provide an insight into CAD, BIM, and 3D Visualization services for the Architectural, Structural, and MEP disciplines. Her focus is to enable architects and engineering professionals in the AEC industry to adopt the right technology so as to increase their efficiency and profitability.