BIM Busters - The client needs to order BIM use cases

When architects and engineers expect clients to order use cases like BIM coordination, plan generation from models, or BIM2Field, it signifies a nonfunctional market!

Several client reps in professional organizations told me that architectural and engineering companies (in Switzerland) expect use cases in their project brief. Without them, they would not do BIM!

So the client reps feel helpless and try nudging the market with ordering these use cases. So they surrendered! Nudging the market is fine; I don't know if this approach is the best.

By ordering these planning and construction-relevant use cases and accepting to pay more, they incentivize the market NOT to become more efficient. They justify paying more with the argument that the offices must adapt and change. So they argue it's an act of solidarity. In my opinion, this is a misplaced solidarity, leading to an even more dysfunctional market and increasing inefficiency. It's unfair because it hinders other innovative solutions from taking hold!

I know these statements will shock many AE(C) professionals, but what would you say if a construction company tells you in the next meeting:

We bought this new excavator that will help us finish the construction site faster with fewer mistakes on the way. Please pay for the excavator. Your answer would be:

I don't care when we have a contract for a deliverable with a specific price. You can work however you think is best (and safe). You can use shovels or baggers; the deliverable counts.

So why should it be different for planning (usually a work contract)?

On innovation and market forces

Interestingly, I see a huge gap between the planning and the construction site regarding innovation.

I know of only a single planning office thinking about their business model, but I know of several construction companies driving business model innovation. E.g.,

• Leasing of temporary buildings (building as a service).

• Contractors add engineering services to optimize their assembling work.

• Roof companies take over the whole shell planning, including safety, to provide a better service over the whole life cycle.

• Material providers and tool companies are selling the service, not the tool (The client is interested in the hole and not the drill).

• Automation companies offering building optimizations are billed with a percentage of the savings.

Innovation seems to happen closer to the value stream and in the harsh reality of a competitive market. While planners and governmental organizations seem more concerned with keeping the comfortable status quo inside their protected bubble, construction companies - who materialize something - search for innovative solutions.

Nudging the market

When nudging the market, a better approach might be to play with the competitive system by stating goals and letting the best proposal win.

An order that needs creativity to answer could look like this:

• We identified the high density and complexity of the MEP system as a risk for delays and cost overruns. Please show us how you mitigate the risk with your proposal.

  Companies very quickly will use BIM for coordination.

• The tight timeline and the need to move in at the date X puts pressure on several other properties. Please show us in your proposal how you plan to serve the construction site to minimize delays due to communication issues between the site and the planning team.

  Not only would this approach promote BIM2Field but alternative procurement strategies that include construction companies' know-how already in detailed design.

• We developed this urban design and layout to fulfill our organizational needs. Now, we are looking for the right partner to build it according to the following quality standards (Facade u-value and g-values, Loads, maximum energy consumption during the next three years, …)

  Please submit your proposal for a technical solution with a minimal embodied carbon footprint and an occupancy date of 4 years.

The pattern is almost always the same:

1. State a need, a risk.

2. Ask for strategies to fulfill or mitigate the risk.

3. Select the best proposal

4. Ensure the team delivers; if not, don't pay the fee, as planning is usually not a service contract.

5. Use the deliverable

Another approach to foster overall productivity is to define the client's quality assurance processes and data handover processes based on BIM data. This might be hard work on the client's side and would need some change (and balls), but once defined and optimized, clients could formulate their data needs very precisely, and the market could play again by offering new services.

This is UNLIKE what I hear happened in the UK, where the government pushed COBie, and expects COBie deliverables but, in the end, often don't do anything with the data.

Switzerland’s policy on ordering BIM

Unfortunately, in Switzerland, I see a similar pattern. I don't see many client organizations that will follow this "radical market-driven" approach because it's outside the comfort zone, and many perceive business as usual as less risky than trying something new - at least in Europe. Many clients just order some use cases without really knowing their benefit, following the motto, BIM is great as long as somebody else has to do it!

To push efficiency gains, everybody should have skin in the game! I guess with this post, I'm addressing more a social problem than really talking about BIM, but it's interconnected and affecting our economical and ecological future.

Or do you believe business as usual will help us sustain our economic and environmental quality of life?

What role can nudging the market for BIM introduction and long-term efficiency gains play?

How should it be done?