Awful acronyms and the Atkins BIM Standard

Time for celebration! The worldwide Atkins BIM and CAD communities now have a unified standard.

In the past we had the Corporate BIM Standard. Then we released our Corporate CAD Standard - yes, that feels like it was done backwards, but there were plenty of reasons at the time.

...and now they are unified and updated based on the latest industry thoughts in the snappily named "Corporate Standard for Managing Information on our CAD and BIM projects". Dale Bartlett in Oman was asking why we deliberately picked such a rubbish name - and again there were plenty of reasons.

• Why Corporate?. Because we want to emphasise that this is pan-Atkins. In the past there have been lots of local standards, so this emphasises this is driven from the top and is the only standard we should be using in the absence of client requirements. In the UK this is a big step on the road towards Level 2 BIM before 2016, but it also allows us to work more effectively when we are collaborating across the Atkins globe.
• Why not just the CAD and BIM Standard? Because then everyone who wasn't a modeller or draughtsman would assume it had nothing to do with them. There are duties for the whole team in this and we want everyone engaged (that collaborative working thing again), so we buried these acronyms at the end. All the Project Managers need to realise there are things in this they need to worry about. It is not just for the usual BIM suspects!
• Why Managing Information? Because as this subject evolves it will grow to include everything we generate. Emails, standards, asset data...... There will be further iterations of this and information rather than models or drawings will be the bit doing the expanding.
• Why not Information Management? Because IM is used by many as an acronym already and people would bring preconceptions with them if we used it. Hence Managing Information written in full.

So I agree that CSfMIooCBP is a pretty rubbish acronym. Everyone will probably just call it "The BIM standard" but perhaps we should try Dale's idea of printing some T-shirts for the team!

Messages from another lonely BIM planet

For some time now many building design teams have been modelling their projects as '3D CAD' to generate their 2D drawings. It is sometimes tempting to think that the 'BIM thing' is just about everyone else starting to add data on to the models we consultants have created. So it was good to hear from from a steel fabricator, Simon Bingham of Caunton Engineering, another sector of the industry that has been modelling for their own purposes for some time now - and good to hear so much that resonated with my views.

The event was the Steel Construction Institute (SCI) Members Day at the Tower of London and three presentations had been grouped about the theme of Integration. The headliner was probably George Oates of Expedition who told us about the London 2012 Olympic Velodrome. But whilst such projects are great inspirations these are not the bread and butter of 90% of the built environment and not the projects we most need to influence if the Government's Construction Strategy is going to achieve its aims. As Simon wonderfully said, the majority of us "don't have the time to fanny about like that" - I am so glad it's not just me that says that kind of thing in presentations!

Some of his key points feel like interesting twist on themes I have been exploring recently:

• In their previous lonely BIM world fabricators generated all their data from scratch. Now there is clearly the advantage of receiving this from earlier design stages by others. However, if this data is to be useful it must be clear and concise, accurate, timely, relevant, up to date and capable of being kept up to date. Being passed too much incorrect, unchecked data is a major frustration and risk. Simon gave the example of steel UBs modelled as concrete as the sort of trivial error that can cause problems. This re-emphasises to me the need for proper systems of verification of models by teams before sharing the data.
• Currently most of their data transfer is via IFC, from Revit or other platforms used by others into their main workhorse, Tekla. Caunton have experienced what I picked up from the recent Autodesk IFC workshop - that data transfer is far from standardised and smooth. Simon highlighted the need for clients to specify the IFC structure for data to be transferred, emphasising to me the need for project-wide comprehensive BIM Execution Plans that stretch beyond just the design team.
• Clients won't realise the benefits of collaborative working by driving each party's cost down to the minimum. You don't win matches by taking the eleven cheapest players and saying "it's the Final, there's the pitch, stick it in the net and I'll see you in ninety minutes". Clients need to pick the right team and then show leadership, setting direction and standards for BIM to work.
• Despite the 'end game' for BIM being for clients to receive high quality data, allowing them to better manage that asset for its full operational life, Caunton are yet to see clients requesting they get it. Instead they are still being asked to pass on old fashioned 'as-builts' - perhaps on a disc and not paper as a nod to new technology.
• Finally, we need to realise that fast decision times will equal less thinking time. Project Managers need to allow some for people to stare out of the window for an hour or so and make better quality decisions. (Today's blog entry was going to be my thoughts on this very subject, so it is a little weird that Simon voiced this.)

Too often the construction media links BIM to architecture featuring funky, blobby geometries. It was great to hear Simon highlighting the need for BIM to work for all the 'bread and butter' jobs. These will be the ones driving society's use of resources in the century to come and that is where it is most vital we realise the value of BIM.

I dream of white boards..........

Back in the day, I used to get sent over to Foster's office in advance of our presentations to set up. Their meeting rooms had floor to ceiling metal panels allowing me to 'pin' our drawings up with the magnets provided.

No white board has ever been big enough for me since. If it's not full wall size it just won't do. So not surprisingly I have been getting rather frustrated since what was available internally could best be described as 'titchy'.

Before

Having been moved into a new office whilst away on site, to celebrate my return I decided to indulge my whims. A large section of one wall was the backs of roller cupboards from the next room, over 2m wide and 2m high. The tacky bits of tape all over them showed that 'pin up' had been attempted in the past, but not with any style. What I needed was basically white, dry-wipable, magnetic wall paper! 

A bit of web searching led me to Abel Magnets Ltd of Sheffield. They specialise in all sorts of sheet magnetic products. With their advice I bought a roll of 0.5mm White Dry White Flex O Metal (great name!). 

This is about 600mm wide and you can hang it on a firm flat surface in the same way you do wall paper, using industrial strength spray mount bought from Abel. A 2m long piece would be quite heavy to accurately hang on your own, but my wife came into the office at the weekend and in 40 minutes we had finished a neat job.

After

A few detailed points:

1. Health and Safety: The freshly cut edge of Flex O Metal can deliver a pretty mean paper cut! You have been warned.
2. The spray mount came out quite stringy and initially left small undulations under the surface. These seem to be smoothing out with time.
3. The magnets I bought from Abel do hold paper sheets on the wall, but you have to be careful with them - I'll look for some larger ones that may stick better one day.
4. The cleaning spray from Abel doesn't seem great - any stubborn marks do come off wonderfully with Sticky Stuff Remover from the supermarket.

Total cost for the white board of my dreams was around £120. I'm very, very happy and lots of people have asked how I did it. And now they know!