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Hi, I’m Steven, Lloyd and once again welcome back to the drawing board and this time we’re going to be talking about BIM and, more specifically, how we’re going to apply BIM to temporary works. I’M sure you’ve heard of what BIM is, but in case you found it a little bit difficult to get into Building Information modelling. Here’s my take on the very basics of it. The idea is that, instead of just having calculations and drawings, you now have a database of information embedded behind this model. It’S really about the client being able to interrogate the model and understand their asset. That they’ve had built it’s useful in the planning and design stage to help you check, for instance, the thermal response of the building.
It’s good in the construction stage to allow you to build and make sure that nothing clashes and ensure when it is in place that the as-built matches with the design. But it really comes into its own during operation and maintenance, where the client takes control the asset, and they can continue to use that information throughout the 20, 30 or 50 years life of an asset. It’s not just a piece of software. You often hear people asking: can you do that in BIM from it? It’s not a piece of software that you can just pick up and apply. It’s also not just a 3D model.
As I said before, it’s this whole database of information. It’s more a system of management, it’s a method of working and how you share that information and what they call a common data environment, our CDE that everybody pours their information into in a coherent manner, so that, at the end of it, that can be given to The client in one single format that they can take away and use for the rest of that assets life now when we get on to temporary works here, because I keep saying that the bulk of it is during the operation and maintenance. Temporary works isn’t really there. During any of this part of it, temporary works, for instance, is scaffold on a building. It’s there during the planning, design and construction stage, where you’re planning, what kind of temporary works you’re going to need, you’re designing the scaffold to go around and during the construction.
The scaffold is actually put there and it remains there until you finished, but afterwards the scaffold is dismantled, it’s taken off-site. So do you really need the full gamut of information in building information modeling for temporary works? My short answer to that is: no. I don’t think you do. You always have to ask yourself what information does the client in? Does the client organization want or need from me, structural details of mechanical specification, material specification supply chains, an important one? I need to replace some light bulbs. I need to replace some structure or some pipes. Where did they originally come from? How am I going to get hold of them again, unique IDs for things that need inspection and maintenance? That’s really important for big infrastructure, but in terms of temporary works, do they really need things like maintenance manuals? If you hire equipment from Ground force you’re not expected to maintain it, you send it back and we do the maintenance and then we hire out somewhere else.
Why would you need to know that information leave that to us? That’s how a job will mentor in it, so you’ve got to think to yourself. Is it really important to gather all the information I possibly can about a temporary asset? Ask yourself as well fossilized data or living dates, and what I mean by this is a sheet of paper that will never change a PDF, a file that is stored somewhere, perhaps, and it never changes that might be appropriate for as built drawings. It is how it’s being built and unless you go and redesign something and build a new building to it or add something to it. It’s always going to be that way. Living data is more useful for if something changes over time, so you might give a live link to a website somewhere.
You can download information that may be updated, constantly that’d be more appropriate for mechanical assets, perhaps heating ventilation that you install in the building. It may be updated or changed, or the maintenance regime may differ as time progresses, so you have to consider whether you’re, storing something fixed or whether you want to give them a link to something that may be updated and changed over time. So how is that going to affect us as temporary work suppliers? We want to be there at the early stages of planning, design and construction stages. We can use BIM to enhance the build ability if we can design the permanent works and the temporary works together.
At the same time, BIM becomes very powerful for making construction quicker and simpler and cheaper user guides fundamental to what we have to supply. There should be there as part of the information modelling. There should be there attached to the electronic virtual version of the kit that were giving you so that you can work out how to use it before and if anybody’s got it on-site, they can look up that user guide. But, as I said before, maintenance manuals are not required. You don’t need to maintain it, because it’s temporary you send it back. There really is a need for some specific guidance for temporary works, BIM that will change from client to client.
My main part in the middle here is always consider what information it’s the clients information they’re paying for, that information always consider what they want and let them direct whether you need all this information or which information you don’t need it’s difficult for me to answer questions Here because, as I said, will change from client to client and scheme to scheme, but that is my basic take on BIM for temporary works. Hopefully I’ll see you again when you come back the drawing board.
