Survey shows industry support for Government’s approach to BIM
21st April 2015
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The Government continues to be driving the industry’s adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) according to this year’s NBS National BIM Survey.
More than 80% of respondents believe that BIM in some form will be compulsory on public sector projects and 70% feel that the Government will mandate BIM in the way specified in the construction strategy document, namely 3D collaborative BIM, also known as ‘Level 2’.
Encouragingly for the Government and its UK BIM Task Group, the majority believe that it is “on the right track” with BIM, but only a quarter believe that the UK is a world leader, with a further 45% ambivalent.
A majority also believe that BIM will help reduce both costs and time, whilst 41% see it as a tool to aid a reduction in carbon emissions.
The need for manufacturers to provide BIM-ready objects continues with 76% agreeing with this while there has been a small increase (from 56% to 60%) in the number of respondents saying that they use objects supplied by manufacturers. The number of people creating objects in-house and re-using them has dropped from 77% to 69%, but this remains a significant proportion.
Awareness of BIM remains almost universal at 95% and the same proportion envisaging usage within five years. Figures regarding adoption are more complicated with a slight fall - from 54% to 48% - being recorded. One possible reason for this is that adoption is simply following the standard lifecycle, awaiting the ‘Late Majority’ to follow on from the Early Adopters, the Innovators and the Early Majority.
Interestingly, almost two-thirds (63%) said that lack of client demand is the main reason for not adopting BIM. This raises the question of how something that is mandated by central Government and is likely to spread quickly throughout the public sector can penetrate the consciousness of private sector clients.
A significant minority (43%) claim that the projects they work on are too small, suggesting a continuing belief that BIM is for large scale projects.
Of those who have adopted BIM, 59% see cost efficiencies, 56% an improvement in client outcomes, 51% an increase in the speed of delivery and 48% an increase in profitability.
Adrian Malleson, Head of Research, Analysis & Forecasting at NBS, said: “This has been one of the more interesting sets of findings of our National BIM survey. Previously we have seen year on year growth in adoption, but this year, shortly before the Government mandate comes into force, we see a pause in BIM adoption.
“There is more going on here than an adoption of a particular set of technologies, standards and working practices to support an improved process for construction. Data collection, aggregation, and interrogation, through collaborative working, is driving fundamental changes in how people work, across all sectors. It allows rapid learning, and increasingly sophisticated ways to form, test, and act upon evidence based hypothesis. The construction industry is no exception to this. Younger generations are attuned to this, and perhaps it is they who will see the BIM reach its full potential.”
www.theNBS.com
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