How Bim Helps Construction Works?
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is now a leading system serving the global building industry during the construction period. Construction & Property Magazine spoke exclusively with Kaushik Chakraborty, South East Asia Vice President for Bentley Systems— a world leader in architecture and engineering software solutions – about how BIM can help construction works.
What are Bentley’s services related to building construction?
Around the world, engineers, architects, and constructors are using Bentley software to accelerate project delivery and increase their return on investment (ROI). Bentley’s CONNECT Edition software provides a common environment to improve the delivery and performance of infrastructure projects from design through to construction to operations. We are continuing to release our CONNECT Edition applications, and among those available now are ProjectWise CONNECT Edition – Bentley’s comprehensive work-sharing solution that supports the entire project supply chain; Bentley EADOC – our cloud-based construction project management and contract control solution; Navigator – enabling BIM Reviews and issue resolution; and Advanced Work Packaging – which streamlines construction execution. Bentley is dedicated to making continued enhancements to its offerings in order to fully support the evolving needs of the AEC industry.
What is Building Information Modelling (BIM)? How can it help during construction? What makes BIM better than other similar building software solutions?
Bentley’s BIM methodologies can be described as a coordinated set of processes, supported by technology, which adds value through creating, managing, and sharing the properties of an asset throughout its lifecycle. The benefits of adopting BIM processes are becoming impossible to ignore if organisations want to remain competitive. Combining people, process, and technology, BIM advancements enhance design collaboration, reduce rework, and improve productivity, which results in better-built assets. In response to our user’s requests for easier ways to perform BIM and constructability reviews, Bentley offers technology that integrates data-rich models with project information to build a virtual representation of the asset. Engineers then have the ability to test constructability, performance, and sustainability models before any physical work begins, minimizing design errors and costly construction re-work, and enabling constructors to build the most durable and green assets possible.
What type of building projects can BIM be applied to? What particular aspects of the building project does BIM usually focus on?
It should be said that a BIM methodology is not limited to buildings; it is being applied to infrastructure projects of all types and sizes. A project that exemplifies successful implementation of BIM processes is the Midfield Terminal building for Abu Dhabi’s new international airport. The USD3.2 billion project demanded that a BIM methodology be used to construct the 750,000 square-foot facility. ProjectWise enabled Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), the construction manager on the project, to create a common data and modelling environment, together with BIM processes that enabled it, to communicate project information with stakeholders. This enabled project team members to easily access models and data from any location, safe in the knowledge that they had the latest information. Using Bentley’s AECOsim Building Designer and Navigator products, teams could then pull data stored in ProjectWise and perform automated clash detection, resolution, and design coordination. CCC’s BIM methodology delivered an extraordinary ROI. In one example, automated clash detection greatly reduced costs and resource hours, helping it save USD5 million and 900 hours just by eliminating one major clash on the project.
BIM was also applied on the terminal expansion at Phnom Penh International Airport. How does this system help on the building process of airports?
Airports are complex projects due to the various disciplines that have to be integrated within them. It is estimated that there could be up to 40 to 50 different systems in a typical airport, compared to the 10 to 15 on a regular commercial project. As a result, the role BIM plays is crucial to integrating the designs of these systems, documenting the asset information, and coordinating collaboration between the various stakeholders involved during design, construction, and operation of the infrastructure assets delivered.
Often considered gateways to a nation, airports need to combine the most aesthetic, comfortable and effective design of spaces. As with all other transportation terminals, for example railway stations, airports need to be constantly maintained, in order to achieve maximum operational efficiency, comfort and security to its occupants with the least disruption possible.
BIM methodologies provide the ability to design, visualise, and simulate the various architectural, engineering, and construction elements of a project on a digital platform. In so doing, it can provide detailed and critical insight into how a project will perform under various conditions. The result being that a design can then be optimized, in terms of cost, safety, delivery, or aesthetics, something we call ‘optioneering’ at Bentley.
The application of BIM processes doesn’t stop at project completion. A lot of information valuable to the owner of an asset during the operations and maintenance phase, is created during design and construction. A fact that is often forgotten or ignored due to the limitations of technology, or simply because it has always been the way things were done. Through the common technology platform on which our ProjectWise and AssetWise solutions are delivered, Bentley connects these phases of an asset’s lifecycle providing, for example, the ability to link as-built digital models with asset management systems, in turn enabling better informed decisions during operations.
Are many construction projects in Cambodia using BIM now? What would you like to see changed to building projects in Cambodia?
Cambodia is a new and growing economy with a huge demand for new infrastructure. This provides an opportunity to leverage new technology and BIM processes that could help design and build efficient infrastructure.
BIM methodologies are not a new concept in Cambodia. While it has been confined mostly to large infrastructure projects; water supply, waste water management, and utilities such as electricity and telecommunication projects funded and managed by the government, the advancement of BIM technologies, and the proliferation of processes and standards, now makes it more affordable and therefore accessible to smaller projects. This, with the country’s exposure to more advanced markets like Singapore and Malaysia, has had a ripple effect on projects in Cambodia, and in the near future we suspect BIM processes will become the norm on all projects.
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