Will there be a BIM mandate, or why won’t the USA follow the UK’s example?
An interesting article by Emily Pollock, who covers BIM topics on engineering.com, about how BIM is developing in the USA in the context of construction project requirements, including the state mandate, was published in the middle of last year, but somehow went unnoticed by Ukrainian readers of this topic, who are usually in love with British BIM and its Level2. I invite you to read the review of this article.
Reminding about USA’s pioneering in practical BIM application, the author notes that many countries have caught up and surpassed them in terms of breadth of application or state standardization. But Americans remain optimistic…
There is no proposed structure for a common set of government practices
A Dodge Data & Analytics survey shows that American contractors see increased return on investment from using BIM, including a 5-percent reduction in final construction costs, 5-percent increase in project completion speed, and 25-percent increase in labor productivity. The latter is particularly attractive in an industry where labor productivity has declined over the past fifty years.
But despite BIM’s popularity, Pollock writes, there are several factors standing in the way of a government mandate, at least in the short term. The main factor is decentralization. “There is no proposed structure for a common set of government practices,” says Roger Grant, program director at the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). “We don’t have a single agency responsible for all construction like in the UK.”
NIBS’s national initiative – BIM Standard — United States publishes a frequently updated set of standards about BIM best practices. Their standards have been downloaded worldwide, but they still don’t have a mass following in their own country. According to Grant, it’s difficult to get different parties to adopt standards when they’ve developed their own.
The US has its own BIM culture, based on “bottom-up” rather than “top-down” principles, which would be destroyed rather than reinforced by a government mandate.
Many industry players don’t want a BIM mandate. American contractors are more likely to view each project as a separate task where a standardized BIM formula won’t always be the best solution. Parallax Team Director Aaron Maller: “What’s not happening in the US is nationwide debates, club-style academic exercises on standards, mandates, or BIM requirements where everyone tries to agree on one hypothetical set of standards under which projects will be carried out.” /p>
According to Sigh Jones, senior director at Dodge Data & Analytics, innovations are born in large companies with multiple offices where different ideas for project implementation are generated. When one project ends, others start copying effective findings, creating a kind of viral effect. This is fundamentally different from the UK, where you need to follow pre-learned standards.
And it’s not just American contractors who think this model is worth protecting. Some experts in the UK, frustrated with government BIM standards, consider this a model to follow. “Such openness is crucial at a time when digital innovation is developing at a rapid pace,” said Rebecca De Cicco, director and founder of UK-based BIM consulting company Digital Node. “The UK could learn an important lesson from our American cousins about this.”
The US certainly doesn’t lack BIM culture. But without federal BIM regulation, the culture has developed disparately, driven by local authorities, individual agencies, and even private sector agencies.
States and counties are also starting to dive into BIM. In July 2010, Wisconsin became the first state to require all public works with budgets over $5 million, as well as new public facility construction with budgets over $2.5 million to be conducted using BIM. In 2018, the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) established a BIM mandate for its $9.5 billion construction and renovation project across nine of its campuses. Any firm bidding on a contract (and presumably lacking BIM experience) must appoint a BIM intermediary who will coordinate the BIM workflow, comply with common data server requirements, track projects on the district’s BIM site, and present models to the district for operations and management.
In fact, the UK modeled its own BIM solution on the 3D-4D-BIM program.
Individual federal government agencies are not falling behind either. In 2003, the General Services Administration (GSA) – the department responsible for centralized procurement for the US federal government – established its National 3D-4D-BIM Program. The program promoted policies mandating BIM adoption for all GSA projects, requiring model-based design, open facility management standards, and encouraged the use of “mature” 3D, 4D, and BIM technologies in projects. Although organizations like the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NavFac) are less recognizable in light of the issue at hand, they also have their own BIM requirements for contractors working with them. Individual companies also have their own BIM requirements that collaborating contractors must follow.
The US is unlikely to see a BIM mandate anytime soon. At least, the president’s inertia on regulatory issues means there likely won’t be any movement toward it in the next two years. In the absence of federal BIM measures, smaller players are seeking to establish minimum standards. It will be interesting to see what future awaits both the UK and US over the next few years.
Original article: https://www.engineering.com/BIM/ArticleID/16959/A-Tale-of-Two-Countries-Why-the-US-Wont-Follow-the-UKs-Lead-on- BIM.aspx
From our side, we want to share our experience in executing a government order for BIM modeling of a new naval base in one of the Middle Eastern countries.
The work regulations for all directions were clearly written and formulated. In essence, this is the project’s internal mandate. While performing BIM services in other countries worldwide, we have so far only encountered internal requirements for all project elements.
We at DEHAUSS Development agree with Sigh Jones, senior director at Dodge Data & Analytics, and Rebecca De Cicco, director and founder of UK-based BIM consulting company Digital Node, and believe that the existing open market approach will allow BIM services to evolve faster and better, but at the same time, we must admit that so far, the UK mandate is the most successful and commercially beneficial!