Industry Leaders Talk BIM With McGraw-Hill Construction Conference Attendees
With Building Information Modeling, or BIM, swiftly becoming the newest technological advance for the construction industry, McGraw-Hill Construction in Texas recently invited leading A/E/C firms and owners to share ways in which they are using BIM and where it is providing benefits on their projects.
Two events, “BIM: The Future of Construction – Healthcare,” were held recently in Las Colinas on March 3 and in Houston on March 4. These conferences spotlighted industry leaders who provided the latest information in real-time from those are using – and growing – from the advances.
At the March 3 event, South Cole, the BIM manager for the Fort Worth office of Houston-based The Linbeck Group, told participants that his firm has about $250 million to $300 million in backlog projects that are a direct result of the firm’s BIM capabilities.
Currently, Linbeck is using BIM on the Fort Worth Cook Children’s expansion project. Cole offered advice to the event attendees on how to make sure BIM implementation “is a lean process that is operated more like a culture than a technology.
“Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processe,” Cole says. “Don’t use it in lieu of people and processes,” he adds. And, he says that it is important to remember that BIM is as much social as it is technical.
Dallas-based Austin Commercial’s Fred Cardenas, virtual design and construction manager, says BIM has multiple benefits on the job, from assisting with logistics and planning coordination to using computer modeling to improve means and methods. One example he gave dealt with the placement of trusses. An architect’s drawings may show that a truss should be placed in location “X” when in reality, it won’t work in such a spot. By using BIM capabilities, a model can be created and in a video it can be demonstrated where the trusses should be placed.
As for time management, Cardenas says BIM offers a way to “make better use of our time instead of discussing issues that should have been addressed already.”—Tonie Auer in Las Colinas for Texas Construction
