GSA to Require Building Information Models by FY 2006 1/21/2005
The event, chaired by ENR consulting editor and event moderator Scott Shuster, began with a nine-person panel discussion mining the realities and challenges of BIMthe 3 and 4D building models embedded with detailed specific information about a construction project. It is, arguably, a technology that is poised to change the way projects are built and the way the project players related to each other. The panel included representatives from three of the major BIM vendors, Autodesk,Bentley Systems and Graphisoft as well as successful BIM users and BIM skeptics.
Hagen threw out his challenge to the construction industry by saying that his organization is not looking for new a technology, but rather for an efficient way to solve a serious business problem. GSA has $12 billion in active projects. "Too many are not on time and not on budget," Hagen said. Mark Dietrich, an architect with Burt Hill Kosar Rittleman Associates, Inc.said that BIM addresses the business issue by allowing him to anticipate problems that need to be solved ahead of time.