Dellaria predicts that paperless deliverables will define a new standard of care in the buildings sector.

Ronald F. Dellaria, the inspiration behind a guide to help eliminate "BIM babble," is passionate about paperless deliverables. He predicts they will define a new standard of care in the buildings sector.

DELLARIA

To that end, the volunteer LOD Working Group of the Associated General Contractors' BIM Forum released last summer the Dellaria-inspired guide, "Level of Development Specification." The spec, offered free of charge, is like architectural graphic standards for building information modeling. It is intended to facilitate targeted model creation and management and provide confidence for BIM users.

Dellaria, who is a member of the LOD group and chief compliance officer for architect-engineer and design-builder Astorino, says the spec will enhance prescribed reliability, which he defines as the "minimum required level of accuracy necessary for a 3D intelligent object to achieve the purpose of its intended use."

The LOD spec needed to be meaningful and practical, says Jan Reinhardt, a principal of ADEPT Project Delivery and a chair of the 20-person LOD group. "Ron is really good at grounding the team about what will work and be acceptable in the industry," he adds.

Atkins North America is using the spec on more than a dozen projects. "The modeling guideline's evolution is changing what, when and how we model, and that minimizes the interpretation factor," says Patrick H. Davis, Atkins North America manager of virtual design and construction, architecture. Improved communication should mean better value for the owner, he adds.

The LOD group is extending the spec's scope beyond geometrical representations to enable many more uses, such as quantity takeoffs. Reinhardt calls the spec, which has been downloaded 3,000 times, "a huge success. There is interest from the U.K., and I have seen the document being used in China, as well."