Enabling Efficient Life-cycle Managment of the Built Environment supported by Digitial Technology – BIM – 2014

Technology is not the primary obstacle to efficient life-cycle management of the built environment!

1. Technology limitations/issues – come from people
2. Different meanings for the same parts
3. Economic impacts – based on people
4. Different values and attributes for same processes
5. Social Impacts – outcomes for people
6. Stakeholders (Owners!!!, AE’s, Contractors, Oversight Groups, Business Product  Manufacturers, Users) determine the uses of technology, economic value and environmental impacts

The roadblocks to increased collaboration, transparency, and productivity within the AECOO sector are as follows:

1. Lack of a robust, shared Ontology.

2. Refusal to adopt collaborative construction delivery methods such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) for new construction, Job Order Contracting (JOC) for repair, renovation, sustainability, and minor new construction projects.

3. Current focus upon first-costs vs. life-cycle costs.

Standardized terms, definitions, metrics and the deployment of “best practice” business process is not rocket science.  Unfortunately too many AECOO participants and stakeholders need build their level of awareness of the above vs. ad-hoc and antagonistic processes such as design-bid-build, or even design-build.  The latter is a good attempt to be IPD-like, but is not IPD.

 

 

The development and  application of robust standardized terms, taxonomies, hierarchies, etc. will enable BLM/BIM.  We need to move faster to deal with critical global Economic and Environment realities (global warming, diminishing natural resources, new competitive landscape …).

 

• Terms – language
• Syntax – make deductions from language
• Semantics – interpretation of languages
• Taxonomy – classification system
• Ontology – meaning-making system
• World Theatre – social system

BIM Basics 2014 – Building Information Modeling, Models, and Management

BIM is the life-cycle management of the built environment supported by technology.  As such, its ultimate purpose is to manage total cost of ownership (TCO).

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)/Lifecycle Cost :Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a dollar per square foot value ($#/square foot) associated with a facility. It is a calculation of all facilities-specific costs (not including furnishings or non-facility specific equipment) divided by estimated lifespan of the building (30 or 50 years), and the total gross area. Facilities specific costs include all construction, preservation, maintenance, and operations costs. A strategic asset management practice that considers all costs of operations and maintenance, and other costs, in addition to acquisition costs. TCO, therefore includes the representation of the sum total of the present value of all direct, indirect, recurring and non-recurring costs incurred or estimated to be incurred in the design, development, production, operation, maintenance of an facility/structure/asset over its anticipated lifespan. (Inclusive of site/utilities, new construction, deferred maintenance, preventive/routine maintenance, renovation, compliance, capital renewal,and occupancy costs.) Again, note that land values are specifically excluded.

Is this an appropriate metric?  Are there others?

via http://www.4Clicks.com – Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software solutions for JOC, SABER, IDIQ, MATOC, SATOC, MACC, POCA, BOA, BOS … featuring an exclusively enhanced 400,000 line item RSMeans Cost Database, visual estimating/automatic quantity take off ( QTO), and collaborative contract/project/document management, all in one application. Our technology is currently serving over 85% of United States Air Force bases and rapidly growing numbers of other DOD and non-DOD (United States Army Corps of Engineers, Army, GSA, Homeland Security, VA..) federal departments/agencies, as well as state/county/local governments, colleges/universities, healthcare, and airports/transportation. RSMeans Strategic Partner

BIM / BLM Ontology – Building Information Modeling / Built-environment Life-cycle Management – 2014

Ontology was originally reserved as a philosophical exercise dealing with categorization, analysis, and inter-relationships.  Ontology is now a rapidly evolving science in response to increasing complex information systems and/or “big data”.

Specific to the built-environment life-cycle management BLM / BIM, ontology is a fundamental requirement as it’s needed to establish robust, coherent, and consistent representations of ever-changing information.  This information comes from a variety of competencies, processes, and technologies and must be aggregated and harmonized to enabling enhanced decision-support mechanisms and overall improvement in resources allocation.

“Formal ontology now spans conceptual modeling, database design, software engineering, organizational modeling, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, the life sciences, bioinformatics, geographic  information science, knowledge engineering, information retrieval, and  the semantic web.”

 

Common methods support comparable outputs!

 

Time to Restart, Reinvent BIM … BLM… Built-environment Life-cycle Managment?

If one had to name the single most important aspect of BIM, I would select the project delivery method.   Collaborative methods are a requirement.  They set the tone, establish responsibilities, and determine if/how information is shared (as well as when and the format)… and ultimately determine the success or failure.  The good news is they are not new and they are proven.  The bad is that the market has cultural objection to change and to sharing.   Examples of collaborative methods are Integrated Project Delivery, IPD, Job Order Contracting, JOC, Public Private Partnerships, PPP, etc.

Equally important is a life-cycle view vs. first cost mentality.  This provides true value for everyone and removes the disadvantages associated with low bid.

I have been blessed to be able to work with the largest Owners across all market sectors as well as contractors, subs, and AEs of all sizes.  My focus is upon both the strategic aspects of life-cycle management and tactical implementation supported by technology and robust data architectures. 

As we all know, there’s a lot of dysfunction in the AECOO market,   Folks continue to attempt to reinvent the wheel despite proven business best practices, vendors (especially software) mislead by saying the “do everything”…especially the IWMS folks.  Also the BIM focus has largely focused upon 3D visualization and many don’t even understand life-cycle management, requirements, and/or metrics.

The 3D visualization aspect BIM has little true value at the moment other that pretty pictures, crash detection, and prefabrication (specific material vendors).

BIM is really BLM (built-environment life-cycle management) and therefore must support a as framework of collaborative project delivery.   Many/most current methods and models only support linear and/or serial processes vs. parallel co-existent cycles.

 

A BIM / BLM primary issue that has been largely avoided to date is the lack of a robust BLM (built-environment life-cycle management) ONOTLOGY.     BLM/BIM will continue to be impossible without one.   For starters what is a life-cycle…what are the primary phases…competencies…technologies… metrics…? 
There is a reason BLM/BIM has stagnated… and this is it. 

Is there a BIM/BLM clear mission statement, clear value. proposition,  robust ontology….documented proven business best practices, quantitative metrics… all of these must precede technology. 
Tech is just an enabler for cost-efficient deployment, etc.

Forget “BIM”, and Get on Board with BLM – Building / Built Environment Life-cycle Management

BIM is the life-cycle management of the built environment supported by digital technology.  That said, BIM has been preoccupied with 3D visualization to the extent that many/most feel that Revit, Archicad, et al are all that’s needed to implement BIM.

BLM – Building Life-cycle Management requires fundamental process changes within all participating organizations / stakeholders and the associated integration and use of multiple competencies, processes, and technologies.

Here’s a short list of considerations, features,  requirements, and realizations associated with BLM.

1. A robust ONTOLOGY – While not “sexy”, a clearly defined glossary with robust definitions and associated metrics is the first step. An ontology enables replicable processes, reusable data, information sharing, low cost of decision support, etc. etc. etc.  Enter… OMNICLASS, COBie, MasterFormat, UniFormat …

2. Organizations don’t deal well with change.  Some will succeed, many will fail.

3. Many/most organizations are dealing under an “information scarcity” model, when in reality we are all  in an world of
information abundance.  “Big Data” is here.  Large amounts of data (volume) and it has brought an ever increasing rapid pace of data acquisition, complexity of the data,  structured and unstructured data, multiple data sources.

4. Cloud computing technologies and new storage and indexing strategies are rapidly being developed and deployed to handle volume and velocity of information: Schema mapping, Controlled vocabularies, Knowledge representations, Ontologies and semantic technologies,.

5. Despite the above there remains surprisingly little collaboration within the AECOO sector(s) (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations, Owner).  As as result advancements are slow and productivity gains remain elusive.

6. Traditional techniques, processes, and methods…such as design-bid-built, are ineffective/inadequate and giving way to collaborative construction delivery methods such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), and Job Order Contracting (JOC).

via http://www.4Clicks.com – Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software solutions for JOC, SABER, IDIQ, MATOC, SATOC, MACC, POCA, BOA, BOS … featuring an exclusively enhanced 400,000 line item RSMeans Cost Database, visual estimating/automatic quantity take off ( QTO),  and collaborative contract/project/document management, all in one application.   Our technology is currently serving over 85% of United States Air Force bases and rapidly growing numbers of other DOD and non-DOD (United States Army Corps of Engineers,  Army, GSA, Homeland Security, VA..) federal departments/agencies, as well as state/county/local governments, colleges/universities, healthcare,  and airports/transportation.  RSMeans Strategic Partner

Why BIM Isn’t Working.

The construction delivery method sets the tone, establishes the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved, and impacts ultimate success more so than any technology.

Thus IPD – Integrated Project Delivery for new construction and JOC – Job Order Contracting for renovation, repair, sustainability, and minor new construction, and similar collaborative construction delivery methods should be the primary focus. Technology is certainly a deployment enabler, and sometime also a disruptive catalyst.

Stakeholder collaboration (Owners, AEs, Contractors, Subs, Oversight Groups, Building Product Manufactures…) throughout the life-cycle of a build structure is the fundamental element that ultimately drives productivity and better outcomes. Collaboration is the path to the refinement of associated goals, needs, and activities…. and therefore creates requisite focus.

BIM is being held back by one item…. lack of collaboration, or even the willingness to collaborate.

BIM technology vendors and “standards” organizations are somewhat to “blame” , as they have placed emphasis upon 3D visualization vs. construction delivery methods, a robust ontology, and metrics.

Why BIM is Failing…. or What Starbucks Gets that Architects Don’t!

Reblogged from Christine Outram in What I Learned Building…

What Starbucks Gets that Architects Don’t

Or why I left the architecture profession

Dear architects,

You’re outdated. I know this because I once was one of you. But now I’ve moved on. I moved on because despite your love of a great curve, and your experimentation with form, you don’t understand people.

I correct myself. You don’t listen to people.

In legal terms, an architect is the all seeing, all knowing, building professional. You are liable for anything that goes wrong with a building but if someone just hates the spaces you design? If someone feels uncomfortable, or cold, or scared? Well there’s no lawsuit for that.

I used to think it was impossible for you to respond to an audience in the way that tech startups do. These startups can build a product, release it over the Internet and adjust it based on the feedback they get. It’s an iterative process. Architecture, I thought, was too permanent for that. There was too much at stake, there was only one chance to get it right, there were too many variables. Blah blah blah.

But the truth is, most of you don’t try. You rely on rules of thumb and pattern books, but you rarely do in-depth ethnographic research. You might sit at the building site for an hour and watch people “use space” but do you speak to them? Do you find out their motivations? Do your attempts really make their way into your design process?

The world is changing. You have all these new tools at your fingertips. New tools that I don’t see you using and quite a few old techniques that you could get a lot better at.

This really hit home for me when I read a recent article on the design of Starbucks stores. Now you might hate Starbucks. You might believe they are a soulless commercial entity with no architectural merit at all, but do you know what they are good at? Responding to people’s needs and desires.

The article reads:

Starbucks interviewed hundreds of coffee drinkers, seeking what it was that they wanted out of a coffee shop. The overwhelming consensus actually had nothing to do with coffee; what consumers sought was a place of relaxation, a place of belonging.

My dear architects. This is why Starbucks designed round tables in their stores. They were strategically created “in an effort to protect self-esteem for those coffee drinkers flying solo”. They were not round because the architect felt it looked better that way, they were not round because they were cheaper, they were round because as the article concludes “there are no empty seats at a round table”.

The round tables at Starbucks were the result of asking the question how do we want people to feel before consideringwhat do we want them to do.

Form follows feeling.

Starbucks interviewed hundreds of coffee drinkers before determining that round tables would be the best solution for people.

Now I’m not saying that all architects are dumb in this regard. Residential architects are often quite successful when it comes to building livable spaces. And then there’s Gehl Architects. They’re particularly known and respected for their ethnographic techniques — though these days they seem to focus on master plans and urban regeneration and I don’t think they really do architecture. Do they? And even then, I would have to assume that these architects employ old school methods of observation with limited sample sizes.

You have not, it seems, embraced the opportunities that the Internet has given to us. Opportunities like: polling a vast number of people using online tools or modeling the likelihood that a retail space will actually get foot traffic. No one wants an empty row of shops. It makes for a sad neighborhood. You could use and develop tools that help you understand if this will happen. But you don’t.

And as for the rest of the profession. Let’s face it, most commercial buildings, hospitals, and police stations are underwhelming. And even when they are pleasing to the eye, it doesn’t mean they are built to address human needs: if you don’t believe me, read this New York Times’ review of Santiago Calatrava’s buildings.

No wonder architecture has become a niche vocation. You don’t connect with people any more.

The problem is that architects seem to pray at the feet of the latest hyped-up formal language. I dare you. Flip through an architectural magazine today. Find any people in the photographs? I didn’t think so. Find plenty of pictures that worship obscure angles and the place where two materials meet? You betcha.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the profession grew up while I wasn’t watching and started throwing more than a cursory glance to the people who would inhabit their buildings. But what really drives it home is that the majority of you never perform post occupancy evaluations! (That one I can’t get over).

So if I’m wrong, prove it. For now I remain humbly disappointed.

—————————————————

via http://www.4Clicks.com – Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software solutions for JOC, SABER, IDIQ, MATOC, SATOC, MACC, POCA, BOA, BOS … featuring an exclusively enhanced 400,000 line item RSMeans Cost Database, visual estimating/automatic quantity take off ( QTO),  and collaborative contract/project/document management, all in one application.   Our technology is currently serving over 85% of United States Air Force bases and rapidly growing numbers of other DOD and non-DOD (United States Army Corps of Engineers,  Army, GSA, Homeland Security, VA..) federal departments/agencies, as well as state/county/local governments, colleges/universities, healthcare,  and airports/transportation.  RSMeans Strategic Partner

The Focus of BIM Education: A Time for Change

BIM, Building Information Modeling, education is not being practiced effectively, if at all, in many/most educational institutions.   Core educational focus must be upon efficient construction delivery business processes (integrated project delivery, IPD, job order contracting, JOC, public private partnerships,PPP) and a robust ontology, vs. technology.   Using Revit, Archicad, or other 3d modeling software is NOT an introduction to BIM, but rather a component of BIM.

Certainly BIM involves technology, and the disruptive technology of cloud computing will prove a primary catalyst for BIM acceptance.  The reason, however, it that people and process are equally important to BIM, if not more so, than technology.

Owners, Contractors, Subcontractors, AEs, Building Product Manufactures, Oversight Groups and/or any stakeholder of the built environment will need to undergo fundamental process change in order to succeed at BIM.

What is BIM?

If you can’t see the whole picture… you can’t appreciate BIM.

Hard to believe…perhaps to some… but many /most of us in the Architecture, Construction, Owners, Operations sector still don’t know how to define BIM.

Anna Winstanley and Nigel Fraser of Lean BIM Strategies Limited provided the most likely reason in a recent perspective…  if you can’t see the whole picture… you can’t appreciate BIM.

BIM Definition – Short – The life-cycle management of the built environment supported by digital technology.

via http://www.4Clicks.com –  Premier cost estimating and efficient project delivery software supporting JOC, SABER, IDIQ, SATOC, MATOC, MACC, POCA, BOA … and featuring integrated contract, project, document management, visual estimating/quanity take-off. QTO, and an exclusively enhanced 400,000 line itme RSMeans Cost database.

When is BIM not BIM?

BIM, Building Information Modeling, actually consists of three M’s…. BIM3 if you will…  Modeling, Models, and Management.

Since the “accepted” definition of BIM is the life-cycle management of the built environment supported by digital technology, it’s easy to see that BIM is part process and part technology, with the goal of developing and using current, accurate, shared information to optimize proactive decision-making.

Unfortunately the AECO sector (Architecture, Engineering Construction, Operations) sector is currently “silo” and “first cost” centric, not to mention relatively technophobic.   Major culture change across all stakeholders must take place before BIM can be understood, let alone practiced, on a widespread basis.

Building Information Modeling: A BUSINESS PROCESS for generating and leveraging building data to design, construct and operate the built environment during its life-cycle.  Stakeholders  have access to accurate, shared information  on demand, enable via interoperability between technology platforms and common terms, definition, metrics and benchmarks.

Building Information Model: The DIGITAL REPRESENTATION of physical and functional characteristics of the built environment.  As such it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility, forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle from inception onwards.

Building Information Management: The strategic vision for ORGANIZATION, COLLABORATION, andCONTROL of the business process by utilizing principles and guidelines for Information  Architecture  (i.e.a digital prototype) to effect the sharing of trustworthy information over the entire life-cycle of a physical asset. The benefits include centralized and visual communication, early exploration of options, sustainability, efficient design, integration of disciplines, site control, as-built documentation, etc.– effectively managing the digital decision support model of an asset from conception to retrofitting to final retirement over the course of a century or more.

Thoughts? Comments?

via http://www.4Clicks.com – Leading cost estimating and efficient project delivery software – JOC, SABER, MATOC, IDIQ, BOA, POCA, BOA … featuring exclusive 400,000+ RSMeans Cost Database, visual estimating, document management, project management.. all in one application.