A brief Literature Review to the emergence of the UK BIM Level 2 Mandate 2016. By Jalal Semaan. Candidate - MSc BIM & Digital Built Environments.
This paper is aimed at understanding the sequence in which BIM legislation and policy came along, where the standards came from and who were the contributors leading the current Level 2 BIM process towards the promised Digitised Built Britain.
Following the world-wide economic crisis of 2008, there has been a major shift in the construction sector towards sustainable development and more efficient methods of production [1]. In the past few years, the UK government in particular had expressed readiness to response to the world economic ramifications following the publication of the Innovation and Growth Team IGT Report in Nov. 2010 that recommended the de-carbonisation of the UK industry through the construction of more sustainable buildings and infrastructure for clean energy [2]. The report highlighted the role of BIM as a catalyst of change to the fragmented wasteful trends of the industry. Most significantly, the IGT report included a list of recommendations that emphasized on the role of BIM and Soft Landings. Where BIM was identified as an enabler of integration for various engineering systems that will model the pathway to carbon reductions and cost savings from the construction industry. Additionally, the report further recommended that principals of soft landings should be integrated in future construction contracts so that buildings are continually monitored post-handover and throughout their operational life-cycle [2]. In March 2011, the IGT report stemmed the publication of “The Plan for Growth” alongside “Budget 2011” to quantify future economic targets and cost-reduction objectives where the construction sector alone accounted for 7% of the GDP, equivalent to an annual investment of £110bn. Approximately, £44bn per year was reported as a windful expenditure attributed to the poor and wasteful public-sector procurement practices that are driven by traditional fragmented methods. Both Growth and Budget reports promised to reform public procurement with new methods for construction and long-term asset performance in an attempt to reduce capital costs of 20% by 2016 [3] [4]. Informed by the proceedings of these two documents, the Government Construction Strategy was published in May 2011. The Strategy seriously acknowledged the “need for change” and called for the “Alignment of design/construction with operation and asset management” in reference to the principals of Soft Landings and called for the deployment of a fully collaborative 3D BIM Mandate by 2016 [5]. The Government Construction Strategy informed the construction related actions required by the IGT 2010 through the publication of the Low Carbon Construction Action Plan in June 2011. The Plan identified roles, responsibilities and milestones for the rollout of BIM [6]. Additionally, the Action Plan established the Government Industry BIM Programme (July 2011) that emphasized on BIM adoption for both public and private sector organisations. Accordingly, contributions to the programme came from the UK Government, the Construction Industry Council and the BIM Task Group Organisation that emerged following the Construction Strategy in 2011 [7]. In line with the Government’s Strategy, the BIM Task Group published in 2011 a “Strategy Paper” that proposed a Push-Pull workflow engaging the supply chain with the Government to deliver life-cycle asset information for Level 2 BIM by 2016 [8]. Furthermore, the CIC assisted in incorporating the Government Soft Landings in the BIM Programme in 2012 and worked closely with BSI and to produce standards such as BSI1192-4:2014 [9], the BIM Protocol [10] and all PAS documents (PAS1192-2:2013 [11], PAS1192-3:2014 [12] and PAS1192-5:2015 [13]) regarded today as pillars of the BIM process. In 2013, the BIM Task Group published the Digital Plan of Work that demonstrates complete step-by-step guidance for the CAPEX delivery process in terms of required workflow documentation and management based mainly on BS1192, BSI1192-4:2014 and PAS1192-2:2013 [14]. Moreover, other organisations such as the National Building Specifications NBS integrated the Uniclass System [15] with BIM intent and contributed the NBS Toolkit for The Digital Plan of Work [16]. The NBS toolkit provides a series of BIM-enabling applications (software) that feed-in stage-specific information into the BIM Models or Reports. Refer for Figure 1 below summarizing the above information.
Following the world-wide economic crisis of 2008, there has been a major shift in the construction sector towards sustainable development and more efficient methods of production [1]. In the past few years, the UK government in particular had expressed readiness to response to the world economic ramifications following the publication of the Innovation and Growth Team IGT Report in Nov. 2010 that recommended the de-carbonisation of the UK industry through the construction of more sustainable buildings and infrastructure for clean energy [2]. The report highlighted the role of BIM as a catalyst of change to the fragmented wasteful trends of the industry. Most significantly, the IGT report included a list of recommendations that emphasized on the role of BIM and Soft Landings. Where BIM was identified as an enabler of integration for various engineering systems that will model the pathway to carbon reductions and cost savings from the construction industry. Additionally, the report further recommended that principals of soft landings should be integrated in future construction contracts so that buildings are continually monitored post-handover and throughout their operational life-cycle [2]. In March 2011, the IGT report stemmed the publication of “The Plan for Growth” alongside “Budget 2011” to quantify future economic targets and cost-reduction objectives where the construction sector alone accounted for 7% of the GDP, equivalent to an annual investment of £110bn. Approximately, £44bn per year was reported as a windful expenditure attributed to the poor and wasteful public-sector procurement practices that are driven by traditional fragmented methods. Both Growth and Budget reports promised to reform public procurement with new methods for construction and long-term asset performance in an attempt to reduce capital costs of 20% by 2016 [3] [4]. Informed by the proceedings of these two documents, the Government Construction Strategy was published in May 2011. The Strategy seriously acknowledged the “need for change” and called for the “Alignment of design/construction with operation and asset management” in reference to the principals of Soft Landings and called for the deployment of a fully collaborative 3D BIM Mandate by 2016 [5]. The Government Construction Strategy informed the construction related actions required by the IGT 2010 through the publication of the Low Carbon Construction Action Plan in June 2011. The Plan identified roles, responsibilities and milestones for the rollout of BIM [6]. Additionally, the Action Plan established the Government Industry BIM Programme (July 2011) that emphasized on BIM adoption for both public and private sector organisations. Accordingly, contributions to the programme came from the UK Government, the Construction Industry Council and the BIM Task Group Organisation that emerged following the Construction Strategy in 2011 [7]. In line with the Government’s Strategy, the BIM Task Group published in 2011 a “Strategy Paper” that proposed a Push-Pull workflow engaging the supply chain with the Government to deliver life-cycle asset information for Level 2 BIM by 2016 [8]. Furthermore, the CIC assisted in incorporating the Government Soft Landings in the BIM Programme in 2012 and worked closely with BSI and to produce standards such as BSI1192-4:2014 [9], the BIM Protocol [10] and all PAS documents (PAS1192-2:2013 [11], PAS1192-3:2014 [12] and PAS1192-5:2015 [13]) regarded today as pillars of the BIM process. In 2013, the BIM Task Group published the Digital Plan of Work that demonstrates complete step-by-step guidance for the CAPEX delivery process in terms of required workflow documentation and management based mainly on BS1192, BSI1192-4:2014 and PAS1192-2:2013 [14]. Moreover, other organisations such as the National Building Specifications NBS integrated the Uniclass System [15] with BIM intent and contributed the NBS Toolkit for The Digital Plan of Work [16]. The NBS toolkit provides a series of BIM-enabling applications (software) that feed-in stage-specific information into the BIM Models or Reports. Refer for Figure 1 below summarizing the above information.
Figure 1 - The emergence of BIM
Level 2 Mandate 2016
To sum up, the Government Construction Strategy 2011 had marked the historical coup of the BIM process in the UK and all developing countries using the British Standards. The Push-Pull strategy along with the new reformed standards (pillars of BIM) succeeded in the realization of the Level 2 BIM mandate in April 2016.
References
[1]
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Department for
Business Innovation and Skills, “UK Construction: An economic analysis of
the sector,” www.gov.uk, 2013.
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[2]
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HM Government
Innovation and Growth Team, “Low Carbon Construction (Final Report),” 2010.
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[3]
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Department for
Business Innovation and Skills, “The Plan for Growth,” HM Treasury, 2011.
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[4]
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HM Government,
“Budget 2011,” HM Treasury, 2011.
|
[5]
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Cabinet Office,
“Government Construction Strategy,” HM Goverment, 2011.
|
[6]
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HM Government, “Low
Carbon Construction Action Plan,” HM Government, 2011.
|
[7]
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HM Government,
“Industry Strategy: Government and Industry Partnership - Building
Information Modelling,” 2011.
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[8]
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BIM Task Group, “Building
Information Modelling (BIM) Working Party - Strategy Paper,” BIM Task
Group, 2011.
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[9]
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BSI, “Collaborative
Production of Architectural Engineering and Construction Information - Code
of Practice,” BSI, 2016.
|
[10]
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Construction
Industry Council, “Building Information Modelling BIM Protocol,” CIC, 2013.
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[11]
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British Standards
Institute, “PAS1192-2:2013 Specification for information management for the
capital delivery phase of construction projects using building information
modelling,” BSI, 2013.
|
[12]
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British Standards
Institute, “PAS1192-3:2014 Specification for information management for the
operational phase of assets using building information modelling,” BSI,
2014.
|
[13]
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British Standards
Institute, “PAS1192-5:2015 Specification for security-minded building
information modelling, digital built environments and smart asset
management,” BSI, 2015.
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[14]
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BIM Task Group,
“BIM The Digital Plan of Work & Assemblies,” BIM Task Group, 2013.
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[15]
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NBS, “Uniclass
Unified Classification for the Construction Industry,” NBS, 2015.
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[16]
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National Building
Specification, “NBS BIM Toolkit,” [Online]. Available:
https://toolkit.thenbs.com/.
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