Building Information modeling (BIM) has been in development for many decades, but it only became popular in the early 2000s. By the late 2000s, BIM was starting to get traction in the AEC industry and governments & larger organisations understood the benefits of using BIM in their processes. BIM became a requirement in government projects and countries started mandating the usage of BIM during the planning phases of the project.
After over a decade of BIM usage globally, the construction phase is severely behind in terms of usage of BIM. More specifically, the usage of BIM for Construction management / detailed activity programme, Procurement & resource management and Progress monitoring is hardly ever used.
BIM for detailed activity program
HxGN Smart Build cloud and mobile solution is focused on these areas to help stakeholder get better insight into their projects. By utilizing best practices from Industrial sectors such as Advance Work Packaging (AWP), Smart Build provides the ability to do detailed activity planning together with the BIM model. Individual work steps which are not in the master program can be further planned within Smart Build. 4D production planning allows detailed planning for 1 week to 6 weeks lookahead. This ensures that field crews have everything that they need to complete their work.
BIM for resource management
Smart Build allow you to develop a detailed budget which is integrated with the schedule. This allows the automated time phasing of the budget based on the schedule using multiple time phasing methods such as Front Loaded, Back Loaded, Bell Curve, etc. With the time phased budget, resource requirements can easily be identified and managed. With the automated generation of resource availability, resource shortage can be avoided and loss productivity due to waiting time can be reduced.
BIM for progress monitoring
Progress monitoring is currently done using a visual inspection of the construction and recorded on a hardcopy document. Upon returning to the site office, the percentage of completion is recorded once again in a scheduling tool after it has been approved by the project manager. Utilising the field app of Smart Build, progress can be recorded and approved via the workflow engine which allows real time updates to all stakeholders. As we further integrate sensors and photogrammetry, artificial intelligence can be utilized to get autonomous progress updates.
There is a great opportunity for the industry to bring forward the usage of BIM in the construction phase and improve overall productivity. Skanska is using HxGN Smart Build to connect the model, cost, and schedule of their projects to connect the work that’s being done in the office with the work that’s being done in the field. Costs, timeline, and documents are in a uniquely presented in an easy to use, intuitive dashboard.
