HANNELL on BIM

The term ‘Digital Twin’ has recently become popular in BIM & Digital Engineering circles. However, to have any value, the digital twin needs to contain relevant, easily accessible information. All the data generated during design and construction is not necessarily useful. This post examines both good and bad digital twins.

Technology is certainly part of the solution, but should not determine strategy alone. In other words, ‘because you can’ is not good enough- there  has to be a specific and measurable benefit.
In this post, I illustrate this concept using a ‘digital value pyramid’

For the owner and operator of an asset such as a building, bridge or railway, just a tiny fraction of the data generated during design & construction is useful. This post examines the downstream use of BIM, beyond design & construction

‘Clash Detection’ is often a waste of time particularly if applied without adequate planning, or when it is assumed that a technical solution can solve a process (design) issue. There is a lot more to good design merely than stuff not clashing.

In the olden days, many organisations had a group of people (nearly always women) in what was known as a ‘typing pool’. The idea was that if you needed a non-handwritten document, then these people would apply specialist skills (typing) on an incredibly complicated bit of kit (a typewriter) to produce said document.
A surprising number of organisations still work in ‘typing pool ‘ mode when it comes to BIM.

A construction project, with quality documentation so everything fits together properly, budget and program are achieved (or improved upon), construction runs efficiently and there are not any acrimonious legal disputes at the end between client, designers, contractor and subcontractors is an elusive beast.
3D goggles aren’t going to make much difference.

With BIM, it is easy to get bogged down in technology & detail and neglect the important strategic aspects. In this post, I draw parallels between the approach needed to successfully get down a mountain on a bicycle, and that needed for BIM.

BIM plans, standards and other documents have a tendency towards excessive detail in which important issues are lost. In this post I explain that the quality of a BIM plan is much more important that the quantity (or weight) of the document

A common phenomenon with technology (and specifically BIM) is to focus on the shiny and disregard the dull. In this post, I argue that the dull is quite often more important and valuable.

There is quite a lot of interest in ‘BIM for Infrastructure’ at the moment. However, much infrastructure design is quite different to ‘traditional’ BIM. This post examines the use of BIM in infrastructure.

Construction has become an increasingly bureaucratic and slow moving business. This is coupled with a deep conservatism and a distrust of technology. Many view BIM as just another headache that did not exist even 10 years ago. This post examines this perception.