BIM is not just a digital representation of a building, said Deke Smith, executive director for Building Smart. It covers not just the physical aspects of the building but the functional characteristics as well.

What are the advantages of using BIM? Smith explained, “We’re trying to build buildings electronically before we build them physically. We want to collect information once and reuse it again and again during the lifecycle of the building process.”

He added, “It’s a shared knowledge base ... an ability to share information across a lot of people.”

One of the most compelling reasons to use BIM comes down to time, Smith said. For example, at General Motors, in a conventional design-bid-build contract, a project may take 80 weeks to complete; 60 weeks if it is fast-tracked. With BIM in place, the delivery time is cut down to 50 weeks (and can be delivered as fast as 38 weeks if fast-tracked).

With BIM, owners can virtually “walk” through the project to give approval before the project begins. Design changes made electronically do not require reworking entire sets of construction documents. Clashes are identified electronically before they occur on the job site. Structural elements can be designed, ordered and delivered in an expedited manner. And, the number of change orders and punchlist items are reduced (and in some cases eliminated), improving the delivery date of the project.

Cost is the other most compelling reason to use BIM. John Moebes, director of Construction at Crate & Barrel, said that with rising construction costs, fewer skilled workers and a stalled economy, cost savings are at the forefront of the retailer’s mind. “That’s why we started looking at BIM,” he said. “We can’t influence the retail leasing markets. We can’t set our own tune to influence those hard metrics that impact our construction costs. We can’t really influence cost of materials ... or the shortage of labor.”

What they can control, however, is their overall process. “We asked ourselves in the construction and architecture departments, how can we draw in the buildings faster? How can we get the exteriors completed faster? How can we get the interior ceilings closed up? How can we get the walls in faster? If we can build faster without really reducing the quality of what we’re building, then we’re actually saving money.”

While digital modeling is not the total solution to all construction woes, Moebes has noticed some cost-saving trends. “We have leveraged BIM to improve clash detection,” he said. “We’re solving things in the documents stage instead of the construction phase.”

They also use BIM to improve constructability reviews. Further, they can pull quantities faster, have improved proof of concept, have a better buy-in to design ideas from corporate management, improve coordination and asset management and make better design decisions along the way.

“When you use a BIM platform approach, you can pre-build [a structure] at a documents level before you get into the field. Working in the field is the wrong place to start experimenting with [assembly]. It’s very costly and impacts the schedule dramatically. It’s much better for us to do it at the documents level in a BIM world,” Moebes said.

From a financial standpoint, “The financial department is looking at BIM for cost segregation reports to accurately and publicly determine the write-off value with the [IRS]. It’s an important part of the financial process.”

Most conference participants, comprised mostly of AEC professionals, are still in the elementary stage of BIM usage, with more than 70 percent considering themselves novices. One participant said, “We are just beginning to educate ourselves about BIM. This provided a very helpful 'first step'. We particularly liked hearing John Moebes’ first hand experience with using BIM and the real life examples.” Another said, “We had limited knowledge of BIM. [The conference] helped our people get a better understanding where the industry is heading.” Several more shared this consensus: “I now know that I must learn much more about it.”

The next audio conference, BIM in Public Building Construction, will be held Feb. 20 at 1 p.m. (EST). The presenters are Chuck Hardy, deputy director of the Property Development Division of the Great Lakes Region for the U.S. General Services Administration, and James T. (Toby) Wilson, AEC and BIM group leader at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ CAD/BIM Technology Center. To sign up, visit www.constructionclaims.com and click on Roadmap to BIM 2008. It is not too late to register for the entire series; registrants will immediately be sent a CD-ROM set of the audio recording and powerpoint material from the first session to maintain continuity of the full program.