“Adoption of BIM by Product Manufacturers in the UK – A Survey by BIM4M2″

This report is based on the survey on ‘BIM adoption by product manufacturers’ developed by the BIM4M2 Promotions Working Group. It was Competitive Advantage Ltd on behalf of the group, who carried out the survey and analysis. BIM4M2 prepared an online questionnaire and remained open for completion from, July to the end of September 2014. A total of 188 respondents filled the questioner and among them 161 (85.6%) were manufacturers. Among the respondents, 40.2% already invested in BIM, 49.7% plan to invest before 2016 and 10.1% had no plans to introduce BIM. The main objectives of the research are

• To inform the process of helping manufacturers to implement BIM and prioritize activity for BIM4M2
• To understand the ration of manufacturers who have, or planning to offer BIM objects
• To identify the obstacles for offering BIM
• To know how manufacturers implement BIM
• To get data to quote about the provision of BIM by manufacturers

The question ‘Why did you decide to invest in BIM’, was asked to the respondents, who already used BIM. 40.7% chose the reason ‘commercial advantage’, 27.1% support customer demand, 8.5 % support business efficiency and only 6.8% agreed that it is the future. Most of the manufacturers (32.3%) tell that the decision of investing BIM is to marketing, while 29.7% consider the decision is too technical and 26.5% is to sales. 78.6% of respondents, who already invested on BIM, strongly agree that they use BIM as a differentiator and 47.1% agree that it helps them to secure business. Therefore, 58.0% of those, who have BIM, consider that the BIM investment was definitely worthwhile. Although a significant percentage (24.6%) say it remains to be seen, none in this category said it was not worthwhile. The respondents, who are planning to invest in BIM, were asked the question “When do you plan to invest in BIM?”. 44.7% of respondents had planned to invest in the nearest future like 2014 and 49.4% in 2015. Only 5.9% of respondents postponed the plan of investing in BIM to 2016. When they were asked that is BIM investment is worthwhile, 38% responded that it was definitely worthwhile and 2.5% said that it is not worthwhile. Only 34.9% of respondent, who are planning to invest in BIM, believe that BIM can be an important differentiator for their business and 52.3% slightly agree on it and only 2.3% strongly disagree it. 7.2% of respondents in this category indicate ‘resource required’ is the main barrier to invest in BIM, while around 6.8% consider ‘creating an understanding of the importance of BIM’ and ‘understanding the software options’ are the barriers. The respondent, who have no plans to invest, was asked about the functions that were involved in the decision not to invest in BIM. 50.0% respondents chose the option marketing and 25% chose technical and nobody selected finance. To the question regarding the barrier to adopting BIM, 8.6% said that it was too expensive to develop. 6.2% consider no demands for BIM objects from engineers and contractors as the barrier. All these results show that the respondents, who already have BIM, show a positive approach to BIM compared to those, who are planning to BIM and those, who have no plans to invest BIM. Those, who do not have the plan to invest in BIM indicates the cost of development as the main barrier. While 39.1% of companies with BIM objects available regularly receive requests from engineer and architects, it is only 5.8% of the companies who are planning BIM. Similarly, 21.4% of companies, who currently use BIM, get regular requests from contractors and it is very high compared to 4.7% of companies who are planning BIM. These results show that those who are available BIM objects can experience a significant increase in requests. Even though higher requests are evenly spread over the types of products, communications, transport, security and fittings & furniture give a higher proportion of requests. Similarly, more requests are getting from contractors for structural frames & walls and for electricity supply & lighting from building owners. The survey data show that 73.8% of respondents provide BIM content in Autodesk Revit. All other software platforms are used only by less than 20.0%. Majority of the respondents (75.5%) do not plan to extend their content to other formats. According to the survey, a majority of the organizations (82.1%) that have BIM and 57.5% that are planning to have BIM possess a person responsible for BIM in their organization. The study further involves a detailed study on the BIM object information format to be mandated by UK government by 2016 as well as information about different ways adopted by product manufacturers to develop BIM Object and more interesting facts about the adoption of BIM by product manufacturers and manufacturing industry.

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Reference: BIM4M2. (July to October 2014). BIM Adoption by Product Manufacturers. London, UK: BIM4M2.  Website: www.bim4m2.co.uk