BIM In New zealand

New Zealand comes under the top of the list of countries who adopt Building Information Modeling (BIM) within their construction industry. The US and UK have started adopting BIM widely with modeling and process standards and thereby achieve significant progress in construction sector. New Zealanders try to adopt BIM and apply it to regional context. Many other authorities like Singapore and Honk Kong also try to apply BIM within their local industry with local guidance documents and requirements and to achieve progress. Even Australia, with the help of ACIF and APCC put together guidance at a regional level.

Transformational Technology : BIM (Building Information Modeling)

Operational Benefits

Productivity is the most important advantage of BIM, which is expected by the top metric organizations while they adopt this new technology. The following features of BIM help improve productivity gains.

• • Minimized project management
  • Enhanced communication and co-ordination
  • Early detection of errors
  • Reduced rework
  • Reduced cost
  • Improved quality

Design

BIM is a lifecycle model and its application starts in the early stages of a construction process. BIM helps the designers from the fundamental changes to the design process. Similarly it ensures greater certainty the design of the project and the ultimate construction and operation of the building.

BIM enhances communication and understanding among the team members and therefore it can ensure the collective understanding of design intent. Moreover, as the 3-D BIM model provides visualization of the project, the information can be shared more clearly. Besides, using BIM, each project stake holder is accessible to design, layout information, scheduling, materials data, performance and financial etc. from the starting of the project. As a result, the alterations that have significant construction and lifestyle costs can be made easily and cheap rate.

Project management

Several project managers claim that adopting BIM in the early phases of a project help them to reduce errors, rework, project duration and overall construction costs. As BIM is able to visualize design options, it can reduce costs and improves the certainty of the project outputs. It can also have a significant role in reducing project duration. But the BIM users should be well experienced and proficient to get maximum results from this new technology.

Construction

More accurate design and trade coordination, easier and precise design interpretation, reduced change orders, improved accuracy and automated conflict avoidance etc. are the main features of BIM that help construction professionals gain productivity. As BIM is able to detect and avoid conflicts before the construction is started, the firm can save the unbudgeted construction changes by 40%. It will really help save 10% of the total value of a construction project. Besides reducing rework and cost overruns, BIM also help builders use prefabricated materials and pre-assembled components, using its sophisticated modeling capabilities.

Facility Management

The most advantageous features of BIM are real-time performance monitoring and facility management process that ensures hi-quality outcomes in post construction phase of a project. As BIM can create and manage building and infrastructure assets more economically with less environment impact, it is really useful for public-sector asset managers. BIM minimizes environmental impacts and running costs during operation while ensuring human comfort and safety, which are the primary concerns of occupants, owners and asset managers.

Economic benefits

Besides integrating process, BIM can also transfer information intelligently, accurately and timely between key project stakeholders. It is one of the main features that enhance productivity gains. Lots of countries have already understood its ability for productivity gains and several organizations trust in its potential to offer even greater value in future. If BIM can prove this belief, there is no doubt that BIM adoption will be accelerated in an amazing pace.

An online New Zealand BIM handbook is produced by the Productivity Partnership working with the National Technical Standards Committee (NTSC). It focuses on some core objectives as the expected productivity by implementing BIM in New Zealand by 2010. The objectives are like removal of the complexity of building process, enhancement of the speed of the building and reduction of the cost. It considers BIM as an important tool to achieve productivity gain within a short period of time.