Dec. 18, 2009, Boston, Massachusetts - The United States architecture/engineering/construction (A/E/C) industry could save over $400 billion annually by eliminating wasted effort through the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to manage the building lifecycle, said Deke Smith, CEO of the buildingSMART Alliance, a council within the National Institute of Building Sciences based in Washington, D.C.
While the use of BIM is growing rapidly among architects, engineers and contractors, only 48% of A/E/C practitioners recently surveyed reported using it, compared with 28% in 2008, Smith said in a recent Webinar hosted by ARCHIBUS, Inc., the #1 developer worldwide of real estate, infrastructure, facilities and environmental management software.
A recording of that Webinar can be viewed at: http://www.archibus.com/webinar/fallweb09_5.cfm
“Every year in the U.S. there is five billion square feet of new construction, five billion square feet of renovation, and 1.75 billion square feet of demolition,” reports Smith. “By 2035 75% of the built environment in the U.S. will be either new or renovated. And there will be $400 billion in wasted design and construction effort every year we wait to adopt BIM universally.”
A Building Information Model, explained the buildingSMART alliance executive, is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. As such, it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its lifecycle from inception onward.
Build Electronically First
BIM means collecting comprehensive building data once and having that centralized data repository used, from a building’s inception onward, by all A/E/C stakeholders as well as owners and facilities managers for better decision support and performance. In short, all facets of the building lifecycle are supported by BIM
“BIM allows one to build facilities electronically and completely before we build them physically,” said Smith. “This reduces risk and associated litigation, RFIs and costly change orders, allows more activities to occur in parallel which accelerates project delivery, and provides better estimates and true as-builts.”
BIM also helps support emergency response by providing a common operating picture of facilities and resources, as well as aiding in smart grid/smart device implementation, city planning, and more.
BIM Mandates Spreading
The breadth of BIM adoption is seen in a variety of projects cited by Smith. The University of Southern California’s new School of Cinematic Arts has a mandate to be built to last 100 years with all design to be coordinated through the use of what must ultimately be a fully integrated 3D BIM model.
BIM is also being adopted on a large scale by federal government agencies including the GSA, U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (with $50 billion in projects slated for an open standards BIM solution), and the Smithsonian Institution. The states of Virginia, Wisconsin and Texas are also requiring open standards-based projects based on BIM.
In a recent Congressional caucus coalition briefing on Capitol Hill, Smith pointed out that Congress people were educated on BIM as an important ingredient in reducing waste, improving delivery of buildings and structures, and enhancing the value and long-term sustainability of our built environment.
About ARCHIBUS, Inc.
ARCHIBUS is the #1 global provider of real estate, infrastructure, and facilities management solutions and services with the total annual expenditures for ARCHIBUS-related products and services exceeding $1.7 Billion (USD). Through effective innovation and business transformation, ARCHIBUS users save their organizations over $100 billion annually. With ARCHIBUS, organizations can use a single, comprehensive, integrated solution to make informed strategic decisions that optimize return-on-investment, lower asset lifecycle costs, and increase enterprise-wide productivity and profitability. ARCHIBUS is the world-wide proponent for the creation of ubiquitous environmental sustainability.
ARCHIBUS is the #1 TIFM (Total Infrastructure & Facilities Management) solution in the world. More than 4,000,000 ARCHIBUS enterprise and Web users collectively manage over 5,000,000 properties, with organizations reporting facilities-related cost savings as high as 34%. With over 1,600 ARCHIBUS Business Partners, local and regional support worldwide is available in over 130 countries and in over two dozen languages. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, ARCHIBUS, Inc. has pioneered computer-aided infrastructure and facilities management technologies since 1982. For more information, visit archibus.com.
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