BIM for Manufacturers Seminar: help with the journey

Guest post by thinkBIM chair, Duncan Reed (djhreed67)

On Tuesday 28th July I attended the #BIM4M2 seminar at The Building Centre in London. I’m not going to try and cover everything that took place as this was pretty much done on the day by Su Butcher’s (@SuButcher) very comprehensive live blog that can be found here

So why write about this? Well apart from being a very well organised event there were some really good messages that should be communicated.

Manufacturers are getting to grips with BIM, and in lots of different ways to suit the needs of their own businesses and their customers. As ever it is great to see and hear from businesses proving that there is no one-size-fits all solution. Andy Stolworthy (@stolliea) from Assa Abloy provided a candid presentation on what Assa Abloy have done as business to date, what worked, what they might have done differently and the current debate they are still having over generic objects versus manufacturers’ specific ones. See his slide deck here.

How BIM4M2 can help you? A really good, straight forward and comprehensive set of presentations from Alan Baikie from BIM Objects, Joe Cilia at FIS and Steve Thompson from Tata Steel (@SGThompsonBIM)

Alan covered the new Compass tool that BIM4M2 have developed, more information on this later on.

Joe Cilia gave a great overview of the business derivers for a manufacturer to adopt BIM (see his slides here).  I’d recommend reviewing these slides as a great To-Do List for how to adopt digital processes in your business, whether as a manufacturer or not. Remember – get the basics sorted first.

Next up was Steve who provided a clear guide on Product Data Templates (PDTs), a subject we love to discuss here at thinkBIM! See his slides here.

I feel this slide below is of particular note, showing how data was shared previously (and often before we even thought of this as data sharing) and the changes that digital workflows can bring.

I still feel that there is more work to be done to unify the approach to creating and using PDT and PDS but was pleased to hear that BIMTalk is to be the definitive go-to place for this part of the BIM picture. More about BIMTalk here

There was also a further good step-by-step presentation by Matt Crunden of Legrand on Product Templates in the afternoon session. His slides can be seen here.

There were two interesting initiatives launched at the event by the BIM4M2 team. A new Compass tool and the start of the BIM4M2 Survey.

Compass (details here)has been provided to offer a quick way for companies to assess their need to adopt BIM processes in their business. It doesn’t specifically tell you what bit of BIM to do but looks a really useful way to determine whether BIM needs to be in your short term or long term business planning.

The BIM4M2 have also published their 2015 BIM Survey. Please complete this here.

But my final comments relate back to the start of the day and Gareth Webb from IBM. Gareth gave the audience much to consider in the wider context of digital processes and how it already affects our personal lives so much, see presentation here . He gave a great analogy with how we can access data when making purchases on Amazon, making the simple link to how construction needs to move in the same direction. Better data processes now or a glimpse of Level 3 BIM?

But remember this – we buy outcomes not necessarily specifications. All part of Re-Thinking Construction.

Gareth Webb @IBM making the great point; we buy by #outcomes not necessarily #specification Think who wants your data & why #bim4m2help

— Duncan Reed (@djhreed67) July 28, 2015