openBIM Conference success !
Posted by thinkBIM founder Claire Walker
Over 50 construction professionals met at Old Broadcasting House in Leeds for a conference based around the idea of ‘OpenBIM’ within the construction industry, a subject which led to discussions regarding BIM to field, BIM Training and Education, what is OpenBIM and how can this be used, as well as a demonstration of BIM technology in action.
The event was hosted by Leeds Metropolitan University’s Centre for Knowledge Exchange, branded as thinkBIM with the aim of delivering an informative programme which engages both delegates and speakers. This conference event focused on OpenBIM which seeks to provide high levels of interoperability between the various technologies that are available on the market and to articulate these to an increasing informed and educated audience in terms of BIM.
The event is part of a regular monthly series of seminars and conferences which were launched by CKE a year ago and last Wednesday began with a keynote presentation from Nick Nisbet of AEC3. Nick is typical of the speakers that thinkBIM attracts and represents the highest authority in the UK on COBie (Construction Operation Building Information Exchange) an important building block in terms of delivering the Governments BIM strategy. The presentation focused on the idea of ‘sharing structured information’ and how the government intend to use this to implement its BIM strategy, with its target of level 2 compliance by 2016, using COBie as a an example of how BIM can fulfil its ‘sharing structured information’ principle.
After hearing from the UK keynote, the group benefitted from a presentation by Parveen Sharma of Intec Infocom in India being webcast over to the Leeds audience and concerning the use of BIM in his native country. Again thinkBIM seek an international keynote speaker at each of its conferences with the likes of Vico’s CEO having webcast to the group in the past. The presentation included many examples of successful BIM projects in India, and gave valuable case studies of construction such as roads and residential projects which have successfully implemented a BIM approach, interestingly mainly using Revit tools.
The delegate group then split into four round tables, each one focusing on a specific area of BIM within the industry.
Rob Jackson of Bond Bryan Architects provided a demonstration of how BIM can be used successfully on a project, exactly what is possible in terms of scheduling information out of the model data to generate e.g. programmes and the ease and precision that can be achieved.
Kris Bogaerts from Trimble discussed ways of improving BIM into the field – how best to produce physical buildings from the digital models created. The feeling in this group was that contractors appear reluctant to ‘take the dive’ and lead the industry, with many preferring to wait for their competitors to lead on the engagement of BIM. With more companies opting to become involved in BIM projects the ability to drive benefits across the supply chain and deliver these at project level are becoming ever closer.
Adam Matthews is another UK authority in BIM and leads the Government task group for Education and Training and hence held a discussion on training and education of BIM, the needs of different groups with the sector and their wants and the need to provide both technical and business strategic training and learning both in Industry and Academia. Dave Jellings of smartBIMsolutions led the discussion in his groups concerning the recently launched ‘Open BIM’ alliance which includes Graphisoft, Solibri and Tekla and how this supports the business implementation of BIM
The event ended with the usual fast paced and exciting Pecha Kucha session with presentations including James Austin from BIM Technologies, George Mukta from BIMacademy based in Newcastle and with whom thinkBIM closely collaborate and a presentation from Stephen Hamill, from NBS and chair of the event, himself.
thinkBIM was broadcast worldwide through the use of twitter and skype, and can be watched on demand by following the link here. Presentations from the event are also available from the link as well as its Twitter feed.
Other presentations are available to download below.
BIM and Interoperability – thinkBIM – Hamil
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