Experienced BIM client Birmingham City University (BCU) has set up an external consultancy to help other clients and property owners see through the “BIM wash” it believes is created by BIM managers.
The MYBIM consultancy will advise clients on how to navigate the complexities of the Level 2 mandate, and achieve tangible benefits for their facilities management operations.
MYBIM is a partnership between BCU and digital information specialist Hobs Group. It will take an advisory role on projects, working either directly for the client or for the Tier 1 project manager, to identify BIM obligations, develop bespoke documentation and tools, including Employer’s Information Requirements, and validate and audit BIM outcomes.
With an initial focus on the education sector, it will exploit BCU’s innovative approach to BIM, with experience delivering several major BIM-enabled projects, as well as Hobs Group’s understanding of BIM technologies, such as 3D modelling and Common Data Environment technology.
The service will be provided based on a time-limited fixed fee proposal.
Mo Isap, group director of Hobs, told BIM+: “The idea for MYBIM came out of frustration. The greatest beneficiaries of a BIM process are the owner-occupiers, but they are presently the least informed and least appreciative of this fact.
“We are in the privileged position to have an intimate understanding of the owner occupier space, I am co founder and trustee of a leading Free School and Academy Trust and my colleague, Richard Draper, is BIM process manager at Birmingham City University who has led the implementation of several Level 2 projects.”
These include the Parkside and Curzon buildings, both built by Willmott Dixon, which formed phases 1 and 2 of the university’s campus extension.
MYBIM’s “no nonsense” approach will aim to explain BIM in simple language, identifying the return on investment possible from BIM adoption and the implications of Level 2 on a project.
It will focus on “selfish BIM”, which is driven by the strategic objectives of individual clients, whilst achieving compliance to the Level 2 mandate.
Draper comments: “This will centre on the EIR, but looking at it from a client’s point of view, rather than the BIM manager’s. At the moment clients are being fed a lot of nonsense from BIM managers who are working to help the project rather than help the client.
"MYBIM will make sure that things are set out correctly and that KPIs, deliverables and the EIR have been met so it isn’t just a case of the BIM manager giving the client a lot of ‘BIM wash’.”
The consultancy will review the performance of delivery teams in relation to pre-defined BIM processes and validate the deliverables against the client’s objective, he adds: “We will be making sure that processes to validate the model are part of the EIR. The key is to make sure that processes actually happen on site and site teams buy into them, so clients get complete validated models at practical completion, not six months later.”
MYBIM will make sure that things are set out correctly and that KPIs, deliverables and the EIR have been met so it isn’t just a case of the BIM manager giving the client a lot of ‘BIM wash’.– Mo Isap, group director, Hobs
