Digital, collaborative, patient: why the BIM revolution is taking so long

To say that Victor Hugo was wrong when he once said, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come", would be inappropriate given the many social and political examples of his quote. However, the fact that the universality of this saying is now reaching its limits in the long-awaited BIM revolution does not mean that the time is not ripe for the idea of unfettered data flow in the building materials industry. Rather, it will only work if many other conditions are right. The best idea needs not only the perfect timing, but also strategy, clarity, vision, the right tools - and the right leaders. Whether it's 1789, 1989 or the American civil rights movement, without this combination many revolutions would probably have turned out differently.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) represents one of the greatest opportunities for manufacturers of building materials and products in recent decades. It has never been easier for manufacturers to gain acceptance from designers and architects. The opportunity to get their solutions into architects' plans and be specified as a leading product has never been greater. Never before has it been so real for manufacturers and architects to develop collaborative and participative solutions that ultimately benefit the quality of the building. But while designers and architects have made great strides into the digital future, the building materials and products industry is still lagging behind in many areas. And yet a slogan for the revolution was quickly found. Digital, collaborative, better' may not be as catchy as 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité', 'Wir sind ein Volk' or 'I have a dream'. But there is no lack of a guiding principle for BIM.

Rather, the construction industry has made another mistake that fundamentally distinguishes it from the historical examples mentioned. It has tried to make the transition without a foundation. For too long, BIM data has not been designed around the needs of designers and architects - the people who are supposed to use it. Instead of asking them what they needed, manufacturers just did it. With sometimes problematic results. So we set out to find out what went wrong and analysed the construction industry's biggest mistakes to show what needs to be done to get the BIM revolution off the ground. We like to compare ourselves with the great historical disruptions. After all, the idea of a digital materials revolution has been driving us for years. With this in mind, 'Digitalisez! Collaborez! Now!

Failure 1: BIM without an integrated digital strategy

According to the dictionary, the word strategy, derived from the ancient Greek word strategia (from 'field command'), means a long-term, precise plan of action designed to achieve a goal (military, political, psychological, etc.), in which an attempt is made to take all factors into account from the outset. Was there a plan for the BIM revolution? Unfortunately not. The industry has recognised that BIM is one of the major trends of the future. However, instead of taking a sustainable approach and placing BIM in the context of an overall digital strategy, it is being treated like one of many to-dos on a Kanban board. Manufacturers have their product data translated once into BIM objects, which are then made available for download on seemingly relevant portals. The realisation that BIM is only one part of the overall digital strategy comes later, when the really resource-intensive work of data maintenance begins. By then, very few people are prepared to take a step back and start from scratch. Or, to stick with the chess analogy, after a few clumsy moves, it is difficult to manoeuvre out of the situation. Especially as some people are sure that BIM requires this effort - which is not true. The truth is that BIM must always be just one part of an overall digital strategy. The most important question to ask when setting the strategic course should be How can I manage all my data efficiently?

Failure 2: No single sourcing, no tracking, no updating

The best plan and the best strategy are useless if they are based on the wrong information or assumptions. Imagine an architectural design was a chessboard and you were planning an object without knowing the position and number of its pieces. Unthinkable! For too long, the BIM revolution has paid insufficient attention to this quality of information. But the solution has long been available. The answer is the principle of single sourcing. It means that each product has only one address in the data management system, which can be used to modify and control it. Whether online catalogues, websites or BIM objects in the digital twin, all product data exports are always linked to the manufacturer's master data management (MDM) system - often a PIM system. This has a significant advantage: manufacturers can track the product data they have published. The most important reason for product data tracking is to be able to update product data. Manufacturers need to know where their product data is. Without single sourcing, this is a Sisyphean task that few companies can truly guarantee - yet it is unavoidable. Data currency is a core element of data quality. No planner wants to plan with outdated product data. This is so important that leading planning offices in Germany work exclusively with BIM objects that have been created using single sourcing. Outdated product data is a problem because it does not show when a product has changed or is no longer available and therefore may no longer meet the requirements and a specific structure as a solution. 

Single sourcing and tracking of product data are essential. They provide the basis for data currency and therefore guaranteed data quality. For example, planners can view delivery times, availability and other up-to-date information to support project planning. Knowing how products are being used can prompt manufacturers to send field staff to major projects to provide support during implementation. Finally, data tracking is the only reliable source of information on the effectiveness of the BIM data offered. Which brings us to the next major gap.

Failure 3: Construction industry does not consider the effectiveness of its BIM data offering

The English word 'impact' can be translated as, among other things, effect, influence, impact or collision. While the impact of the major revolutions described at the beginning of this article needs no further explanation, the construction industry has long had completely mistaken ideas about the real impact of the transition to BIM. The focus has been on irrelevant numbers. Manufacturers are satisfied with the download numbers from download portals such as BIMobject, Plan.One or Heinze. They consider a few thousand downloads per year to be a success. The truth is, however, that download figures do not tell you anything about the actual use of their BIM offering. The difference between 5,000 downloads from a BIM download portal and 500 imports from BIM & More into one of the relevant CAD programmes is that the effectiveness is very different. Because: Of those 5,000 downloads, probably not even 50 will be transferred to a CAD design programme, i.e. actually used in design. Architects download the products, look at them and close them. In theory, this can also happen with BIM infrastructures such as BIM & More. But usually a specific design project is open and the product is imported into it. The likelihood that this product will be used for simulations and calculations, and thus become the leading product, is disproportionately higher. It can also be said that the higher probability corresponds to a higher effectiveness in BIM & More. The short-term analysis of download figures as an apparent impact, which does not tell us anything about BIM, supports the illusion of the success of the BIM strategy. However, when viewed correctly, an effect becomes an impact with the force of an impact. 

Failure 4: 3D representation of construction products is far too accurate 

Paintings, photographs and, more recently, video sequences: We all have a clear mental image of revolutions. Whether it is the painting 'Liberty Leading the People' by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, the people and Trabants at the Brandenburg Gate or the portrait of Martin Luther King. But neither the iconography nor the accuracy of the representations should obscure the fact that many of the motifs entered our collective pictorial memory either during or after the event. 

Which brings us to the subject at hand. 3D in BIM is both a blessing and a curse. Of course, the three-dimensional aspect has incredible benefits for spatial understanding. For some tasks, such as collision detection, it is absolutely essential. But it is also a curse. And that is because BIM is being reduced to far too much. Manufacturers tend to overload their BIM objects with geometric information because they want to differentiate their designs from other products. For example, a bathtub that has a unique curve in a certain place, which is supposedly what sets the manufacturer apart from the competition. Manufacturers want to show this at all costs. However, this often means that these 3D models are completely irrelevant to the architect's needs because they are far too data-intensive. A designer can only make limited use of this bathtub in Revit, and then the design programme crashes. However, the designer may need to be able to use this bathtub 500 times in a hotel. To do this, he needs optimised, targeted geometry created by a professional.

The architect must be able to manage his geometry at all times, both at the Level of Geometry (LOG) and at the Level of Information (LOI). This means that in the early design phase, the designer inserts a bathtub and it is only labelled as a 'bathtub'. It is not yet known what kind of bathtub it is. It is only at a later stage that this bathtub can be turned into a product. It will then be the same model, but it will no longer be called 'bathtub', but perhaps 'Geberit bathing experience'. This step, or this management, must be possible in a simple way. This is called mapping a product-neutral bathtub to a product-specific bathtub, i.e. to a specific product.

Failure 5: Failure to separate alphanumeric and geometric data

One problem on the road to the BIM revolution is the encapsulation of information. Imagine the leaflets that were distributed en masse during the French Revolution to inform and mobilise people. If they had not contained readable information of real use, the revolution would probably have come to an abrupt end after the storming of the Bastille.

This is a common problem with BIM objects from download portals, for example. All the information is there and would be useful and valuable if it were not encapsulated. This is because designers and architects can see it in ArchiCAD or Revit, but cannot use it further. The information cannot even be read in the internal Revit or ArchiCAD quantity takeoff. As a result, it is virtually worthless to designers and architects. To overcome this problem, manufacturers must always create alphanumeric information (text information, numbers, figures) separately from the geometry, so that it can only be superimposed on a case-by-case basis when required. It is this management of alphanumeric and geometric information that BIM & More provides. 

Failure 6: IFC is the wrong format for addressing building materials and building products to architects

Every revolution has its own tools and instruments that are used to bring about change. Planners and architects, too, have long championed the vision of cross-border BIM collaboration with their CAD design programmes - but they lack the right fuel. Instead of arming designers with usable native data, manufacturers pass on product data in IFC. A format as ineffective as a blank cartridge.

Although IFC is the most widely used BIM data exchange format, it must be used correctly to realise its added value. IFC is particularly useful for the design of whole buildings, for 3D models that are then processed in specialist engineering circles. Unfortunately, however, the industry itself is publishing IFC data. They do so with the best of intentions. There is a misconception that IFC is the right ammunition because the industry wants to exchange its building products, such as bathtubs or windows, with the designer. IFC makes sense as a data exchange format for entire building projects, but not for individual products. This is because it cannot be edited, colours cannot be changed and properties cannot be called up in the way the designer needs. Instead, the industry should rely on native data from the leading CAD systems so that their data is accepted and recognised. Just because architects provide their design status of the whole project in IFC to specialist designers such as structural engineers, building physicists or building services engineers, does not mean that architects want the window in IFC format. Another failure of communication.

Failure 7: Failure to fill the position of BIM coordinator in construction companies

You don't need a Danton or a Robespierre for every revolution, but certain leadership and professional qualities, coupled with a vision, never hurt. A fundamental problem underlying many of the industry's BIM failures described so far is that BIM is often entrusted to people or departments who are not experts in the field. They are neither digital experts nor construction experts. Yet BIM and BIM data delivery are highly sophisticated strategic areas that require a great deal of expertise. And nothing less than the future of the company. It is not uncommon for the marketing manager to be responsible for the BIM offering. This localisation shows that many companies still underestimate the scope of BIM. Instead of taking the necessary steps to ensure the future viability of the company, marketing is expected to show that the company is BIM-ready. And if manufacturers don't listen to consultants then, years later, they are sure to start all over again.