Friday 10 December 2010

Survey reveals industry split over BIM

.

.
Extract from bdonline article  Article by Anna Winston

A new survey launched by standards and specifications expert NBS has revealed an ‘alarming lack of awareness’ of BIM across the construction industry.

The survey of 386 construction professionals, including 155 architects,showed that 43% were either unaware of or hadn’t used Building Information Modelling (BIM).

The results come just a month after chief government construction advisor Paul Morrell revealed plans to introduce BIM into the public procurement process.

Of the respondents to the NBS survey who were aware of BIM, only 10% were currently using it for the majority of projects. However, more than 70% believed that BIM was the future of project information management and two thirds expected to use it for the majority of projects within the next five years. 

More than half of those already using BIM said it had improved profitability and 81% said it had improved productivity.

NBS said that the largest barrier to widespread adoption of BIM was the perception that introducing the process would mean expensive and drastic changes to their existing systems. Only 18% of respondents believed that BIM was a synonym for Cad drawing - a misconception often cited as a barrier to widespread adoption.

“The main risk is that the industry splits in two,” said Stephen Hamil, head of BIM at NBS. “Half the industry is clearly making steps to adopt BIM and these practices will win competitions and will have better people wanting to work for them. You’ll end up potentially with a two tier system.”

Hamil said that the survey had also revealed a surprising variety of software packages being used across the industry.
.

No comments: