Week 3 Ch. 6 BIM in Construction

                This week in the 6^th chapter of the BIM Handbook, the integration of BIM in the construction industry as discussed. Before BIM was used widely throughout the industry, and even partially today, there were a multitude of opportunities for clashes to occur. A clash can either be classified as hard or soft, a hard clash is on in which the physical members of a system would not fit within or next to each other, whereas a soft clash is one in which the members may fit together, however, their proximity causes an issue with operation. These clashes were prevalent because we relied on 2D drawings that would be overlaid with other 2D drawings in order to create a complete construction drawing. If changes, dimensions, or locations were not precisely transferred from one set, say structural, of drawings to another set, like the MEP, drawings than there would most definitely be a clash that would need to either be redesigned (causing more cost and lost time) or a field amendment to make it work (which may lead to fittings and installations that are not 100% proper as they were designed to be). By using what is known to be 4D BIM drawing tools, which allows for a 3D model to be presented along with details (4^th dimension) that otherwise might be lost throughout the process. By doing this a single model can contain each and every set of drawings, from architectural to MEP, which drastically reduces the number of clashes that appear throughout the construction process.

                One thing that is needed as the industry transfers over into the BIM world is the inclusion of contractors along with every member of the design team. By making the model more inclusive as opposed to exclusive in terms of those who are working and implementing their own industry designs into the project model the more complete the model becomes. If the model can include every discipline’s drawings within it than there is the potential for not only a zero clash project but also a tool that can be handed over the owner for future maintenance and alterations that they may want to make later on down the road. 
                As  Gayaneh Gulbenkian said BIM is a tool that most importantly reduces costs. It reduces the amount of information that is lost throughout the design and into the construction phase by keeping a record. One of the most beneficial features, I liked Gulbenkian's analogy, is that it updates all aspects of the design when a user updates the model in one of the views, just like Excel will automatically update throughout the spreadsheet as individual numbers change. After being lead to  Gabrielle Carpenter's post by Gulbenkian, it was made clear how crucial the reduction of changes can be. Carpenter showed this by using the Boeing 777 design in which they saved over 6000 changes. Just the time saved by not needing to describe each of those 6000 changes is remarkable.