Hello BIMfans,
After last week’s population of my Mechanical Model; this week I have populated the assets within my electrical model, but before that a quick update on last week’s COBie issues.

I mentioned last week that no matter what I tried I couldn’t get my classification to exchange correctly.  It turns out that I hadn’t defined the classification system in the exporter (oops!), now that I have there are no issues.  Guidance on how to do this in Revit can be found using this link from Evolve Consultancy.  Note:  I still can’t get systems to work, but problem is for another post!

So with that out of the way, let’s talk about mindful modelling; ensuring that you produce your information in a suitable way to satisfy others’ needs.

How you model can have a BIG impact on the amount of data that can be recorded against an object and depending on what information is needed, it can dictate how something should be modelled.  For example take my living room light:

It is simple enough, I have:

• Rodd, a free standing floor lamp from Ikea;
• Hue, a smart LED bulb from Philips; and
• Nymo, a lamp shade also from Ikea.

While this may look simple, getting the right data about these objects is tricky.

To start with, if I modelled them as a single object how would I deal with the fact that they have two different manufacturers, the cost of each item is different, and many aspects like their expected service life, colour, material, are different?  Also, as I have used a fancy smart bulb, it is the most expensive item here (and therefore the one I care about retaining information on the most).  Here is a breakdown:

 

With this in mind I have opted to model each item separately and create an ‘Assembly’.  If you are not sure what an Assembly is, it is a method of grouping objects into a schedule-able component made up of a number of individual components, if you will components within components; Component-ception (Sorry!).

Once set up it allows each Assembly to be recorded when I export my information into COBie, as shown below.

These items are also broken down into their components too within the ‘Components’ tab. Each of which can be seen below along with the other 48 electrical components within this model.  Now that they each have their own row I can collect all of the relevant information I need about each object, so this method has worked perfectly for my needs as the end user.

Note:  Due to time constraints (mostly driving to the Brecon Beacons and back!) none of the IFC/COBie properties have been created for these objects, only the minimum information to register them within my COBie ‘Components’ tab for the purposes of answering the current Plain Language Question.

And there you have it, after considering how I want my data to be exchanged I have created a number of assemblies to allow me to capture the information I need in a form I am comfortable with.  At the same time I have also produced my other Electrical objects to that I have a full electrical asset register consisting of lighting, fire detection, sockets, and switches.

This means that subject to ensuring that the correct property data is attached, I have now fully populated my electrical model; therefore once I have amended my Architectural model Plain Language Question PLQ2.4 will be complete!

Model Generation:
2.1 What existing information is available?
2.2 Is there sufficient information to produce a BEP?
2.3 What is the layout of the house?
2.4 What assets are contained within?
2.5 What asset information can be linked to the graphical model?

Now that I have a pretty strong Electrical & Mechanical model, it’s time to look back at my Architectural model…

Hello BIMfans,
Now that I have checked my Data Security requirements, I am able to move into production of information.  It has taken 17 blog posts (17? Doesn’t time fly!) but I have finally opened some CAD software to start producing some information about my home.  Wooohooo!

Now originally I had arranged for a friend with a point cloud scanner to come by and measure my house.  If this had happened it would have had a sexy point cloud file I could have shared with you.  However, their timing didn’t work out.  Luckily for me however, I still have a Disto & tape so it was time to roll up my sleeve and do some old fashioned surveying!

So to start lets refer to my TIDP, I need to produce a Survey that can be used as a precursor to produce my 3D graphical models.  Also, by referring to my BEP I needed to:

• Follow the specified BS1192 file naming;
• Export in DXF;
• Follow the specified BS1192 layer naming;
• Use BS8541-2 compliant symbology;
• Use the outlined origin point;
• Comply with specified tolerances

File Name & Format:
This one is simple as I have a convention outlined that I need to follow compliant with BS1192. However, while surveying I decided that it was easier to keep both floors in separate files so that I can use the correct origin points and not worry about overlaying lines with different offsets.  Because of this, I have now revised by TIDP to reflect two separate survey files and made sure that the uploaded files are DXF as specified within my BIM Execution Plan:

• 7001-BHH-XX-00-M2-A-0001 (Ground Floor)
• 7001-BHH-XX-01-M2-A-0001 (First Floor)

Layer Naming:
This one was also pretty simple as I have opted to also follow the BS1192 container naming for my AutoCAD layers.  Using NBS‘ Uniclass 2015 search tool, I identified the appropriate system classifications for the layers I needed to survey my:  Walls, Doors, Stairs, & Windows and dimensions.  Note:  Please ignore the bright colours in the CAD files, they are a visual aid more than anything else.

Symbology:
Referring to my copy of BS8541-2, I made sure that any symbols I used were included within.  In this file I had a number of symbols which included: Architectural ticks for dimensions, and 2 ceiling height symbols (one for ceiling height, and one relative to FFL).  In addition, I also needed to use symbols to represent doors, windows, stairs and walls; all of which are included within BS8541-2, even the brick hatch that I used is specified within. Using clear symbology based on an agreed standard when drafting is key, as without a clear message on drawings, disaster can occur.

Origin Point & Tolerances:
Finally, by following the origin point I had set out in by BIM Execution Plan, I was able to ensure that my files align providing a coordinated set of survey data.  In fact to make sure that my survey’s aligned I imported both of them into Revit to compare.  UnSurprisingly, both files closely aligned, after taking a few extra check dimensions and then resigning to the fact that buildings are not straight.  I tweaked a few final dimensions within tolerance and ended up with two coordinated survey files that line up perfectly when imported based on their origin points.

There you have it, by planning how I need to undertake the work, I was able to efficiently produce coordinated survey data in a usable format, ready to be used to produce my 3D graphical models.  However, as I haven’t produced floor plan PDF deliverable, so I won’t call this Plain Language Question complete just yet:

Model Generation:
2.1 What existing information is available?
2.2 Is there sufficient information to produce a BEP?
2.3 What is the layout of the house?
2.4 What assets are contained within?
2.5 What asset information can be linked to the graphical model?

Now that I have my 2D survey data, it’s time to finally do some 3D modelling…

Note:  If you have any comments or opinions regarding my survey files, please let me know either on twitter, or commenting below.

 

Hello BIMfans,
Following the publication of my Draft BEP a fortnight ago, I decided that I needed feedback to ensure that what I have written is suitable (as I did with my EIR). Having worked on both the client and supply side in the past I am confident in my work, but it is always good to get some fresh perspectives.  As such I asked a few friends in the know.

I asked each of them to review my BEP as if I was procuring their services, as well as asking for any suggestions for improvement.  Here is what they had to say:

Andy Boutle, Senior BIM Manager for Kier Group, and Chair of BIM Regions – East.

Kier Group are a leading property, residential, construction, and services group with offices across the globe whose core principles are set around collaboration, forward thinking & enthusiasm.  Andy is also a BRE BIM Level 2 Certificated Professional.

“Dan’s post-contract BEP is very well prepared – clear, concise and fully compliant to the suggested requirements set out in PAS 1192-2.  The content is light in places however this is clarified and acknowledged due to the nature of the project – a residential house development where Dan is fulfilling/simulating all stakeholders.  I would have liked to have seen a diagram of the ‘high level’ CDE in lieu of a process and data management platform, and a little more detail for fictitious subcontractors that may contribute to the PIM.  Certainly if more ‘BIM professionals’ in the industry refer to this example as a template to structure against, we would all see better BIM Execution Plans to a consistent standard.” 9/10

Paul Tunstall, Associate & Meenakshi Mandhar, BIM Manager for HLM Architects.

HLM Architects are a UK wide Architecture design group with a strong ‘one team policy’ based around the pillars of their:  Client, People, and Quality.  HLM have also been recognised having achieved BRE BIM Level 2 Business Systems Certification.

“Dan’s BEP is an interesting read as it gives good guidance on completing all sections of the post contract-award BEP. A very good example of how to apply the BEP to small size projects and breaks the myth that BIM is for big projects only;  I see that as the biggest strength of the blog and is highly commendable.  However, as a naïve reader one aspect that may come across confusing is the involvement of fictitious task teams. ADR, MDR, KDR and EDR were used as part of the MIDP whereas other sections state that CDE and supplier assessments are not required as Dan is client, designer and operator.” 7/10

Dwight Wilson, Digital Engineer Manager for Imtech Engineering, and co-founder of dotBuiltEnvironment.

Imtech are one of the largest independently owned and managed technical service providers in the UK and Ireland, with extensive expertise and experience in engineering services, technical facilities management, and systems integration.

“Dan’s post contract-award BEP is an excellent example of how you apply and make relevant the standards within a BIM execution plan. Ensuring that they cross reference one another throughout the document provides better clarity of purpose for the suite of BIM documentation to be used on a project. If Imtech were to respond to the BEP I would be seeking clarification on methodologies of information transfer and model review and validation. This is best displayed graphically from experience and would have consolidated the the well tabulated information provided within this BEP. For this reason, for me, it’s not a perfect ten but a pretty close” 8.5/10

All-in-all pretty positive, although there is room for improvement.  Following these reviews, I have revised my post contract-award BEP considering two key areas in particular:  The fictitious roles, and transfer of information:

Fictitious roles.

As Paul & Meenakshi point out, this section is not very clear and seems to conflict with other areas of the post contract-award BEP, Andy also wanted more information, so there is clearly something lacking.

Note:  The plan was to invent a few roles because I am an army of one so that I could produce an MIDP;  showing a clear way to manage responsibility.  However, as it is just me, it makes how I authorize and exchange information much more difficult (and the fact I don’t manage a CDE).  I cannot think of a clean way to resolve this while maintaining my MIDP until another organization contributes to the project, so it will remain as it is for now.

To make this section clearer short term, I have replaced ADR, MDR, EDR etc with Arch1, Mech1, Elect1, updated my MIDP to suit and have revised the text within the BEP to clarify around the relationship of these roles.

Exchange of Information.

As Dwight pointed out there is little information included around the exchange of information which is also something Paul had also mentioned too. Therefore, I have clarified the purpose of the scheduled software within my BEP and included the exchange of information into a high-level diagram to also satisfies Andy’s queries around clarifying Data Management.

Finally, in response to the feedback, I have:

• Updated by origin and orientation section so that my project base point is the lowest and most left point (ie no negative values),
• clarified the purpose of the software I am using, and
• corrected a few typo’s which I had not caught within the BEP.

It feels much more complete and robust now, so thank you Andy, Paul, Meenakshi & Dwight.

 

And there you have it, by gaining some much needed insight from the industry I have now improved my BEP and gotten it validated too, fantastic.  This means that I have now answered my BIM Execution Plan Plain Language Question; PLQ2.2 Complete!

Model Generation:
2.1 What existing information is available?
2.2 Is there sufficient information to produce a BEP?
2.3 What is the layout of the house?
2.4 What assets are contained within?
2.5 What asset information can be linked to the graphical model?

Now that I have my finalised BEP it’s time to start producing some information, but first let’s make sure I have sufficiently considered my Data Security…

Note:  If you have any comments or opinions regarding my BIM Execution Plan, please let me know either on Twitter, or commenting below.

Hello BIMfans,

After synthesising non-graphical data out of the various documents I received when we bought our house and generate a spreadsheet of Existing Information, I now need to plan to create my BIM Execution Plan to satisfy my next Plain Language Question.

So what is a BIM Execution Plan or BEP?  By referring to BRE’s BIM Terminology tool, a BEP is defined as:

Plan prepared by the suppliers to explain how the information modelling aspects of a project will be carried out.

So a plan is needed, but when writing a BEP there is a fine line between Genius and Madness…

The idea is that the BEP is the project’s master reference file; any question a supplier has about information modelling, the answer should be written in it.

PAS1192-2 it outlines what content should typically appear within a BEP, and there are templates also available online such as the ones developed through CPIx.  However, these are not perfect and conflict with the standards, so I have decided instead to make my own. A BEP comes in two forms: Pre-contract to advise the employer how a supplier will comply to their requirements at tender stage, and post-contract as a tool for information modelling during the course of the project.

Please note, I have not written (and don’t plan to write!) a pre-contract BIM Execution Plan. The main reason is that as I am doing the work for myself so there’s no Tender Evaluation, therefore its purpose doesn’t exist.  In addition, the key elements of a pre-contract BEP such as a summary of supply chain experience, project goals, and milestones are not applicable for a 1 man 1 phase project.

So I have instead focused on delivering my post-contract BIM Execution Plan.  There are four key areas of a BIM Execution Plan:

1. Planning and Documentation
   The documents, and forms outlining the who, what, and when
2. Management
   Who is doing what, when will it be done, and what is required
3. Standards, Methods, and Procedures
   The rules of play
4. IT Solutions
   What IT formats/systems will be used

I filled each section in my first adding all the headings from PAS1192, then by reviewing my Employer’s Information Requirements and populating each heading to satisfy what I have asked for.  This means that I have a reference document heavily aligned to the employer’s requirements.

 

There you have it, by working through the Employer’s Information Requirements I had written, I have now created a draft BIM Execution Plan for the development of my house’s Information Model.

Before I start using it however, I am going to need to make sure it is fit for purpose, so I will be asking for a peer review.  Until then I won’t consider this PLQ complete.

Model Generation:
2.1 What existing information is available?
2.2 Is there sufficient information to produce a BEP?
2.3 What is the layout of the house?
2.4 What assets are contained within?
2.5 What asset information can be linked to the graphical model?

Now that I have my draft BIM Execution, I need to programme what models I need to create and when.  To do so I will need to generate a Master Information Delivery Plan (MIDP)…

Note:  If you have any comments or opinions regarding my BIM Execution Plan, please let me know either on twitter, or commenting below.

Hello BIMfans,

After producing my EIR and having it verified by industry peers, it is time to pass the baton and view this blog not from the perspective of an Employer, but from the perspective of a Supplier.

So as a Chartered Architectural Technologist, let’s look at this EIR from an architectural perspective and decide what I need to do.  As one of my reviewers Chris Weston pointed out in my last post, there was a need to clarify what existing information is already available to me as the Supplier.  To do so I have referred to the EIR and have identified that the following documents have been made available for use:

• 2 Property condition surveys (1996, and 2015)
• Land registry information
• FENSA certificates
• Gas and Electric safety test data
• Energy performance certificate (EPC)
• Boiler installation and warranty information

Now before I draft my BIM Execution Plan (BEP), the key supplier reference document, I should look at these existing documents to see what information I can extract.

By doing this I can determine what further investigation is needed and incorporate into my BEP.  Also, if I was bidding for this job, it would allow me to tighten my scope of service by limiting the amount of information I would need to produce as this information has already been collected by others.

Now there are professional services such as ProductXchange, a solution by CoBuilder that can extract product data from documentation such as these. However, I have chosen instead to do this the long way.

To get this information into a usable format I have read through each document and input the relevant information into an excel spreadsheet.  Funnily enough, I did not intend to create a COBie file, but as I began to input information, I realised that I needed structure so I stuck to what I know, and it came a COBie file (of sorts).

COBie was mentioned previously when I answered my Plain Language Question around Data Requirements.  COBie in brief, is a method of structuring non-graphical information about an asset and can be used to share information in a consistent and structured manner.  In BS1192-4 it gives the requirements for creating a COBie compliant output and includes the required (referred to as ‘expected’) fields, as well as its overall structure.  Had I intended to use COBie initially for this exercise I would have used one of the template files available within the MoJ example from the BIM Task Group website; instead I have retroactively applied the COBie structure to my excel sheet.

By reviewing these documents I have managed to extract a surprising amount of information.  Using the original estate agent information I was able to extract space (room) details; some dimension information was also included but it is not accurate enough for my needs so it was not included.  After reviewing the earlier property condition report I found that it was superseded by the one I had commissioned last year, which when reviewed gave me a wealth of information about my house and the condition of items within.  The FENSA certificates confirmed who the installer was and the installation date for my windows.  Finally, the gas and electrical testing information also proved useful in determining some basic information about my cable and pipe system as well as when they were last inspected.

Note:  The spreadsheet I have created is not fully aligned to BS1192-4 and should not be considered COBie-UK 2012 compliant.  There are a number of limitations due to the fact that information was input freehand meaning that there is no external system, also without objects to extract information from I have defaulted to a descriptive name, and have not included any type or assembly information.  I have also added a bespoke property ‘ReferenceDocument’ to indicate where this information was extracted from.

There you have it, by working through the information I already have about my house I have managed to collect a lot of Information without doing any surveying, measuring, or Googling.  Saving time, and providing a good basis to begin the creation of my information model.

This means that I have now answered another Plain Language Question; PLQ2.1 Complete!

Model Generation:
2.1 What existing information is available?
2.2 Is there sufficient information to produce a BEP?
2.3 What is the layout of the house?
2.4 What assets are contained within?
2.5 What asset information can be linked to the graphical model?

Now that I know what relevant existing information I have available, I need to now work out how I plan to create my information model.  To do so I will need a BIM Execution Plan to satisfy PLQ2.2…

Note:  If you have any comments or opinions regarding my extraction of existing information, please let me know either on twitter, or commenting below.