Building Product manufacturers can be slow in incorporating new technologies into their marketing and business models. You just need to look at Twitter and other social media to see that a lot of building product manufacturers are not embracing these tools.
Architects are using Twitter and these are one of the main target audiences for Building Product Manufacturers and yet they are not communicating with this valuable audience. I have discussed this in a previous post “ARE BUILDING PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS KEEPING UP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA?”
Building Product manufacturers are making the same mistake when it comes to BIM and building BIM objects. There are a number of clear and important reasons why the building product manufacturers should embrace BIM, I will outline these below:
What is BIM
The RIBA, CPIC and BuildingSmart have defined BIM in the UK as:
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the process of generating and managing data about the building, during its life cycle. Typically BIM uses three-dimensional, real-time, dynamic building modelling software to increase productivity in the design and construction stages.
Why should building product manufacturers embrace BIM?
2016 is fast approaching and if you are not aware this is when the UK government will be mandating BIM for all government building and infrastructure projects. Companies such as ARUP, Atkins and Laing O’Rouke are already using BIM as it has massive efficiency savings built into the system. A press relases from the public service website shows that a study of 32 BIM projects in the US provided up to 40% elimination of non-budgeted changes, an increase in cost estimation accuracy to within 3%, an 80% reduction in time to create cost estimates, a 10% (of project value) saving by identifying clashes prior to build and a 7% reduction in project time.
BIM is rapidly being embraced throughout the construction industry so if you want to be involved in government contracts you need to get your objects produced as soon as possible.
How to get your BIM objects created
There are a number of services out there that will build and create your BIM objects for you, where possible I have listed the formats they can build in. These include:
1. Polantis – Autodesk (.wax, .dwg, .dxf, aof), png, ddd, Bentley, 3dn(Rhino), Archicad, Vectorworks, ndw, Sketchup, pdf, 3ds(wavefront), c4d, GSM, Revit, VISMAT
2. NBS National BIM Library – Archicad, IFC, Revit, Tekla, Vectorworks
3. BIMstore – Revit, IFC, Bentley, Archicad
4. BIMSTOP – ArchiCAD, Bentley, Revit, Sketchup, Vectorworks
5. bimobject – Allplan, ArchiCAD, Revit, PDF Arlantis, AutoCAD, Lightdata, Sketchup, 3ds, PNG Jpg, IFC
6. SmartBIM – Autodesk – dwk
In a previous post I outlined the best ways to market your BIM objects.
This is why the building products industry needs to build its BIM objects quickly. If you would like more information relevant to marketing your companies please subscribe to my weekly email update for my latest posts below
You’re right Paul. And I have a survey what shows that manufacturers prefer rather different “tools” to the ones designers would need. As long as architects say that manufacturers’ BIM components the 2nd
most useful items to support them, but manufacturers say only the 7th.
Hi Endre
Thanks for the comment
Now that is great information, I don’t suppose you have a spare copy floating around I can see have you?
Hi Paul,
a part of the survey available in our site manubim [dot] com
Thanks Endre I will have a look
Interestingly this is the premise of the one day seminar I am organising here at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. If anyone is intersteding in hearing more about it please visit http://www.imeche.org/events/S1713.
Hi Carla
That sounds very interesting, thanks for letting my readers know.
Paul