Decision Making and Design Cognition in the age of Building Information Models

BSc - Bachelor of Science in Your Programme (Level 8)

2012

- 201

3 BSc

Dissertation

Dissertation Title Decision Making and Design Cognition in the age of

Building Information Models

Author Brian Patrick O’ Hanlon

K-Number K 0 0 1 2 3 1 0 6

Award Title BSc in Quantity Surveying

Submitted to: Limerick Institute of Technology, April, 2013

Dissertation Dissertation Declaration

BSc in Quantity Surveying

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Declaration of Ethical Practice

Definition: (The University of North Carolina)

“the deliberate or reckless representation of another’s words, thoughts, or ideas as one’s

own without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or

otherwise”

As an aspiring professional I am aware of my responsibility to maintain a high level of

integrity and to promote the standing of my profession.

Arising from this responsibility I wish to affirm that this dissertation is the result of my own

effort and that I have rigorously referenced and acknowledged all sources of information,

writing and ideas used in this dissertation.

Author Brian Patrick O’ Hanlon

Signature

Date 10th April 2013


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Dissertation Dedication


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Dedication

I would like to dedicate this Dissertation to the teachers in Limerick Institute of Technology,

who wanted to know how someone who began studies many years ago at architecture

school, could wind up amongst Quantity Surveyors? Maybe it has something to do with the

information age.


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Dissertation Table of Contents


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Table of Contents

DECLARATION OF ETHICAL PRACTICE II DEDICATION IV TABLE OF CONTENTS VI LIST OF FIGURES IX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XI ABSTRACT XIII

CHAPTER 1 DISSERTATION CONTEXT 16

1.1 SURVEYING THE SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE 16 1.1.1 THE COMPUTER SYSTEM TODAY 16 1.1.2 INTROSPECTION 21

CHAPTER 2 CRITICAL REVIEW OF LITERATURE 24

2.1 WHAT IS CURRENT BEST THINKING ABOUT COLLABORATION AND BIM ? 24 2.1.1 THE NETWORKED ECONOMY 24 2.1.2 PRACTICALITIES FOR DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN A NEW ECONOMY 27 2.1.3 INCREASINGLY COMPLEX WORLD 30 2.1.4 THE ROLE OF PROJECT MANAGER 35 2.2 DECISION MAKING VERSUS DESIGN THINKING 39 2.2.1 DECISION MAKING IN CONSTRUCTION 39 2.3 BIM AND LEGAL OBSTACLES TO NEGOTIATE 43 2.3.1 BIM AND PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY 43

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 49

3.1 TAKING ADVANTAGE OF DATA SOURCES FROM ABROAD 49 3.1.1 WHERE DID THE RESEARCH LED TO ? 49 3.1.2 RELIANCE UPON GOOD ‘SECONDARY DATA’ SOURCES 52 3.1.3 PILOT QUESTIONNAIRES 54

CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH ACTION & FINDINGS 60

4.1 HOW TO FINANCE BIM 60 4.1.1 CONSTRUCTION AND SMALL ENTERPRISE 60 4.1.2 PROJECT DELIVERY SYSTEMS 61 4.1.3 BIM AND SHARING OF INFORMATION 63 4.2 BIM AND THE DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTION DISCIPLINES 67 4.2.1 THE QUANTITY SURVEYOR AND BIM 67 4.2.2 MULTI-DISCIPLINARY FIRMS 69 4.2.3 BIM FROM A CONTRACTOR’S POINT OF VIEW 72 4.2.4 THE ARCHITECT AND BIM 75 4.3 PEERING INTO THE FUTURE 78 4.3.1 INFORMATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY 78 4.3.2 USE THE NETWORK ‘SHARE CAPABILITIES’ TO BEST ADVANTAGE 80


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4.3.3 THE ONLINE CASH REGISTER 82 4.4 LEARNING BASED ORGANISATIONS 88 4.4.1 LEARNING OVER TIME 88

CHAPTER 5 DISSERTATION CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 92

5.1 BIM FROM MANY ANGLES 92 5.1.1 BIM FOR DESIGN 92 5.1.2 BIM FOR MANAGEMENT 94 5.1.3 BIM FOR CONTROLLING COSTS 96 5.1.4 BIM AND INCREASING COMPLEXITY 98

BIBLIOGRAPHY 101

INDEX 115 APPENDIX 1 – CONVERSATION WITH AN IRISH ARCHITECT 118 APPENDIX 2 – EARLIEST THOUGHTS ABOUT CLOUD COMPUTING 121 APPENDIX 3 – EARLY OBSERVATIONS ON COLLABORATIVE CONSTRUCTION 124 APPENDIX 4 – NOTES FROM ‘PARAMETRIC COST MODELLING OF COMPLEX BUILDING TYPES’. 127 APPENDIX 5 – A PRELIMINARY QUESTIONNAIRE USED IN SOME INVESTIGATIVE CONVERSATION. 132


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Dissertation List of Figures


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List of Figures

Figure 1-1 Larry Smarr at San Diego Supercomputing Centre ........................................................... 16

Figure 1-2 The common data environment (Richards, 2010) ............................................................ 20

Figure 1-3 Don Draper pauses for a minute ...................................................................................... 21

Figure 2-1 An idealised keystone in a business network ................................................................... 24

Figure 2-2 Howard Rheingold, slide used in ‘authors@Google’ talk ................................................. 26

Figure 2-3 AutoDesk University tutorial project ................................................................................. 27

Figure 2-4 Pyramid of BIM progression ............................................................................................. 29

Figure 2-5 Mapping of real information flows, (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012). ................................. 36

Figure 2-6 Laura Lee illustration (Lee, February 2011) ....................................................................... 43

Figure 2-7 White Frog publishing, talk in Dublin 2012 ...................................................................... 44

Figure 3-1 Parametric wall objects (US Army Corp of Engineers) ...................................................... 49

Figure 4-1 Australian national BIM report (Allen Consulting Group, 2010) ....................................... 60

Figure 4-2 The innovation process .................................................................................................... 63

Figure 4-3 Collaborative Construction slide, CITA Lecture Dublin 2012 ............................................ 65

Figure 4-4 Key Performance Indicator - Design activities (Dent & Storey, 2004) .............................. 66

Figure 4-5 US Army Corp of Engineers ............................................................................................... 72

Figure 4-6 Hand drafting (US Army Corp of Engineers) ...................................................................... 75

Figure 4-7 Extending BIM beyond core (Race, 2012) ......................................................................... 79

Figure 4-8 The project life cycle (Race, 2012) .................................................................................... 82

Figure 4-9 Karpman's 'drama triangle' .............................................................................................. 84

Figure 4-10 Using intermediaries to simplify the supply chain ......................................................... 88

Figure 5-1 Laura Lee illustration (Lee, February 2011) ....................................................................... 92

Figure 5-2 Development of BIM content (Richards, 2010) ................................................................. 96

Figure 5-3 BAM Contractors 4D scheduling simulation...................................................................... 97


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Dissertation Acknowledgements


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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of all those I have had the privilege to work for

and with, against or assisting with down through several decades. I hope I have taken the

best away from each and every circumstance.


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Dissertation Abstract


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Abstract

Several decades ago, only a very few advanced computing machines existed in the world.

They were housed in bunkers and special facilities, which only governments and large

corporations knew about. That equation has been turned upside down. Whole generations

have now grown up now where the most technologically advanced computers are on

peoples’ living room floors or inside their pockets. These machines are capable of

performing millions of calculations in real time using massively parallel computing

architectures. These machines are connected to each other by high-speed internet

bandwidth. Will the generation of the ‘Play Station’, and the ‘Smart Phone’ feel more

comfortable sharing information. Has the revolution already happened? The older

generations speak about ‘taking back control’ over digital information. Are certain

generations of construction professionals already far out of touch? Or do the younger

generations need to take stock, and re-evaluate the direction in which the modern age has

carried us?


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Dissertation Main Body


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Chapter

1

Context for the Dissertation


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Chapter 1 Dissertation Context

Figure 1-1 Larry Smarr at San Diego Supercomputing Centre 1

1.1 Surveying the Social and Technological Landscape

1.1.1 The computer system today

“My job is to live in the future, and report back”.

(Smarr, June 2012)

People such as Larry Smarr are people who are exploring the edges of what is made possible

by technology (Smarr, June 2012). Smarr is someone who engages it could be argued in his

own medical treatments, without the presence of actual physicians. Could it be the case that

1 Physicist Larry Smarr studies a 3D scan of his own anatomy using the information wall at San Diego Supercomputer Centre, California.


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in years to come, we will see the rise of building construction without architects and

engineers?2 Whatever happens, the supply chain for delivery of many services, the time in

which it takes to obtain services and the level of face-to-face meeting and interaction is

changing (Thackara, 2005).

“If you can remember those of you who had organic chemistry, who had such a

problem with three-dimensional visualisation and couldn’t really understand what

isomers were. And it took the instructor about three days of drawing two dimensional

blackboard pictures, before you finally got it. That concept can now be grasped in

about a minute and a half, with the right three dimensional display and the molecules

that are involved in it.

The same is true for many of the engineering disciplines. With those visualisations,

people can look at making changes without going to pilot plants and all sorts of other

things. And that is how we need to train engineers to work. We need the government

education programs to begin to really foster that”. (Good, 2004)

The number crunching capabilities of standalone IT systems is increasing at a rapid pace in

the early 21st century. The bandwidth connectivity between standalone computer systems is

increasing at a very rapid pace also. It is important to distinguish between these two factors.

But the additional factor present is the increasing richness and depth of data used to

describe construction projects.

The person responsible for inventing the term ‘BIM’ in the early 2000s, was Phil Bernstein.

The following is what Bernstein wrote in 2004. 3

2 (Prietula & Simon, 1989) about the subject of ‘experts in your midst’, was a late addition to a lifelong body of work in the field of organisational behaviour and computer aided design by Herbert A. Simon (Simon, 1947), (Simon, 1969). The influence of Simon on other work is also worth noting, such as that of (Brooks, 2010), which will be referenced in this document at times. It will be noted that the work of architect Gary VanPatter (VanPatter, 2010), and other publications from the new field of interaction design (Weick, 1995), (Margolin & Buchanan, 1996), (Dubberly Design Office, 2002) does tend to share a lot of the same intellectual lineage (Dewey, 1934), (Dewey, 1938), (Simon, 1947), (Simon, 1969), (Jones, 1970), (Moore, 1970), (Rittel & Webber, 1973), (Alexander, 1978), (Negroponte, 1996), (Alexander, et al., 2012), as more recent specification publications about Building Information Modelling such as (Eastman, et al., 2011). 3 Some interesting writing has been published around this subject in recent times. The author recommends such works as (Kelly, 1994), (Hafner, 1998), (Shapiro, 1999), (Berners-Lee, 2000), (Gilder, 2000), (Rheingold, 2002), (Benkler, 2006), (Tapscott & Williams, 2006), (Shirky, 2009), to name but a few.


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“Innovation is likely to proceed more quickly with purpose-built and loosely-coupled

applications, than with large, interconnected, and interdependent applications. To

facilitate this progression, sharing meaningful design information between

applications is essential”. (Bernstein & Pittman, November 2004)

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) states that BIM is three dimensional geometrical representation of

component level objects integrated with ‘a wide variety of data’. 4 The increased trend

towards the sharing of data, in richer BIM formats, has contributed to the frequency of

instances, where data may come into contact with parties who are able to subject it to the

full rigours of computational analysis. 5 The nature of the data structure is changing and

advancing6, while at the same time, the variety of platforms and hardware available to

operate the data has also changed.

“Until the Nehalem workstations arrived, it wasn’t feasible to run dual operating

systems on one workstation using virtualization technology; the result was just too

slow”. (Newton, 2010)7

Extensive literature has been published regarding the legal status of models and of shared

information (AIA, 2008), (Lowe & Muncey, 2009). (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) draw our

4 (Lavikka, et al., 2012) looked at the different sub-processes that exist in a typical BIM collaboration between construction disciplines, including the mention of the need to run simulation analysis on the data of other participants. 5 (van Berlo, et al., 2012) states that subsets of data that can be shared with other partners seem to be detailed enough for project partners to be able to perform detailed calculations, extractions and predictions from the native BIM data source. (van Berlo, et al., 2012) stated that with growing complexity of buildings and associated growth of data volume, the hardware is not capable of synchronizing the full database. Please look at (Gilder, 2006) in particular, to understand a little of how companies like Google, Yahoo, eBay etc are working in ways to combat such technological obstacles. Readers should also consider referring to (Redmond, et al., 2011), (Redmond, et al., 2011) for debate on the use of BIM in tandem with cloud based computing platform. 6 (Bergin, 2012) characterized a BIM data format, as one having increased combination CAD information and database information built in. 7 It is somewhat difficult nowadays to know where heavy weight, number-crunching tools such as ‘Finite Element Analysis’ used extensively in the engineering design processes today end, and where more the mainstream CAD or BIM tools begin. (Newton, 2010) considers Intel Corporation’s new virtualisation-on-a-chip technology which started to ship in the late 2000s as being critical.


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attention to the changing roles and responsibilities of construction professionals who may

get involved in projects where BIM procedures are used. 8

In Great Britain, members of the Cabinet Office BIM implementation task force such as Sam

Collard (representing the Contracting firms), 9 have studied reports such as (Lowe & Muncey,

2009), and often made intelligent comments on the same. On the Quantity Surveying end of

things such as in (Mitchell, 2012) have shared some deep insight into (AIA, 2008), which this

report will discuss later. 10

(Sebastian, 2010) widely cited in many of the important conferences since – in spite of

technological readiness, the implementation of BIM in the industry is impeded by business

and legal barriers. (Sebastian, 2011) will offer the Quantity Surveying student in 2013, one of

the best insights into future developments regarding the delivery of healthcare facilities in a

modern day Europe.

(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) argue that many of the software tools that the construction

have adopted to date, aimed at improving efficiency actually replicate out-of-date analogue

practices. Which has had a side effect of keeping the industry ‘document-centric’. 11

Sustained multi-disciplinary collaboration and reduced information chaos (necessary to

improve response time to all sorts of modern day construction challenges), can only be

achieved by project teams who know exactly how to eliminate unnecessary information

loops (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012). 12

8 Finith Jernigan (personal correspondence in January 2013), placed value on the thoughts shared by IDEO chief executive, Tim Brown in a recent interview (Hansen, 2010), in which Brown explains his relationship to his employees in the leading design consultancy firm. 9 Sam Collard who participated in (National Building Specification, 2011), was formerly employed at Laing O’Rourke Contractors in the UK, and at present is a BIM specialist working at Varmings consultants in Australia. 10 It is worth investigating (CITA, 2012) also, for workshop discussions on implications of both (Lowe & Muncey, 2009) and (AIA, 2008), from an Irish construction industry point of view. 11 Refer also to (Gehry, 2002), (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), (Sketches Of Frank Gehry, 2007), (Boland, et al., 2008) for additional insight into BIM and its use to further integration of design with the construction supply chain. An Irish structural engineer, Tom Cosgrove and architect Seamus Hanrahan, offered some interesting perspectives on collaboration by use of the digital models in the lecture (Cosgrove & Hanrahan, 11th November 2008). 12 The most damning findings amongst made others in (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012), is that “existing procurement methods have not sufficiently addressed key issues of open collaboration using BIM . . .”


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The idea of a standard such as (Richards, 2010), is to carry forth best principles of document

management and control to help in the 21st century to create ‘BIM execution planning’

suited to modern day work environments. 13 (Jeffrey, 2012) commented that a ‘Project BIM

Plan’ has provided an excellent vehicle for knowledge transfer and lessons learned from

previous projects – within the Skanska company – parts of which are based in the United

Kingdom, the United States, Europe and around the world.

Figure 1-2 The common data environment (Richards, 2010)

13 Leading experts like Mervyn Richards who has been working on BIM implementations in construction for several decades now, has extracted some of the best principles from the older document-centric days.


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Figure 1-3 Don Draper pauses for a minute 14

1.1.2 Introspection

No doubt, the popularity of tobacco based products during the early modern of the 20th

century had something to do with a desire to introduce a pause back into a life style, which

had by the 1960s become chaotic and fast.

In the absence of becoming addicted to Nicotine based products, or substitutes, how do we

think about suitable ways to introduce some delays back into our work processes in the

construction industry? Not so much, because we need delays everywhere, but because we

will need them somewhere.15 What will act like a cigar or pipe, for those parts of the design

and engineering process, where a delay is the most valuable thing to have?

Technology in general has enabled us to inject acceleration into our lives (Tolle, 2002). 16

14 Don Draper is a lead creative advertising director character in a hit TV series Mad Men (Mad Men: Season One to Five, 2007-2012). 15 Readers are encouraged to consult with the system dynamics theories that (Senge, 1990) and other authors have published. 16 (Thackara, 2005) provides some very useful insight into the growing popularity of fashions like ‘slow food’, the return to popularity of the fountain pen, moleskin notebooks and many things that were assumed to be


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But 'productivity' did not hinge specifically on doing things faster in the mid-20th century

environment, and nor does it not today. Most disasters witnessed in construction, in Ireland,

happen with the support of the finest digital tools, and actors who ‘fly off the handle’.

In an environment such as that described in Mad Men TV series (which could represent any

number of similar work environments of that era), most of the critical decisions and

junctures do occur, when the lead character ‘Don Draper’ is in reflective mode, while sipping

spirits or drawing on a cigarette (Mad Men: Season One to Five, 2007-2012).

The Wall Street financial markets must be one of the most productive places on the planet,

by a certain measure. Wall Street is on the one hand an example, a power house of human

activity and enterprise. But one should ask the question: why does it insist on a need to blow

up the world every decade or two? (Lewis, 1989), (Lowenstein, 2000), (McLean & Elkind,

2003), (Lowenstein, 2004), (Sorkin, 2009), (Lewis, 2010), (McLean & Nocera, 2010)

These are good questions to ask in Ireland in 2013.What is the point in working faster, if we

are going to go broke after every construction roll-out that we do? One is reminded of a lyric

by musician John Prine. 17

"You're out there running, just to be on the run".

(Prine, 1993)

dead in an age of smart phones, personal organisers, electronic calendars and personal project management tools. 17 An author such as (Stein, 2010) has looked at the devastation created to old industrial north American cities since the 1970s by the moving of the same industry abroad. One could establish a similar narrative for Ireland’s economy, and the destructive effects upon society caused by the sudden rise and subsequent falls in construction employment.


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Chapter

2

Critical Review of Literature


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Chapter 2 Critical Review of Literature

Figure 2-1 An idealised keystone in a business network 18

2.1 What is current best thinking about collaboration and BIM ?

2.1.1 The networked economy

“There is a central difference between the old and new economies: the old industrial

economy was driven by economies of scale; the new information economy is driven

by the economics of networks”. (Shapiro & Varian, 1998) 19

It will be useful at this point to introduce some rudimentary ideas about the networked

economy that is emerging in life and business today. 18 Illustration appears in (Iansiti & Levien, 2004), page 73. 19 Readers are encouraged to explore some of the earliest writings about telecommunications and the transformations of that industry such as (Kelly, 1994), (Metcalfe, 1995), (Isenberg, 1997), (Reed, 1999), (Shapiro, 1999), (Berners-Lee, 2000), (Rheingold, 2002), (Weinberger, 2002). Some of the better recent writings on the subject include (Benkler, 2006), (Gilder, 2006), (Rheingold & Weeks, 2012). See also the work of (Conway, 2002), (McAfee, 2006) and (McAfee, 2009).


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According to authors such as (Iansiti & Levien, 2004), who have studied biological systems

behaviour in an attempt to better understand the business environment in a new networked

economy – what they describe as ‘keystone behaviour’ – could be very important in business

domains that are characterized by frequent or significant external disruptions. (Moore,

1991), (Grove, 1996), (Christensen, 1997), (Christensen & Raynor, 2003), (Burgelman, et al.,

2005), (Grove, 2005)

It is safe to say, that ‘frequent and significant external disruption’ is what the Irish

construction has been about, for decades now.

(Iansiti & Levien, 2004) in their writing describe the ‘keystone behaviour’ as one adopted by

certain companies, who toil to improve the overall stability, diversity and productivity of the

network of other companies and enterprises which surround them. 20

The ‘keystone’ businesses are the ones that shape what an ecosystem does, by creating

opportunities for ‘niche’ businesses. Creating niches is what a thriving business ecosystem

does.

20 On the other hand, a dominator works in a different manner. “A value dominator, or hub landlord, in contrast eschews control of the network and instead pursues control over value extraction alone. In so doing it provides little new value to its network, while at the same time taking what value there is for itself, leaving a starved and unstable ecosystem around it” (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). It is worth a suggestion that Irish people who observe what occurred with primary banking institutions and their lending into the Irish construction industry, will recognize something in that sentence.


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Figure 2-2 Howard Rheingold, slide used in ‘authors@Google’ talk 21

The description by (Iansiti & Levien, 2004) of how a ‘keystone’ delivers its service is useful in

the context of virtual design and construction in the 21st century. Keystones succeed by

working to create resources and capabilities across a network. Observe the language used by

the authors.

“. . . by sharing information, intellectual property, and physical assets – from tools to

interfaces, and from customer contacts to manufacturing capacity”. (Iansiti & Levien,

2004)

This is a good description of what projects such as ‘BIMserver’, are trying to achieve within

construction (Sebastian & Berlo, 2010), (Beetz & Berlo, 2011), (van Berlo, et al., 2012).

21 For Rheingold’s latest theory on networking and collaboration refer to (Rheingold & Weeks, 2012).


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Figure 2-3 AutoDesk University tutorial project

2.1.2 Practicalities for design and construction in a new economy

“The existing procurement methods have not sufficiently addressed key issues of

open collaboration using BIM”. (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012)

One of the most consistent obstacles to productive working in the early days of computer

aided design, was the likelihood that one’s data could become corrupted, damaged, altered

or destroyed by virtue of trying to share the digital data with others.22 One of the early

solutions was to impose rules on project participants to use the same brand of software, but

that approach has its own limitations and has fallen out of favour.

“There seems to be an agreement among the interviewed users, that (software) tools

should be chosen based on the task performed by the expert, not based on the ability

to share data”. (van Berlo, et al., 2012)

22 (van Berlo, et al., 2012) has suggested that in the ‘BIMserver’ projects in the Netherlands, that the median synchronisation time was one week, as opposed to every hour or every second. There is a lot of fuss made nowadays about instant updating of shared information, but (van Berlo, et al., 2012) was written expressly with the view of puncturing the theory about instant updating of central BIM models.


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We live in a world now, where ‘digital file sharing’ has become pervasive, too pervasive

nowadays for secure control over digital data associated with construction projects.

Individuals own multiple digital devices, and access their ‘work’ from a variety of different

access points or interfaces. Something is required to tighten up standards (Richards, 2010),

(Jeffrey, 2012).

An architect who was questioned for this research, and has published several ‘best practice’

titles on software for project and financial management offered an observation about cloud

computing.

“There are a lot of advantages to cloud storage and even cloud apps. My main

concern is when my Internet connection goes out, which it does from time to time –

especially with big storms.

That’s one reason I love Dropbox. The files are on my computer but they are also on

the cloud. Did I mention that Dropbox actually saves versions of files? That has saved

me several times when a file on my computer got trashed somehow”.

(van Berlo, et al., 2012) is one conference paper which tries to address a more modern

approach, in which the ‘merging’ or ‘fusion’ of work in a collaborative digital design working

environment can occur.

“These tasks are e.g. querying, user management, filtering, sending out change

notifications to subscribers and of course merging”.

(van Berlo, et al., 2012)

In almost all situations, the software used to facilitate the central data repository in the

experiments had the ability to keep revisions of the data from the discipline models. (van

Berlo, et al., 2012)

(Jernigan, 2008) was the author who developed phrases ‘Little BIM’ and ‘Big BIM’, which are

in common use today. The distinction has to do with the use of BIM within the influence


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boundaries of a single company – or engaging in collaborations between actors outside of

the company. (van Berlo, et al., 2012)23

Figure 2-4 Pyramid of BIM progression 24

Cloud computing and BIM have begun to merge together in the most strange and interesting

ways in the 2010s decade. Writing about the Irish construction industry during the busy mid-

2000s, even before the term ‘cloud’ had been invented, (O' Hanlon, 2005) suggested. 25

“The size of an architectural firm dictates the size and sophistication of the computer

system you end up with. In utility computing, the "computer" is no longer sitting on

my desk, it only has a virtual identity in cyberspace”. (O' Hanlon, 2005)

23 Readers will discover other interesting insights into the firm and motivations for keeping operations internal versus external in (Coase, 1937). In more modern times, few authors discuss it better than professor Seymour Goodman of Georgia Institute of Technology who specializes in issues like cyber security and communications technology generally. Refer to (Sofaer & Goodman, 2001), (Straub, et al., 2008). 24 Source of illustration from Jared and Carolyn Banks both AIA architects (Banks & Banks, 31st January 2013). 25 (Kelly, 1994) was one of the earliest writers to observe the changing nature of the computing platform, when primitive 1200 baud modems started to become mainstream in the United States in the 1980s and computers started connecting to each other. Kelly observed that personal computers designed to sit on a desktop on their own, were actually quite stupid. But one began to connect them via phone lines, a whole vista of new possibilities and new intelligence started to emerge. (Kelly, 1994) used phrases such as ‘swarm logic’ to describe this.


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2.1.3 Increasingly complex world

(Carrara, et al., 2012) along with many scholars in construction, have mentioned the

increasing scale of the supply chain involved with building operations.

“. . . higher performance levels required for the whole and separate parts of the

product . . . “ (Carrara, et al., 2012)

In addition, (Carrara, et al., 2012) mention the growth of technical codes and increasing

segmentation of procedural rules associated with building. There is no way for human beings

to check and re-check compliance aspects to do with modern building processes. 26

Suppliers of building materials and equipment today in industry are opting to provide rich

three dimensional BIM object content. It is good marketing. 27 By providing these objects to

designers, it is likely that such product will be specified by a designer for use in a project.

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) observed in their research, the number of ‘new interdependencies’

and collaboration requirements that can now exist between firms, that never existed in the

past.28 (Lavikka, et al., 2012) whose research builds upon the intellectual framework offered

by (Thompson, 1967), mention the ‘pooled task interdependence’ as being one of the least

costly in terms of performing work. 29

26 During a course at Dublin institute of technology, undertaken by the author of this document in energy performance standards in building design, the teacher Dr. Ken Beattie would constantly remind his students. “It is not what you think it is. It is what the software calculation says it is”. (Smarr, June 2012) reminds us that western society has inherited a very carbon heavy economy. Contrast that with the kind of economy that is being developed by theoreticians as diverse as (Howkins, 2002), (Cowhey, June 2012) or (Cowhey & Kleeman, 2012). 27 Kingspan century cladding products, to take one random example in construction in the British Isles – where the objects supplied by the manufacture are subject to ‘dynamic updates’, via internet connection with the model being created and owned by the designer(s) firm(s). 28 (Weinberger, 2002) is a very accessible piece of literature, not written expressly about construction, but about the general subject or organisational planning in an age of pervasive communications bandwidth and interconnectedness. 29 (Lavikka, et al., 2012) define coordination as managing interdependencies between work tasks, as per the framework offered by (Thompson, 1967).


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It has to do with standardisation and the cost efficiencies achieved by automation of tasks,

using the ‘pooled task interdependence’. The concern expressed by the researchers in

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) though, is that Building Information Modelling creates

interdependencies of a kind which do not benefit from automation.30

(Carrara, et al., 2012) argue that powerful software applications are of little help to

collaboration, and sometimes can make it more difficult. 31 The argument offered in

(Carrara, et al., 2012) is easy to appreciate. The increased specialisation of the software

applications increases the communication difficulties and what the authors term ‘reciprocal

understanding’ necessary between project participants.

“. . . as data required by the different programs differ from one actor to the next even

when they refer to the same object”. (Carrara, et al., 2012)

(Carrara, et al., 2012) argue that project participants must have access to project

information which is ‘shareable’.

In a multi-disciplinary construction working environment – such as those encountered in

Design and Build firms, or Construction Management project delivery – when one groups

together architects, engineers and surveyors, the challenges in exchanging information

become apparent. 32

A structural document will represent a wall in a certain way which is useful to the engineer

who is trying to understand things that are happening in planes underneath the current floor

30 This is the juncture at which this research enters into the field of Lean Construction, modern project scheduling systems and supply chain management. It is beyond the scope of this enquiry to discuss Lean management principles in too much detail, but (Lavikka, et al., 2012) do point scholars in the direction of works such as (Ashcraft, 2008), and the work of Karl E. Weick (Weick, 1976), (Weick, 1995). See also, (Weinberger, 2002). 31 This is certainly not a popular view within the BIM community in Ireland in 2013, and our discussion may not have matured to the extent as yet, where we can face up to these challenges responsibly. 32 (Kelley & Littman, 2005) which describes a design process developed for use in companies such as IDEO in the past decade or two. Further useful references include (Margolin & Buchanan, 1996), (Dubberly Design Office, 2002), (Thackara, 2005), (Gray, et al., 2010).


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plate level. An architect who tries to read the engineering document will tend to

misinterpret the structural engineers conventions for indicating walls on simple plans. 33

With mechanical and electrical drawing documentation, an additional set of conventions for

information are present. Often, if small items of equipment are shown ‘to scale’ on

documents they would be illegible to the viewer of the document. Mechanical engineers

regularly break with the conventions that architects use, for always representing objects in

drawings at actual scale. 34

“Professionals involved in the design process use different methods and notational

forms to record and communicate their work”. (Carrara, et al., 2012)

There are on-going challenges faced in pure informational technology terms, to make digital

file formats ‘shareable’ between different software, which is discussed in (van Berlo, et al.,

2012). But the challenges are deeper than those of digital data fidelity. (Carrara, et al., 2012)

describe a need for ‘respecting the specific nature and role of any actor involved’. 35

The research of (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012), was designed in a way to analyse how

information exchange took place between construction disciplines. They studied an

undisclosed real life project using BIM in a ‘project structure’ that changed little from what

the project participants were accustomed to. Afterwards (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012)

prescribed a solution that would offer better information ‘exchange’.

33 The author has several years of experience working in the production of documentation for a number of disciplines – architectural, structural, civil engineering and mechanical. The author deemed it very appropriate to include (Carrara, et al., 2012), which documents challenges faced by the Italian construction industry - as a useful cross reference – by which to verify observances of the Irish industry. 34 Professionals experienced in working in the field will understand that sometimes mechanical engineers are reluctant to issue sets of documents to an architect for fear that misinterpretation of information, may lead to further disruption and confusions in their collaboration. This is the challenge of setting up a multi-disciplinary practice for construction. On the one hand it makes a lot of sense, to bring the different disciplines together in a single physical location – but even when that is achieved – there is the additional step, where the disciplines must learn how to interpret one another representational conventions. What happens with cloud based collaboration, of course, is that many participants are granted a free license to view one another’s work – but without an intermediary stage of training to communicate effectively. 35 Please bear in mind, that such actors may include parties previously not part of a design process, such as Employer’s Representatives, Construction Managers, Program Managers and so forth.


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(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) prescribed the need for small, tightly integrated teams

composed of both ‘project’ managers and ‘information’ managers working in concert. 36

(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) claim that the information manager could work on behalf of

the little team, to extract necessary information as the team needed it and ‘convert it into a

format that is readable by the main project manager’. 37

“Reciprocally coupled tasks are coordinated by mutual adjustment, which is usually

the most costly way to coordinate, since the people performing the work need to

communicate frequently . . . “ (Lavikka, et al., 2012) 38

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) relies on the work of (Mintzberg, 1979), to indicate precisely what is

meant by ‘mutual adjustment’. 39

“Unscheduled meetings, adhoc communication and cross-functional teams represent

mutual adjustment” (Mintzberg, 1979)

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) identified the need for improved coordination processes in

construction, owing to the increasingly adverse effects of fragmentation of the supply chain

and industry.40

36 The detailed research carried out by (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) looked at three aspects – BIM preparation stage, BIM planning stage and the exchange of information. 37 The point of the importance of the ‘model manager’ in virtual design and construction has been stated clearly also by Ronan Collins. Collins works in the Singapore region and delivered a seminar in Dublin in early 2012 (Collins, 27th March 2012). (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) describe the overlapping region of expertise between the Engineer and 3D modeller as the ‘integrated knowledge’ region. 38 (Poillucci, 2011), demonstrates the research on-going in Skanska USA Contracting firm, where Beck Technologies DProfiler software, Sage Estimation products and custom parametric algorithms have been glued together to assist in the ‘reciprocally couple task’ of coordination, that is present when Mechanical and Electrical Estimators have to work with the Mechanical and Electrical Engineers in highly serviced building projects. That is, Healthcare, Data Centres, Pharmaceutical and so on. 39 (Thompson, 1967) describes three modes of coordination: Standardisation, Planning and Mutual Adjustment. Standardisation being the most economical and mutual adjustment being the most expensive task interdependency. 40 (Lavikka, et al., 2012) refer to the earlier work of (Succar, 2009). Namely to the claim that BIM offers the means by which to ease the burden of collaborative working and information management between different actors.


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(Lavikka, et al., 2012) described an additional situation, where task interdependency is

present, but the task shared a resource. It is known in the framework offered by (Thompson,

1967), as the ‘Pooled Coupling’ type.

The influential member of the UK BIM implementation task group, Mervyn Richards

(Richards, 2010) has stated that many of the important aspects in Building Information

Modelling were identified as early as the Tavistock report on communication within the

construction industry (Higgin & Jessop, 1965), (Bishop, 1975) and by successive British

government reports and investigations since then.41 It needs to be stated strongly as

(Carrara, et al., 2012) do make clear in their research.

“Information developed by one professional may not be comprehensible to others,

due to the particular language and conventions each profession uses to code and

represent its work”. (Carrara, et al., 2012)

There are a lot of communities that have been developed to promote BIM in the

construction industry. But there ought to be more evidence of a debate on the questions

posed by (Carrara, et al., 2012).

David Mitchell, an Australian ‘5D Quantity Surveyor’, who conversed with this author

presented a conference paper about his work methodology (Mitchell, 2012). Though looking

at things from a Quantity Surveyors point of view, (Mitchell, 2012) confronts some of the

same preponderances that (Carrara, et al., 2012) did. 42

"The costing process is still a separate exercise which is not transparent".

(Mitchell, 2012)

41 Richards identified (Egan, 1998) as having significant more relevance today in relation to Building Information Modelling, than the earlier work published in (Latham, 1994). Richards states that (Egan, 1998) has somewhat more to do with coordination and scheduling difficulties and expenses incurred during projects at Heathrow airport terminal during the 1990s – the kinds of problems that are at the heart of BIM and what it is intended to solve. Refer also to (Wolstenholme, 2009), as a recent example of publications from the ‘Constructing Excellence’ groups in the United Kingdom. 42 (Carrara, et al., 2012) posit that a core of collaboration is based on how knowledge is ‘developed, exchanged, interpreted and understood’, by all project participants.


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(Mitchell, 2012) explains that part of the skill of the Quantity Surveyor in a BIM world, is to

make allowances in a ‘living cost plan’ (which is available to the team before level of detail

stage 300), for work that has not yet or will not be modelled.

2.1.4 The role of project manager

The role of project manager, of BIM manager or BIM consultant and the use of BIM

‘execution plans’ (BEP for short) is being discussed by implementation task groups on both

sides of the Atlantic ocean, in Asian, Middle East and throughout the southern hemisphere

(AIA, 2008), (Lowe & Muncey, 2009), (Allen Consulting Group, 2010), (Richards, 2010),

(National Building Specification, 2011), (Lee, February 2011). 43

(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) have conducted some of their research in Israel, and some in

the Netherlands. 44 They have concluded that in real world projects studied, that BIM was

not being used effectively as it could be for improving communication. 45

(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) have created mappings of the information flows in real world

construction projects. What became apparent from those mappings, was that the

architectural discipline being at the centre of the entire communications for the project,

offered a solution that was sub-optimal. The other higher ranking project managers had only

‘indirect’ input into decision making (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012).

43 In relation to documents such as (Richards, 2010) in particular, it is worth noting that a parallel strand of research activity is happening at the moment, best characterized as Lean construction and Lean design. This field of knowledge is different in its focus to BIM, but is ultimately more important from a point of view of cost saving, productivity and efficiency improvement in construction. Readers many consult with papers such as (Ashcraft, 2008), (Sacks, et al., 2010), which are widely cited and will deliver significant insight into the relationship between BIM and Lean principles of construction. 44 Scandinavia and the Netherlands with their various institutes of construction teaching and research are thriving centres of activity at the moment for technological development of Building Information Modelling. Construction professionals in Ireland and even in the United Kingdom have observed this trend in recent years, and are now making attempts to catch up. That is not to say that Ireland and Britain still have not got interesting research programs happening too, but more in the fields of Lean Construction and Construction Management than in Building Information Modelling specifically. 45 (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) found that working in BIM necessitated a ‘restructuring of the order of activities’, and in addition a ‘redistribution of roles and responsibility’.


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Figure 2-5 Mapping of real information flows, (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012).

Without investigation of the type which (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) undertook, the real

mappings of real information flows discovered. In their research, (Jadhav & Koutamanis,

2012) present a schematic intended to suggest a more optimal way for project participants

to communicate – one which allowed senior project managers to have slightly more

influence on final decisions than lower ranking members of the construction project team. 46

(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) claim that the optimized information flow map, will result in

direct answers to design problems. (Fletcher, 2011) deserves careful attention, as it deals

with the same issue.

46 A literature work which presents additional real world examples is (Gray, et al., 2010). The work was intended to show the reader something about the ‘low tech’ organisation that occurs behind scenes at some of the most ‘high tech’ companies in the social networking field.


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“Although BIM is meant to be open and neutral, conflicts of interest and local

constraints cannot entirely be avoided in a project organisation”. (Jadhav &

Koutamanis, 2012)

Those are the lessons, which have been learned about Building Information Modelling

implementation in (Lavikka, et al., 2012), (Carrara, et al., 2012) and several others. 47 (Jadhav

& Koutamanis, 2012) designed their optimal process flow map to ensure that every stage has

a small, tightly knit team working on a task – and not an individual.

“The first step in any problem-solving episode is representing the problem, and to a

large extent, that representation has the solution hidden within it”. (Boland Jr &

Collopy, 2004)

A careful balance of team units, task loads and work flow is only achieved through better

understanding of the ‘critical paths’ that exist in solving design problems. Design and

problem solving in construction comprises of ordered sequences of tasks which need to be

completed. The tasks are usually interdependent in some way. The completion one action

relies on the results from something else.

(Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) paid very careful attention to how many teams were used, and

to the manner in which those small, focussed teams were made up – to ensure that each

had the essential combination of design knowledge and information modelling expertise.

The authors of this paper observe that in the optimal process, information ‘exchange’ should

replace information ‘transfer’ (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012).

“. . . it is important not only to integrate BIM tools in the process, but to use BIM tools

to connect teams”. (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012)

47 Note that Lean Construction theory has looked at ways to wring out structural inefficiencies in site processes for a couple of decades now – the related knowledge field of ‘Lean Design’ is still only getting started. What one has witnessed in many of the best conference papers presented in 2012, is evidence of initial solid research into a set of working principles which may underpin a ‘Lean Design’ initiative in construction in the early part of the 21st century. That is, while construction managers have succeeded in identifying the ‘waste’ in construction processes for a number of years, we are only at early stages in application of the same principles to the design process. Early pioneers in design process psychological theory include (Jones, 1970), (Moore, 1970), (Lawson, 1980), (Schön, 1987), (Lawson, 1994), (Suhr, 1999).


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When the human factors that surround the technology are designed to work inefficiently,

much of the benefit of the technology can be wasted. 48 What (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012)

does draw attention to, is the central importance of ‘decision-making structure’ in the

construction project. 49

48 It always is useful to pay attention to authorities on the subject of project team management in other industries such as (Lawson, 1994), (Raymond, 1999), (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), (Brooks, 2010) or (Gray, et al., 2010), to name only some. 49 (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) have emphasized how the management of complex information generated in construction projects has a relationship to the type of decision-making structure that one should implement.


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2.2 Decision Making versus Design Thinking

2.2.1 Decision making in construction

“The familiar vocabulary of management brings premature closure to problem

solving by, for instance, shifting focus to discounted cash flows and calculations of

cost and profit, almost before a design process has started”. (Boland Jr & Collopy,

2004)

(Hutchins, 1995) is cited by (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), in reference to thinking that is

accomplished outside of the singular brain, and which involves interaction of people and

interaction of different tools designed to assist with our thought. What has become more

apparent over the years since ‘Design Build’ project delivery has become more common, is

that combinations of left brain and right brain thinkers working within the same project or

organisation has become desirable to have.50

It is with reference to decision-making structures, this document will look briefly at the work

of (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), (Boland, et al., 2008). These academics at Case Western

Reserve University in Ohio, USA have done extensive work in the last decade aimed at

developing alternative approaches to traditional management. 51

50 The author of this document will borrow some observations from the Lean Construction and Construction Management communities. But this is outside the scope of the current document, and readers should look beyond to a rich resource of scholarship starting with papers like (Ballard, 1994), (Ballard & Howell, 1994), (Ballard & Howell, 1997) and advancing forward to the present day. 51 An initial series of workshops conducted in 2002, were meant to extract points of view about the failure of management following the DOT.COM Internet bubble collapse, and other scandals in financial management at the time such as Enron, WorldCOM, Arthur Anderson Accountancy firm etc. The proceedings of the 2002 workshop were later compiled for publication into a series of essays in (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004). The entire project was also assisted through conversation with the university’s architect at the time, Frank O. Gehry and associates of California. The professionals at the Ohio Weatherhead school of Management were acting as clients to Gehry and associates architects on a number of projects, and thereby had a front row seat experience of seeing how designers actually work in practice. Needless to say, Gehry and associates pioneering work in the field of digital design methods and supply chain integration has been well documented.


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“. . . something else is needed – something that will help put better ideas and

alternatives on the table for analytical consideration and quantitative assessment”.

(Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004)

Many of the decision-making structures that are embedded into the disciplines of Quantity

Surveying or Project Management are based on what (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) refer to as

a ‘decision attitude’, rather than a ‘design attitude’. (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) contended

that ‘exotic methods of financial analysis’ do not create value.

“Only inventing and delivering new products, processes and services that serve

human needs can do that”. (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004)

The distinction between the ‘decision attitude’ and the ‘design attitude’ was purposefully

developed by (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), to address an imbalance that exists in present

times. A lot of emphasis in the best textbooks on management practice such as (Linehan, et

al., 2010) tends to be on ‘decisions’, which do not generate invention (no matter how

advanced the analytical capabilities employed in decision-making).

The major fault of the ‘decision attitude’ is that it assumes that all of the alternatives are on

the table – or that the first ones we think of will include the best ones (Boland Jr & Collopy,

2004). The design attitude is intended specifically to break from a mental entrapment, which

(Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) have blamed for many of the financial disasters which

characterized the early 2000s, DOTCOM collapse and so on. 52

“The decision attitude [towards problem solving] assumes it is easy to come up with

alternatives to consider, but difficult to choose among them”. (Boland Jr & Collopy,

2004)

Through examination of the issue using collaborative workshops at the Weatherhead school

of management in the early 2000s, (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) advise that the cost of not

52 The qualification to the above, is that in stable situations where the most feasible alternatives are well known, a decision attitude rather than a design attitude may be most efficient (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004).


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exploring better options than those present ‘on the table’, can be higher than making an

incorrect choice between those options. 53

(Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), point towards important discoveries made in manufacturing and

construction, which can only happen by breaking away from the ‘decision attitude’. 54 The

authors accept that a design approach is susceptible to ‘keeping the search going long after

it is beneficial’ (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004).55

“. . . in thinking about inventory control and engaged a design attitude, did we start

to see how it was possible to make the elimination of inventory, rather than its

management , as our goal in a lean manufacturing approach to production”. (Boland

Jr & Collopy, 2004)

The theory developed by the management school in Cleveland, Ohio, builds upon the

important work at Berkeley done much earlier (Moore, 1970), (Rittel & Webber, 1973).

Some of the conference attendees who submitted work at the 1968 international

conference recording by (Moore, 1970), continue to publish influential work to this day.

(Eastman, et al., 2011), is widely studied by the Building Information Modelling theoreticians

throughout the world. 56

53 The point that is expressed regularly in the modern day, especially in circles who understand Lean Construction principles, Design-Build project delivery and Building Information Modelling – is that projects run better when comprising of both left and right brain thinkers. The modern day construction problem-solving requires that. Projects are very risky today, when undertaken by individuals who try to do everything in one brain. Perhaps the training of some professionals such as Architects leads them to approach problem-solving in a singular, individual way. 54 When the Japanese automobile manufacturing industry was under significant threat in the mid-20th century, owing to loss of productivity, the managers there were forced to radically re-evaluate their process. What it led them to do was invent a brand new kind of waste – inventory (which had been always considered to be an asset in previous thinking) – which instead of being managed, now needed to be eliminated altogether (Ohno & Bodek, 1988). This was a very radical departure from mainstream management practice in the mid-20th century, and only happened in Japan. It wasn’t until (Womack, et al., 1991), that American manufacturing was finally considering its need to change. The authors formalised some of the lessons learned in (Womack & Jones, 1996), and some of the latest thinking can be found in (Womack, 2011). 55 (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) spoke a great deal of ‘keeping an evolving understanding of a design problem in a more liquid state’, than will happen when the traditional tools of management practice and decision-making are applied to modern, complex challenges. 56 Attendees of the 1968 conference, the proceedings of which became published as (Moore, 1970), included Christopher Alexander (Alexander, 1978), (Alexander, et al., 2012), John Chris Jones (Jones, 1970), Nicholas Negroponte (Negroponte, 1996), Charles Eastman (Eastman, 1992 ), (Eastman, et al., 2011) and Francis Duffy (Duffy, 1983), (Duffy & Hannay, 1992), (Laing & Duffy, 1993), (Duffy & Powell, 1997), (Duffy, 2008). It is safe to


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""Many models of the ideas that we perceive. See them at different scales. Different

kinds of models that feature various aspects of the thing under consideration. In

management that has immediate and obvious applicability.

If you accept that there aren't simple solutions to most of the problems that are really

of interest to us, in managing in a crisis, then these are complex phenomenon and

multiple views of them would be useful. It is very tempting to say, 'if we could just get

the right model'. It is far more illuminating to look at a variety of models".


Specific ideas on how to re-configure accounting systems to place value on the labour

invested by designers, problem-solvers and in-house researchers can also be found in

(Howkins, 2002). 57

"Of genius the only proof is, the act of doing well what is worthy to be done, and

what was never done before: Of genius in the fine arts, the only infallible sign is the

widening the sphere of human sensibility, for the delight, honor, and benefit of

human nature. Genius is the introduction of a new element into the intellectual

universe: or, if that be not allowed, it is the application of powers to objects on which

they had not before been exercised, or the employment of them in such a manner as

to produce effects hitherto unknown". (Young & Richardson, 1759)

say that it was a crucial early cross-Atlantic meeting of many of those who would be important in the history of BIM and wider software development. See history as told in (Bergin, 2012) also. 57 Readers are also recommended to consider the work of (Kelley & Littman, 2005), (Hansen, 2010), (Gray, et al., 2010). The more conventional body of knowledge associated with Management Accounting discipline is also very important in this context (Cooper & Kaplan, 1991), (Cooper, 1995), (Cooper & Slagmulder, 1997), (Kaplan & Cooper, 1997). (Howkins, 2002) is a very useful publication in taking what it calls the various ‘creative’ professions and looking at how they can be made more economically viable. Trades as diverse and musicians to computer programmers are considered. Howkins was also responsible for the organisation of the ‘Code’ conference funded by the British Arts Council in the early 2000s, at which such individuals as Richard M. Stallman made contributions. See (Stallman, 2004).


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Figure 2-6 Laura Lee illustration (Lee, February 2011)

2.3 BIM and Legal obstacles to negotiate

2.3.1 BIM and professional liability

“If the damage is physical damage directly inflicted, there is rarely a problem. If the

damage is what has been characterised as foreseeable economic loss, there may be a

problem – the more so if what causes the loss is the giving of advice or the providing

of information”.

Lord Justice May, paragraph 41 in (Merrett v Babb, 2001).


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This whole area is a very large one. It would be possible to write an entire dissertation on

this area alone.58 For the purposes of literature review only, an attempt will be made to

describe the current context for Building Information Modelling, in terms of legal

professional responsibility and insurance policies to which professionals will be bound.

That is to say, that nowadays, technological challenges are by very far the least of the

obstacles present to full implementation of BIM. The legal and insurance vehicles that will be

necessary to support use of BIM in real life construction projects are only being invented as

we speak.

Firstly, there is the crucially important case of (Merrett v Babb, 2001) in the United Kingdom,

which built on much earlier case law such as (Williams & Anor v Natural Life Health Foods

Ltd & Anor, 1998) and others, where it was left up to the English court to retrospectively

band-aid a situation where failure to transfer risk by means of contract had occurred.

Figure 2-7 White Frog publishing, talk in Dublin 2012 59

In the case of (Merrett v Babb, 2001), Lord Justice Aldous in paragraph 71, quotes from page

834 of the speech of Lord Steyn in the case of (Williams & Anor v Natural Life Health Foods

Ltd & Anor, 1998).

58 Documents which are being studied avidly by consultants, government regulators and policy stakeholders in relation to BIM in the United Kingdom and in Ireland are those such as (AIA, 2008) and (Lowe & Muncey, 2009). These documents merely attempt to create addendums, which should retro-actively enable existing contracts in various jurisdictions to be used with BIM to Level 02 only. For some explanation of Level 02, refer to (Jernigan, 2008), (Richards, 2010), (Eastman, et al., 2011). It does appear to be generally agreed as it stands, that a different set of standard forms of contract will be needed to beyond Level 02 BIM, as the construction industry moves to Levels 03 BIM and beyond. The target date being established by the UK public sector client at the moment is for Level 02 BIM deliverables on all public sector work by 2016. 59 White Frog delivered a presentation and lecture as part of series (CITA, 2012).


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“Whether the principal is a company or a natural person, someone acting on his

behalf may incur personal liability in tort as well as imposing vicarious or attributed

liability upon his principal”.

(Merrett v Babb, 2001)

According to (Ntegrity, 2010), “The insurance market failed at the time to find an Insurer

prepared to cover the risk and instead the RICS created a fund from a membership levy of

£15 on each of its 47,000 members in 2002, 3 and 4”.

Looking at it from the practical point of view of the professional, even if Mr. Babb had won

his appeal and proceeded to a successful judgement in the House of Lords, it would have still

cost him a fortune to do so – both in time and in money. 60 61 In Ireland today, the

curriculum vitae of many construction professionals reads like a laundry list of previous

employer firms that have gone into liquidation and may not provide the indemnity cover

that those professionals need. 62

(Wong, November 2009) states that statutes concerning claims owing to negligence do vary

from one location to another. The author offered the example of the present Dutch statute,

60 Mr. Babb had been a valuer and member of the chartered surveyors institute, who had signed his own name on a standard valuation form issued to him, by a Building Society, in order to place a value on a property purchased by Ms. Merrett and her mother in the 1990s in Cornwall. It was discovered by the purchasers soon afterwards that the property in question suffered from foundation settlement cracks. Furthermore, it was proven in the courts that Mr. Babb had omitted to attach a recommendation to his valuation that a structural survey should be carried out on the property. Despite the fact that Mr. Babb’s original employer, a surveying company had ceased trading and no longer provided ‘run off’ cover to its ex. employees, the trail of liability back to Mr. Babb as an individual was established in the legal judgement. That is, even though the two parties Mr. Babb and Ms. Merrett had never actually met one another in real live or knew of the others existence. 61 (Ntegrity, 2010) makes the point that auditors now are expected to sign their names personally to audits under a new statute intended to provide better protection to shareholders who have invested in public limited companies. (Ntegrity, 2010) argued, “If litigation does target the auditor personally and is defended successfully, there are likely to be substantial legal costs involved which may not be recoverable”. According to (Nickolls, August 30, 2001), negligence is a direct tort. “Being a direct tort also means an employer’s insurance company can pursue the individual”. (Ntegrity, 2010) argued that company law will serve to protect company shareholders, but employees will find themselves exposed on numerous fronts. 62 (CIC, October 2008) explains that with professional indemnity insurance cover, it operates on a ‘claims made basis’. That is, the policy in place at the time the claim is made – not the policy that was in place at the time when the work was being carried out – is what counts from the defendant’s point of view when being sued for negligence in carrying out their work at an earlier date.


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which seeks to impose an upper limit on potential liability of the defendant. The English ‘Act’

however, does not.

“Under English law, upon take-over of a project, the relevant statutory provisions

governing liability of a contractor, sub-contractor or consultant are found primarily in

the Limitation Act 1980 (the ‘Act’)”

(Wong, November 2009)

(Wong, November 2009) observed also that the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act of

1999 in England and Wales, created a way around the rule of ‘privity of contract’ in that

jurisdiction. 63 There is a section contained within the judgement in (Merrett v Babb, 2001),

which is called the ‘Quantum’. (Wong, November 2009) explains that there is no statutory

limitation of a party’s liability under English law. It also means, that the party claiming

damages must succeed in proving the ‘quantum’ of their loss, through the court.

(Bamforth, July 2006) presents some of the key points, where the author is approaching the

subject from the point of view of years of experience selling various insurance products to

the construction industry. (Bamforth, July 2006) did notice the frequent failure of the

contract to perform its function to transfer risk away from the Employer and towards the

various professional consultants, contracting companies, specialists and so on. 64

In (AJ, August 16, 2001), published shortly after the judgement of (Merrett v Babb, 2001), a

president of the Royal British institute of architects is quoted. 65

63 (Bamforth, July 2006) advises that in construction contracts, “. . . standard conditions of engagement . . . include a duty of care clause which mirrors the common law duty to exercise reasonable skill and care”. (Bamforth, July 2006) also notes, that it is common for conditions to be inserted that impose a duty of care, “in excess of the usual common law duty”. 64 Readers interested in this specific area to do with BIM, should also consult well written papers like (Ashcraft, 2008). The writings and publications of James Salmon, an American construction lawyer are also widely read and appreciated within the community of BIM technologists and advocates. 65 According to (CIC, October 2008), employees on short-term contracts should check that the definition includes for self-employed persons. During the last decade in Ireland, this practice of sub-contracting work between professionals set up in different smaller companies (sometimes all operating underneath the same roof), has increased and will only continue to increase. It is the nature of the new electronic age, to allow greater and greater disaggregation of services and outsourcing of individual parts of services throughout the globe (Shapiro, 1999), (Carr, 1999).


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“Staff should be extremely careful in all firms, said Hyett. They should see the

importance of seeking an assurance that the company for whom they are working is

adequately insured for the type of work being done”.

(AJ, August 16, 2001)

(Ntegrity, 2010) recommends that instances of where employers have been seeking to

recover losses from their own employers for claims on grounds of professional negligence is

on the increase. Increasing numbers of staff are being targeted in this way. (Henchie, 2001,

Issue 33) went a little further at the time of the judgement in (Merrett v Babb, 2001), and

argues that employees will only become greater targets if they heed the advice offered by

the judges in that case – to acquire their own personal indemnity insurance cover as

individuals.

“Part of your protection as an employee is that employees are not thought to carry

insurance and are unlikely to have sufficient assets to be worth suing”.

(CIC, October 2008)

(CIC, October 2008) recommends that employees should check on their projects, for the

exact terms of appointment used. Employees should take note of where they have been

named in such appointments and ensure that they are also named in indemnity policies held

by their employer. The general lesson from (Merrett v Babb, 2001), and advice given is that

employees ought to avoid giving an impression to clients that one is acting personally on

their behalf, rather than acting on behalf of one’s firm.

“Staff should cease the stupid practice of signing letters in the first person. Everything

should go towards ‘we’, making an audit trail against the individual more difficult, he

[the then RIBA president] said”.

(AJ, August 16, 2001)


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Chapter

3

Research Methodology


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Chapter 3 Research Methodology

Figure 3-1 Parametric wall objects (US Army Corp of Engineers)

3.1 Taking advantage of data sources from abroad

3.1.1 Where did the research led to ?

“. . . the questions are under continual review and reformulation”.

(Naoum, 2012)

The theme of collaboration is one such theme that the author has followed with interest for

a number of years. 66 This study effort has allowed for investigation of collaboration in the

66 Text used in support of research over many years are extensive and varied including (Coase, 1937), (McGregor, 1960), (Rittel & Webber, 1973), (Brooks, 1974), (Toffler, 1980), (de Bono, 1985), (de Bono, 1990), (Womack, et al., 1991), (Lawson, 1994), (Metcalfe, 1995), (Weick, 1995), (Kay, 1996), (Shapiro & Varian, 1998), (Carr, 1999), (Raymond, 1999), (Gehry, 2002), (Dubberly Design Office, 2002), (Hascher, et al., 2002), (Rheingold, 2002), (Iansiti & Levien, 2004), (O' Hanlon, 2005), (Thackara, 2005), (Benkler, 2006), (Koch, et al., 2006), (Sennett, 2007), (Gaffney, 2008), (Bailey, 8th April 2009), (O' Hanlon, 2009), (Brooks, 2010), (Cowhey & Kleeman, 2012).


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context of construction, and in the much larger context of the age of pervasive digital

communications. 67

The subject of Building Information modelling is a quite complicated one, being made up of

very many sub-avenues, sub-cultures and sub-levels (any one of which a student could

become fascinated by and use up one’s entire allocation of research time on). 68

Somehow, everything manages to exist underneath a general umbrella called Building

Information Modelling. But realistically, BIM is a whole series of different sub-disciplines. It is

impossible to be expert in construction contracts while still knowing about facilities

management. It is impossible to be a spatial designer while still understanding 4D scheduling

software used inside a BIM work environment. 69

The objective of this study, is mainly to try and follow a specific ‘theme’, which runs across a

number of sub-cultures or sub-projects that exist within the much larger BIM umbrella. The

task was never an easy one.

67 It is worth taking note, that recent expectations in the public sector market in Irish construction (Department of Finance, 2007), (Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, 2012), have placed emphasis on collaboration and cooperation by different consultants and disciplines. This is aside totally from the subject of BIM at all. A very crucial body of documentation exists in the field of Management Accounting (Cooper & Kaplan, 1991), (Cooper, 1995), (Cooper & Slagmulder, 1997), (Kaplan & Cooper, 1997), that is very useful reference material in trying to understand the new metrics employed by the public sector construction client in Ireland, to grade consultants and design teams according to their performance on projects. A useful guide from CIRIA on the metrics employed to measure performance of working in groups is given by (Dent & Storey, 2004). Some common sense guidance through the Belbin method is given by (Bailey, 8th April 2009). But increasingly the new discipline of ‘Interaction Design’ is making progress in understanding how people who together and how information systems that support organisations ought to function (Margolin & Buchanan, 1996), (McAfee, 2006), (Kelley & Littman, 2005), (McAfee, 2009), (Gray, et al., 2010), (Hansen, 2010). 68 Another example of an ‘umbrella term’ like BIM, is that of sustainability. There is little agreement amongst experts as to a common definition of sustainability, and some would go so far as to say the word contains no meaning at all. 69 It should be noted, that the author was somewhat encouraged by the prospect of getting to research BIM all the same, because in the 1990s the author invested several years of his life into the study of architecture at third level in Dublin Institute of Technology. That was before embarking upon a second degree course a decade later in 2010, when he enrolled at the Limerick Institute of Technology to commence studies in Quantity Surveying. It was deemed prudent by the author at that stage of his life, to learn something about the matters of financial accounting and management on construction projects, having spent two decades focussing on the design and technical aspects of the same. See (O' Hanlon, 2005), (O' Hanlon, 2009).


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Different groups of professionals tend to view Building Information Modelling from their

own point of view. 70 Some professions have been faster to roll out BIM, and information

technology in general than have other professions. 71 Indications from (Jeffrey, 2012), (CITA,

2012), (Spillane, 7th March 2013) are that Main Contractors may be more focussed on

gaining advantage from BIM, than are many consultants right now. Indications from a

Quantity Surveyor professional in Australia revealed that Sub-Contractors are the ones really

asking for BIM models in that market.

“Contractors in the US, whatever documents the Architects will give him, he will still

build a BIM model. There is one contractor offering zero change order contracts to

clients. If you don’t change the brief, that’s the contract sum. You will get no

questions from me (the contractor), about lack of coordination, about incomplete

design, about change orders during construction”.

Paul Morrell of UK Cabinet Office speaking at (National Building Specification, 2011).

Very early on in my studies it became clear that the quantitative approach to research was

not favourable to the research angle that the author wished to take.72 Furthermore, it

proved very difficult given the length and breadth of diverse issues all contained within the

BIM umbrella term – that the qualitative research method would not serve purposes well

either. 73

70 It implies very often that in order to understand the nuances of a sub-project within BIM, e.g. Legal and contractual aspects, one is obliged to take samples from within a number of different groups, in order to create any sort of unified picture of best practice and thinking. This is time and resource consuming, and therefore to fit within the constraints of undergraduate research it was decided to rely heavily on secondary data, and latest breaking high quality conference publications wherever the author could find that material. 71 Please see the results chapter of this document, which refers to the Quantity Surveying profession which still in 2013 works an awful lot from paper documents. This is compared to Structural engineers, who on the whole have been much faster to roll out information technology than even architects. This is to do with the fact, that structural engineers really do need a ‘fast turnaround’ in their work process. It is quite late sometimes when the structural engineer receives a final version of a design – and the emphasis therefore is on re-creating such a design in a set of structural engineering documents that can be issued. Unlike the structural engineer, the principal consultant the architect is not reliant on someone else to send them documentation, and can afford to be a little more leisurely about things. 72 (Naoum, 2012) states that the quantitative approach can be applied in circumstances where the researcher wishes to prove the existence of a relationship between facts. The quantitative research method, “. . . is selected when you want to find facts about a concept, a question or an attribute”. 73 (Naoum, 2012) recommends that researchers use a ‘theory’ inductively in the Qualitative approach – so that the theory is not something to test – but rather, to develop and be ‘shaped’ through the process of research. The advantage of the qualitative approach being that one may allow the ‘theory’ to emerge gradually as the data collection exercise continues – rather than have to wait before a solid theory is established – before proceeding with any targeted data collection effort.


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In the end, following the examples and advice offered by (Naoum, 2006), it was decided that

the best way to present this research was using the ‘problem solving’ method. That is, an

attempt is made in this research to discover some of the critical questions that do need to be

asked about Building Information Modelling. The goal of this research became that of

establishing some kind of conceptual framework in which to think about Building

Information Modelling – and if possible to think about it from a point of view of Quantity

Surveying professionals within the construction industry.

The goal of this research became not that of asking questions – but one of discovering what

the questions should be. As per the guidance offered by (Naoum, 2006), this research would

not contain a firm hypothesis as such, or reach any definitive conclusion. The conclusions,

would be the questions themselves.

It is hoped that this end product of the ‘problem solving’ research effort will provide a

platform for more rigorous hypothesis testing in the future.

3.1.2 Reliance upon good ‘Secondary Data’ sources

One might argue that in relation to Building Information Modelling, there is little need to

add to the existing pile of published data. The task of trying to sift through that which is

published is a huge one in itself. Furthermore, it is often the case that the individuals who

know the most about the subject of BIM, are also heavily biased towards marketing their

own services or wares. This is a documented problem in several of the academic papers

which were studied. 74

74 One may even wonder about such documents as (Latham, 1994), (Egan, 1998), (Wolstenholme, 2009) and other important publications recently by the UK BIM task group, or their equivalent in the United States and elsewhere. Government funded publications about Building Information Modelling from Australia also have been numerous (Allen Consulting Group, 2010), (Lee, February 2011) and of a high standard. But it was decided not to go over this ground, and instead to look at areas of primary research activity that have not as much attention paid to them.


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It was decided by the author that much of the really valuable data collected on the theme of

‘collaboration’ and Building Information Modelling, is not adequately reflected in the

government reports by the UK BIM Task group and so on.75 However, a very rich vein of data

was discovered quite late in investigation, when the author obtained a copy of the

conference proceedings of the 2012 European Conference on Product and Process

Modelling (Gudnason & Scherer, 2012). 76 This source of secondary data and ‘state of the

art’ thinking about collaboration in BIM, is what the author decided to use to underpin this

project. 77

The advantage of the use of secondary data from such published sources as (Gudnason &

Scherer, 2012), is that it avails of multiple perspectives from all around the world. For

instance, (Lavikka, et al., 2012), one of the individual papers specifically chosen from the

hundreds contained in (Gudnason & Scherer, 2012), is a publication of research executed in

the Finish construction industry. It set out to carefully study the interactions between

organisations who tried to work using a modern BIM process.

Commentators on Building Information Modelling, often talk about the silent ‘M’, being

management – and also about the silent ‘I’, being information.

75 In the United States, BIM policy is being written ‘state by state’, with some more advanced than others. In the United States, there are various public procurement agencies which have demanded BIM on their projects going forward. Such groups are the US Army Corp of Engineers, the Veteran’s Association for ex. US military service men and women. Several of the universities in the United States are also highly advanced in the areas of computer aided design and BIM. The institution which has had most influence to date has been Penn State University, and its guide books and research work into BIM are held in the highest regard at present. An engineer and recent mover into the BIM management services market, a Ronan Collins, based at the moment in Singapore delivered a talk in Dublin (Collins, 27th March 2012), in which he explained the current situation with regard to BIM in the busy Asian construction industry. 76 It can be easily ascertained from this collection of published research and data, that work on Building Information Modelling is focussed in a very few key locations. Such places that stand out are certain Scandinavian institutes, and similarly in the Netherlands. In fact, construction companies in those areas do also fund a lot of research of their own. (Poillucci, 2011) provides just one example in air conditioning and mechanical plant engineering, where a Finish company Skanska, having moved into the American market, has tapped right into the best software BIM estimation products and processes that exist in America at present. Furthermore, Skanska US construction company, on its own has extended with the use of those existing software products and owns intellectual property related to such improvements. 77 (Naoum, 2012) establishes a set of criteria to be used for judging the value of secondary date. (Naoum, 2012) recommends asking the questions: Is the material factually accurate? Why was it collected? Would it have been the same if it were collected by anyone else? Is it systemic, providing a complete account of what it describes? What is it lacking?


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(Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) was a publication that also offered enormous value to this

research. During the early 2000s in north America, a sudden collapse in the ‘dot com’ stock

market bubble resulted in much re-assessment of what schools of management (considered

to be the best in the world), had been teaching. In 2002, at the prestigious ‘Weatherhead

School of Management’, in Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, a workshop event was

held whereby many disciplines were asked to come together to offer their contributions

about future directions in teaching. 78 The results of this workshop were compiled together

in the essay collection that is (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004).79

3.1.3 Pilot questionnaires

One of the problems found by the author in the initial stages of data collection, when

circulating ‘test questions’ and pilot questionnaires to recipients was as follows.

A question about ‘Single Project Insurance’80 in the construction industry was met with a

remarkable the level of resistance, especially to those practitioners who are most highly

mobilised in using BIM software in their daily work today. It proved difficult to rationalize the

degree of offence taken to this question.

Upon careful consideration, it was decided that the question ‘read’ like the following to

those recipients. “There is some insurmountable obstacle [getting single project insurance

78 Another aspect to (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), is the case study aspect to it. That is, the Weatherhead school of management had commissioned Building Information Modelling pioneering practice, Frank O. Gehry and Partners of Los Angeles, to design and build two projects on that campus. It was the interaction between the university client and the architect in this case, which sparked some of the motivation to hold the workshops at the school in 2002. Later, the same authors published additional material (Boland, et al., 2008) and (Boland, et al., 2008), which are also rich sources of information on current theory of management – and how that relates to construction in particular. 79 There was an aspiration on the part of (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), to have spontaneity of the meeting of great minds and free, fluid academic discussion in their workshop. This is captured to some degree in their publication, which makes it a useful source of secondary data. 80 Single project insurance refers to a condition whereby consultants do not all have separate indemnity insurance policies – but that everyone’s insurance for that one project – is taken out as one policy to cover any mishaps or mistakes in design, communication or practical execution. Construction lawyers in the United Kingdom at the moment who are having this conversation, describe single project insurance as the ‘Nirvana’ of construction legal arrangements. That is, even the Contractor’s insurance may also be integrated into the same policy as that of the consultants.


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implemented], that the industry needs to overcome, before Building Information Modelling

can be used on any project whatsoever”.

What this researcher began to realize is that recipients, who at first instance appeared to be

ideal candidates for interview, were over eager in their attempts to bury any hint or

suggestion of obstacles that may exist to immediate roll out of the BIM software. When the

author discovered this vein of truth, it was remarkably easy to follow it even further.

What appeared to be the case, was that lobby groups had developed inside of each one of

the Irish construction professions, who were working hard so that the national government

of Ireland would impose a blanket rule, that BIM should be used on all public sector projects

going forward. 81

Those in the industry who have invested insignificantly already, are most urgent in their

determination to see BIM frameworks and regulations written and enforced today. But does

that imply that others in the industry who may not have invested as heavily or as early, do

not have a long term strategy to use BIM? 82

81 Even more than that, it appeared from investigation that whole new start-up businesses had been created, will a sole purpose of using mandatory BIM as some kind of competitive advantage. What the whole BIM issue seemed to indicate was a rift within certain construction professions, whereby one side accused the other of not moving with the times, and they would be subjected to the rules of (Darwin, 1859). Therefore it was decided early on, to pull back from trying to extract useful data from this source – and rather focus more effort – upon the published material coming from other economic regions such as Scandinavia, mainland Europe, Australia, or wherever the economic crisis of the late 2000s had not hit so hard. 82 One consultant interviewed had invested in over a dozen dedicated BIM workstations and licenses, combined with training for all members of his staff –to find he could no longer keep on his staff owing to the downturn in the Irish economy. He informed that his ex. employees had all found work easily abroad, and partly down to the training that they had received under his supervision. It underlines a heart-breaking reality for small enterprise in the construction industry however – that one may be using one’s own resources to train staff for some other employer. This turns into a vicious circle in reality, where small enterprises end up being afraid to invest a single penny in training for their staff, for these reasons. That in turn leads to industry stagnation and lack of improvement across the board. Policy objectives on BIM, might focus more on the ‘catch 22’ situation described and less on (Darwin, 1859). Refer to (Carr, 2003), which describes an impossible situation that many enterprises find themselves in, of investing in more and more information technology infrastructure, but for less and less real pay back.


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The UK BIM Task group and the equivalent ‘band of merry men’ who are keeping the cause

going in the Republic of Ireland 83, do seem to be biased towards the ‘early adopter’ (Moore,

1991), perspective on new technological innovation. 84

“The strategic section [of an SME business plan] should address marketing continuity.

Products can be introduced in niches, but the marketing plan should explain how they

can move to larger segments. New technology, in particular, often has little problem

in entering the ‘venturesome’ niche, but fails to cross the ‘innovation chasm’ (Moore,

1995) into mainstream markets”. (Mellor, 2009)

The truth is, that for as long as this author has been in the construction industry 85, there has

always been a specific segment of the professional population who always needed some

new toy to play with. This isn’t anything new. It was the same ten years ago, and even

twenty years ago. 86

The proliferation of digital devices and connectivity is one thing. But who owns and controls

the networks, the technology and the source code? (Gershenfeld, 1999), (Lessig, 1999),

(Raymond, 1999), (Gilder, 2000), (Rheingold, 2002), (Benkler, 2002), (Weinberger, 2002),

(Stallman, 2004), (Battelle, 2005), (Friedman, 2005), (Thackara, 2005), (Benkler, 2006),

(Gilder, 2006), (Tapscott & Williams, 2006), (Carr, 2008), (Shirky, 2009)

One thing that interviews revealed, where candidates were given initial test questions to

answer, was how strongly they all felt against large software vendors. Individual after

83 It appears that there is a nasty ‘north and south of the border’ political division in regards to BIM and the construction industry on the island of Ireland. While the north of Ireland does benefit from the efforts and policy implementations of the United Kingdom and its ‘BIM Task Force’, which is highly motivated and well-resourced compared to anything down here in the Republic (CITA, 2012), (Spillane, 7th March 2013). Furthermore, professionals working in the Republic are none too pleased either with the imposition upon them of the latest ‘GCCC Public Procurement’ set of contracts and guidelines (Department of Finance, 2007), compared to those in use in the United Kingdom and northern Ireland. 84 Further reading of (Carr, 2003) is also recommended. In fact it is not uncommon these days to witness the authors of both (Moore, 1991) and (Carr, 2003) invited to speak at important conferences about ‘Cloud Computing’, and even those organised by such companies as Google Inc. in recent years. 85 The author began his studies at Bolton Street department of architecture in Dublin, Ireland, in the year 1992. 86 The author can distinctly remember the persons in the architectural profession who were the first to use a mobile phone, or a portable computer in the early 1990s. In such a short space of time it appears as though everyone walks around with both of those devices, and additional ones also. In fact, it appears in some cases in 2013, as if the mobile phone and portable computer are almost becoming the same thing.


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individual claimed to be dissatisfied with what was on offer from the software vendors.

These were not individuals who had only just discovered BIM software either – but where

sometimes professionals who had been using CAD and BIM from the beginning. 87

This was not something that was anticipated in initial attempts at questionnaire design. On

the contrary it was not an issue that research subjects would be interested in at all, it was

assumed. How wrong that assumption proved to be.

“I do actually think there will be a market winner. But I am hoping it will be an Apple

model, rather than a MicroSoft model. There is no limit to the amount of ‘apps’ you

can create. If I am going to build this wall tomorrow, how much material do I need? If

I am going to build on this site, how many tower cranes will I need? People could

invent ‘apps’ that go into the platform. But that is up to the market”.

Paul Morrell of UK Cabinet Office speaking at (National Building Specification, 2011).

According to (Redmond, et al., 2011), in the next phase data may move from the offices of

the consultants entirely and reside instead on shared central spaces, which are owned and

operated by service providers.88

“Someday, computing power will arrive into your office building like electricity, phone

lines, gas central heating and mains water supply”. (O' Hanlon, 2005)

It was unexpected the number of different information technology service providers who are

now involved in the Irish construction industry. It is the new role of a ‘BIM manager’ in

construction, an entirely new professional with very relevant points of view that researchers

ought to include in their sample.

87 During the early days of computer aided design, the market had been dominated by a couple of large corporations. Professionals interviewed who had spent many years using those products, were hopeful that standards would evolve in BIM, that would not be owned exclusively by any one corporation. It was surprising the strength of conviction about this. One suspects that the same people did not feel as strongly about this, a decade ago. Perhaps the claims made by shrink wrapped software product vendors were believed more readily in the past than they are today. 88 Refer to the recent RIBA guide on BIM for architects authored by Steven Race, or to (Richards, 2010). These standards are intended to capture rules which could dictate the communication between consultants and the contractor – and to what extent or not – the various members of the supply chain all of access to the same pool of shared data.


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Chapter

4

Research Action and

Findings


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Chapter 4 Research Action & Findings

Figure 4-1 Australian national BIM report (Allen Consulting Group, 2010)

4.1 How to finance BIM

4.1.1 Construction and small enterprise

Anne King, of the BSRIA organisation in the United Kingdom suggested in a recent NBS web

broadcast (National Building Specification, 2011).

“Our big problem in this sector [construction sector] is that we only invest when we

can see payback on projects. We are not like the airframe industry, which will look at

the payback, . . . or the retail industry, which looks at the payback across, a large

quantity of overheads. We think in terms of projects, and we have somehow have to

get people seeing it [payback] in projects”.

Anne King (National Building Specification, 2011)

One could look at the 'many small businesses' make up, of construction, in those terms - of

units of input or investment made by each individual small business - into human resources,

in order to extract some kind of output, of higher quality, or surplus over time.


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In any typical small business circumstance, there are stakeholders, bookkeepers, human

resources managers and what not, that are hired on a more permanent basis than many of

the trained professionals who work in a construction professionals practice.

What tends to occur in most consultant practices is that members of staff ‘move on’.

Someone is left around to pick up the pieces, to keep the ship afloat. The non-professional

managers are like the mechanics who keep the engine supplied with everything it needs,

including software.

It's really easy to pull a DVD out of a box, put the DVD in the optical drive tray and press the

install button. We have all been trained by the 'shrink-wrapped' software industry to do

that.

Sadly, in other parts of the construction professions, in the madness of software upgrade

cycles, folk seldom look further down the line, to management of information assets over

time.

There is colossal incentive for Owners of small businesses in construction - to suppress the

rate at which their employees explore new areas of information technology and associated

training.

Typically BIM processes would lend themselves to extraction of more, over a slightly longer

term. But when the small business owner inputs the high staff turnover rate into the

equation, the BIM process falls down - and other processes designed to extract far less, over

a shorter time, win out.

4.1.2 Project Delivery Systems

“We are spending too much on construction, because often we don’t ask for the right

thing. You define procurement to find value, and not the other way around”.

Paul Morrell (National Building Specification, 2011).


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A well-known expert on BIM in Britain, Mervyn Richards has commented, "IPD does nothing

in this debate unless the teams understand why there is such a thing as IPD. This is about a

whole new way of working, to me this is a way of life".

The north American implementation of BIM and related project delivery systems are often

hard for us to fathom, in north Europe. Our industry operates differently to that of north

America. The Americans also have a habit of throwing in bits and pieces, borrowed from new

breeds of management theory and science. 89

Legal firms do have a deeper involvement in construction in north America and this is one

key aspect to how ‘Integrated Project Delivery’ has worked there. Legal firms in north

America carry the burden of procurement method of choice, cash flow considerations for

individual projects, risk management design per project and a whole lot of other things, that

the Quantity Surveying consultant might do in Britain or Ireland.

Quantity Surveyors, in the British construction system are para-legal personnel. The Quantity

Surveyor role familiar in the British construction context, is split up in the north American

context between that of Architects and Lawyers. Where architects in north America carry

the burden of the number crunching, Quantity Surveyors try to do so in the British and

common wealth systems.

We do struggle in Britain and Ireland to understand what the north American meaning of

'Virtual Design and Construction' is (commonly referred to by an acronym VDC). Virtual

Design and Construction also ties in things like co-location of human beings, which seems to

be crucial as per the definition of ‘Integrated Project Delivery’ described in (Ashcraft, 2008)

and other publications.

In north America value engineering workshops have been part of the procurement process

in construction for a number of decades now (Kelly & Male, 1993). The idea of co-location of

human beings to enable working together does not seem so odd. 89 The Rosetta stone I found most helpful here, is (Gray, et al., 2010).


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In Ireland we are familiar with the concept of ‘hard hat’ construction personnel having to

move around as the job dictates. But we are not used to the idea of professionals have to

pick up and move, to sit at desks alongside other consultants who have also moved to a

location for the duration of a project.

The American market supports some very professional and powerful big contracting firms,

the likes of which we do not have here in the British Isles.

Some of the north American construction firms do advertise 'Pre-Construction' service

options on their websites. This service embodies virtual design and construction, co-location,

virtual desktops and a whole range of other weird and wonderful digital/communications

technologies that we have not scratched the surface of in the Britain or Ireland yet.

Figure 4-2 The innovation process 90

4.1.3 BIM and sharing of information

90 This illustration appeared in (Merrill, 2012).


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“The silent ‘m’ in BIM, is management. But government hardly even knows what it

owns at the minute, never mind how to manage it. That idea is of a file that you can

get hold of that is fully loaded with information about how to take care of that

building”. 91


(Mitchell, 2012) describes very well the fifth dimension of BIM, in which a dynamic link

enables estimates to be ‘calculated and re-calculated’ in a very short period of time. This is

what (Mitchell, 2012) referred to as a ‘Living Cost Plan’. (Mitchell, 2012) noted that project

schedules did not allow time to manually re-measure in the past.

“. . . the combinations that need to be considered are too complex and there are too

many variables for a QS to complete ‘what if’ style calculations manually”.

(Mitchell, 2012)

Whilst current experts such as (Mitchell, 2012), discussed the notion of driving information

into a model early on in the procurement process for construction – others such as Sam

Collard, formerly of Laing O’Rourke contractors (National Building Specification, 2011) –

have offered some practical advice and caution. Collard, himself a mechanical engineer and

veteran of several clash detection BIM-enabled construction projects suggests that, ‘we are

mostly in a 3D Plus world, and we are not attributing the information’. 92

“Making sure that the information is there at the right time, that it is there in the

right quantity. Don’t overload the model”.

Sam Collard (National Building Specification, 2011).

91 Paul Morrell of the UK’s Cabinet office, the public sector construction client, has stated that we photograph completed projects and then we all go away. A focus needs to be made on management of our assets. We need to treat our projects as manageable assets and discover what that means from a point of view of project data. 92 Collard flatly points out that people are nervous about how you attribute information ‘into’ the model (National Building Specification, 2011). This contrasts very starkly with the competence and confidence exhibited by a 5D quantity surveyor working in Australia such as (Mitchell, 2012). It should be noted, that after leaving Laing O’Rourke contractors in Great Britain, that Collard has since taken up a position as BIM manager to a mechanical engineer consultants in Australia. It suggests that much of the activity in BIM and construction nowadays is not happening in the British Isles, but elsewhere. See recent reports (Allen Consulting Group, 2010) and (Lee, February 2011). This view is seen emphasized again in the transcript of (Spillane, 7th March 2013).


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Figure 4-3 Collaborative Construction slide, CITA Lecture Dublin 2012

Collard has recommended in the United Kingdom, to put a ‘scorecard’ against the use of BIM

on projects, and expect the professionals involved to meet a certain standard.93 Otherwise it

may prove to be difficult to classify what a BIM model is. Collard would make a distinction

between a ‘design model’ involving designers and even the Client themselves – and the ‘BIM

model’ – where the supply chain actually becomes involved in supplying electronic

components and content that are dropped into unique, share-able, ‘BIM model’.

93 Please refer to (Dent & Storey, 2004) as one important example of a document, which tries to define a procedure for benchmarking of performance of a design team.


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Figure 4-4 Key Performance Indicator - Design activities (Dent & Storey, 2004)

(Jeffrey, 2012) offers some advice in relation to the ‘levels of detail’ subject in Building

Information Modelling. (Jeffrey, 2012) recommends the creation of a structure that can be

populated with the required detail later in the process.

This segregation of the ‘design model’ from the ‘BIM model’ in legal definition terms is

reiterated strongly by (Lowe & Muncey, 2009). Collard suggested though, that while we are

seeing more design models and some proper BIM models being produced for projects – the

area that we still have to really begin in, is the ‘facilities management’ models that will be

required in the future (National Building Specification, 2011). 94

“BIM is a process of accessing information for all. The client through to the Designer,

through to the tradesperson on site”.

Sam Collard (National Building Specification, 2011).

94 There is one debate that is starting to gain traction, that in the near future the traditional ‘shop drawing’ will become absorbed into the proper ‘BIM model’ with all of the supplier generated content merged into the single, unique, share-able BIM.


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4.2 BIM and the different construction disciplines

4.2.1 The Quantity Surveyor and BIM

“There is something about the madness of how we currently work. We all work on

different platforms. Let’s all work off the same data. When I retired [Paul Morrell

worked as a Quantity Surveyor], I didn’t want to sit through one more meeting where

a duct and a column each wanted to be in the same place”.


But how do things stack up when we start to look at the Quantity Surveying profession and

BIM? Many in the profession, unlike (Mitchell, 2012), do not even know where to begin to

approach BIM from a Quantity Surveying point of view.

Professional Quantity Surveyors do still receive 'paper' sets of drawings in the present. That

is, two decades almost after many other professions have changed away from a paper based

process to an electronic one. When the Quantity Surveyor receives a bundle of paper

drawings, the information that is required is extracted manually piece by piece and input

manually piece by piece into an electronic spreadsheet type format.

Most often, the electronic spreadsheet version of the data is printed onto paper again and

arrives on the Contractor’s Estimator’s desk, where they then begin to re-input information

from paper back into another electronic spreadsheet format.

One could continue down along the ‘chain’ of the construction procurement process and

find at least another half a dozen cycles of paper information being converted back into

electronic format, and back into paper. That is, until ultimately the data somehow ends up

being contained in a Facilities Management software somewhere, that holds no direct


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connection or relationship to any of the electronic formats from which the project

originated. 95

One can only ask a question, in light of the above, what levels of unnecessary labour along

the chain could be eliminated or partially so, resulting in an improvement and not

deterioration in quality and value of construction produced? 96

(Jeffrey, 2012) included findings from Skanska UK contractor’s civil engineering projects

where BIM models helped to identify three million British pounds worth of savings in sheet

piling requirements. In the area of building construction, (Jeffrey, 2012) identified a project

at Barts and Royal London hospital where “exercises to extract quantities would have taken

30 man-days, have been achieved in four hours”.

(Mitchell, 2012) stated that successful building is about the creation of certainty, from a

point of view of design, build-ability and cost. But that past experience has shown that

building can to be both expensive and uncertain.

In addition to the above, it was discovered the Client’s ability to sign off on works was

enhanced, meaning that the handover program of thousands of hospital rooms was

shortened. (Jeffrey, 2012) commented that information required by others later in the

process, such as facilities managers, had been easily retrievable in optimal formats and

95 Paul Morrell of the UK Cabinet office, public sector client to the construction industry would argue that Contractors who send data straight to their manufacturers are finding ‘useless people’ between them and the manufacturer. One can take out these players from the game and give some back to the client, while keeping some savings and build one’s profitability around that. (National Building Specification, 2011) 96 But there is one important reason for the way that Quantity Surveyors work. It is to do with ‘real world’ conditions in which a QS will work, as opposed to theoretical diagrams of work process and work flow. In the real world, the Quantity Surveyors jump from one job to another. Sometimes a job that came into the practice and was measured by someone, months ago may stall for some reason. Then all of a sudden that job may be ‘re-booted’ again in some altered form or reduced scope. The professional QS at that point, has a choice to make. Do they discard every bit of original work executed on their take off. That is rarely a choice, and some bits of the initial work may need to be salvaged and carried forward into the new scheme. This is one of the reasons that Quantity Surveyors still use paper today. Drawings get rolled up and housed away in storage for months at a time, during which no Quantity Surveying human resources are allowed to work on them. The QS practice cannot earn 'fees' doing work on a job, except at specific times, when BoQ revisions are required. Carefully notated paper sets of drawings with lots of florescent highlighter, biro and pencil marks on them are used as ‘re-fresher documents’, for the slow brain, to remember again after a long hiatus, how the key quantities were taken for.


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quality – where previous experience had been incomplete or poor quality data – and it even,

had been difficult to find.

4.2.2 Multi-Disciplinary Firms

“You always have to remember how crap the status quo is”.


One may ask the question, if all of the design disciplines (structural, architectural, civil,

mechanical and electrical engineering), and all of the management disciplines (quantity

surveying, procurement, real estate, property management, legal and accounting), were all

to exist in the same company and work on the same computer network, could they not

avoid much of the wasted duplication of effort?

This is a strategy of doing business, which has been employed by several major construction

firms in the United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere. For a brief period during the

busiest periods in Irish construction activity in the 2000s decade, we had such outfits in

Ireland, which this author has experience working in. 97

First of all, there is a famous quip by someone at Atkins construction management firm, that

just because one puts all disciplines on the same floor plate, does not mean that they will

talk to one another. 98 That is, the technological hurdle is not the only hurdle that has to be

crossed.

97 The multi-disciplinary design and construction management team are often found attached to ‘Design and Build’ contractors who work exclusively together on projects, instead of sending work out to external consultants, which is the norm in most Design-Bid-Build contracts. See (O' Hanlon, 2009) for further elaboration. 98 The author can confirm that this is the case from own experience. Cross disciplinary communication doesn’t happen automatically and only evolves by degrees and through sustained effort, mutual recognition and ingenuity.


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“A fully integrated, Contractor-led design team and a series of Sub-Contractors on

board to develop the most cost effective design that they can, from pulling in their

expertise. That has happened. That is happening now”. 99

Alistair Kell (National Building Specification, 2011).

What tends to occur, when procurement disciplines are mixed together with design

disciplines within the same company (e.g. a Design Build company), sharing the same

information technology infrastructure and same top-down management – is that an ‘iron

curtain’ still has to be drawn around the procurement division. 100

Why would that be so, one would ask?

Those who regularly comment about BIM and how wonderful it is, often get this much

wrong. Those who work in design and engineering make the assumption that extending the

computer network infrastructure to include the procurement professionals, and by

embedding all of the cost data into the objects in the BIM model, is going to solve all

problems. It will solve many problems, but at the same time, unearth a whole nest of

unfamiliar ones.

There had been a history in the Design Build company of some individuals leaking out

sensitive information about tenders etc, to sources it was not intended. It is impossible for

the Quantity Surveying department within a Design Build company, to know when their

tender process has been fatally compromised by someone from within their own

organisation.

What tends to happen in the Design Build company, is the QS department will receive

representations from other departments in the same Design Build company, that Supplier

so-and-son, is good. Often times, it could be innocent. At other times, not so. A supplier who 99 Alistair Kell of BDP multi-disciplinary consultants in the UK, also spoke in the same NBS event (National Building Specification, 2011), about the issue of liability. Kell mentions that as we begin to work more with Sub-Contractor created ‘content’ (dropped straight into the BIM model), liability does become an issue. The traditional designers are now wondering if the Sub-Contractor or Supplier generated content is accurate. Kell suggested, “It is ours now, because it is on our drawings. Despite the fact it comes from a third party”. 100 This observation is coming from experience obtained by the author in working within a design department of a Design and Build company in Ireland during 2000s era of massive construction output in Ireland.


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is teetering on the edge, might want to find out what the lowest bid on project 'X' is, so they

could undercut it.

It removes the element of fair competition, which the Quantity Surveying department has

worked so painstakingly to achieve. The 'leaker' inside of the Design Build company, who

passes on the critical piece of information may not be trained in procurement and not even

understand how sensitive it is.

In this author’s experience, the Quantity Surveying department did not even share the same

file server as the Architectural/Engineering departments. They worked from their own

private server, where they stored all of their cost information and correspondence. The QS

department can sometimes be the least sophisticated in terms of 'up to the minute'

information technology. But the most secure in terms of firewalls, Chinese walls and

confidentiality.

It is possible for design professionals in a Design Build company to work together using

synchronised data and merged file storage arrangements. But there are challenges for the

procurement departments in doing so.101

101 I could be compared it to those movies about the US Federal government, and the darker parts, such as the CIA or FBI, who handle information packets which are never intended for wider consumption. There is an expression used, the FBI never knew what the FBI knew. A very simple example is when a drafting technician is asked to issue six sets of tender documents to six different contractors. The technician creates an 'issue sheet', and mistakenly lists all six names. That list is sent along with the documents to all six of the tenderers, meaning that all tenderers know each other. Sharing and exchange of digital files all sounds great. But even in the best of conditions, you do find that iron curtain.


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Figure 4-5 US Army Corp of Engineers

4.2.3 BIM from a Contractor’s point of view

“From a Contractor’s point of view, the tracking and administration of variations is

one of the most labour intensive things to do”.

Sam Collard (National Building Specification, 2011). 102

Understanding the process of ‘walking’ through a virtual model of a construction project

means understanding the daily life of a Contracts Manager or Site Agent. This was one of the

areas of focus that the author would like to pursue in research at a later date, having had the

experience of working closely with such individuals within a Design Build company in Ireland.

102 Sam Collard refers to software packages that will measure change in a model and variations. Produces such as Sundry model checker, will attempt to do automatic building code checks on the model. There appears to be a lot of interest within the market at the moment for automation of the labour of checking a design for its building regulations compliance. Of course, if the Contractor discovers a serious breach of the building regulations from a digital model version of the building – that will create a very expensive claim to the contract figure agreed – in all likelihood.


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It is worth referring readers here to (Womack, 2011) in particular, the pioneer in the Lean

thinking world who explains in a recent publication the process by which he walks the

production floors of car manufacturing plants all around the world, if and when the Lean

Manufacturing institute where Womack works from, is requested to look at the efficiency by

the Client.

In the Construction industry there is also a rich body of literature and research that has been

amassed in more or less the same time frame as which Bodek, Ohno, Womack and Jones

have been working and publishing (Ohno & Bodek, 1988), (Womack, et al., 1991), (Womack

& Jones, 1996). 103

Contract Managers in the construction industry do vary. But it may be possible to suggest

that the best of Contract Managers, know they will end up walking around a physical piece

of construction anyhow, at different stages of its completion – and will only welcome the

opportunity provided by ‘virtual construction’ to do it several months in advance. 104

It is important to note another interesting development that is happening in the United

States as we speak today. That is the development of a new type of business within some

advanced construction companies, whereby they offer their expertise and knowledge not to

achieve some physical end result – but instead, to produce a definitive first version of a

virtual construction project using long distance collaboration and BIM softwares and tools.

103 Publications like (Ballard, 1994), (Ballard & Howell, 1994), (Ballard & Howell, 1997) were early ones, that looked at Lean Manufacturing and applied its principles to a different industry, that of construction. (Sacks, et al., 2010) and numerous other papers have even looked at the inter-relationship between Building Information Modelling and Lean Construction. Though beyond the scope of this inquiry, it is worth drawing attention to the body of knowledge that is Lean Construction. One may argue it is less a creation of software vendors and advertising than BIM is. Maybe this is why the central figures of Lean Construction research are only approaching BIM gradually and maintaining a distance between it and their own work at present. 104 We can only speculate at this point on the transformative impact that BIM will have to the role carried out by the Contract’s Manager in doing their work. Indeed, there is much speculation surrounding the conversation about the changes it will have on many roles. And also, (National Building Specification, 2011) were very confident in claiming that a whole new role, that of a ‘BIM Manager’ will be created. The role of ‘BIM Manager’ is something that is discussed in nearly every important paper (Lowe & Muncey, 2009). The one document in Great Britain that appears to want to merge the ‘BIM Manager’ role into some existing professional, is that of (Richards, 2010). It is unclear at this point, if the second revision of BS-1192 which (Richards, 2010) describes, soon to be published will scale up to the needs of larger construction project. There are two schools of thought developing on this, with the UK Cabinet Office (public construction client), moving away from (Richards, 2010) and towards a ‘BIM Manager’ approach, which is possibly best described in basic form by (Lowe & Muncey, 2009).


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The scope of this dissertation did not allow a very in depth exploration of what is now being

labelled ‘VDC’, or virtual design and construction. But for some Contractors in the north

American industry, it does seem to represent a whole new revenue stream where they

behave almost like consultants to the Client’s design and cost control team, in early stages of

project planning. 105 106

“My challenge to the Designer is, you will get a lot of enquiry about the product that

you produce. Are you going to go into your shell, when it is interrogated and rightly

interrogated by people who are at the back end of the process, and have to do that

build?”

Sam Collard (National Building Specification, 2011). 107

105 Maybe one could compare this to the military, where we often do find a distinction between units which operate in the field, and those that work long distance trying to piece together the mission aims, objectives and details – which are called the ‘intelligence’ units in a military setting. From reliable anecdotal evidence obtained by the author at first hand, it appears as though certain larger public projects in Ireland (e.g. National Children’s hospital project to name but one), are headed in a direction which involves very few ‘boots on the ground’ directly in Ireland. Most of the ‘intelligence’ related to design and construction of the proposed €600 million valued national hospital project resides in places as far flung as Iowa state in north America – and several sub-intelligence units in places that are closer – such as London or the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, this is nothing new, as much of the Libyan national military and re-construction projects by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in the 1980s, were ran from Ireland by ex. US military personnel operating out of Ireland, in the guises of being brought to Ireland by the Industrial Development Authority, IDA, by the late ex. Taoiseach, Charles Haughey. The source of such insight is to be attributed to Irish structural engineer Raymond Bradley, a native of northern Ireland who had worked with the American military stationed in the north of Ireland as far back as the early ‘Cold War’ era of the 1950s, when the Americans had constructed air hangers and such there. 106 Sam Collard (National Building Specification, 2011), often repeats the phrase that BIM doesn’t just belong to Designers and ‘people in consultants offices’. Collard often emphasized a point that BIM can be used to extract benefit from a range of individuals and trades – people on site, artisans. This view has also been supported by (Brooks, 2005), (Brooks, 2010). It is the notion that Frederick P. Brooks expresses in his writings and preaching that design synthesis can be a lonely occupation executed by a single individual or small, tightly coordinated team. Design REVIEW however, is different, in that doors can be flung open wide, to allow input from as wide a variety of directions as is now made possible using electronic media and communications. Collard offers the example of the tradesperson, “I flew through the model. I’ve looked at that method statement. I think we can do this in a different way”. Please note that (Brooks, 2010) is mainly a response to (Raymond, 1999) essays, which are a description of how ‘Open Source’ software development happens in the modern age. This very widely dispersed organisational system of ‘Open Source’, is also discussed in important ways by (Stallman, 2004). 107 Sam Collard refers to software packages that will measure change in a model and variations. Produces such as Sundry model checker, will attempt to do automatic building code checks on the model. There appears to be a lot of interest within the market at the moment for automation of the labour of checking a design for its building regulations compliance. Of course, if the Contractor discovers a serious breach of the building regulations from a digital model version of the building – that will create a very expensive claim to the contract figure agreed – in all likelihood.


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Figure 4-6 Hand drafting (US Army Corp of Engineers)

4.2.4 The Architect and BIM

“Show me your best school”. 108


In the past, the presence of a couple of young architectural technician and an architect's

practice logo on a sheet, may have been sufficient to put the fear of God into a main

Contractor. This defence may not prove so effective in the future, when the main

Contractors get possession of BIM models and human resources who may have previously

worked for the employer's consultant - who will discover the opportunity to work on the

Contractor's side and earn a lot more money.

During the research phase of this assignment, I met one member of the institute of

architects of Ireland, who had employed over a dozen staff members until recently. This

individual was an 'early mover' in changing away from a 2D CAD work flow, to a modern BIM

enabled work flow. He had spent a lot of money investing in training for his dozen or or so

staff. But he then had to let them go because of a crippling recession.

108 Paul Morrell of the UK Cabinet Office explains that in the future, procurement in construction will work very differently to today. One will send out a request directly to the various contractors for presentation to the public client of proposals for a new school project, or other such building type. According to Morrell, “The mark of confidence, would be where one could insure the sum for a public contract”.


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He informed me that today he has substituted his loss of income from Clients, by working

instead for for Main Contractors presenting claims.

According to the classes given in professional ethics at Limerick Institute of Technology in

the Quantity Surveying course, there are particular rules which govern what members can

do. Members are expected to inform their institute of major changes to their working habits,

Client types and general arrangement. One can only wonder if one is seeing the beginning of

a new trend? Is it the beginning of the Contractor's Architect? 109

In the past, was the weighting of an architect's fee cash flow was overwhelmingly in favour

of the early 'sketch' phases - not the later construction phases. It meant that over a period of

generations, most of the construction knowledge contained within the architectural

profession simply leaked out. 110

What Building Information Modelling implies, is an entirely different weighting of fee cash

flow, to fund activities at the back end of jobs rather than the front end. As the job

progresses, the more information and effort that needs to go into the BIM model. That

simply won't work under the existing fee arrangements that architects like to use. It is not

just a simple case of the 'size' of the architect's fee needing to increase - but also, the

'weighting' of the fee needs to change.

The Contractor is starting to beef up their human resources to use BIM in every way possible

to make their life better. What BIM implies for architecture is a radical overhaul of the

existing fee structure, and an overhaul of human resource policy.

The careful balancing act often exercised by architects, was how to spend as little time as

possible at construction phase in projects - having won the majority of fees in the earlier

109 James Salmon, a north American based construction lawyer informs that a similar 'bifurcation of the talent pool', is also happening across the water in the United States. Foot soldiers on the Contractor's side have always been better looked after financially, than the same foot soldiers on the Employer's consultant side. One can assume that it was for this reason that Quantity Surveyors began to move to the Contractor's side also. 110 The famous Dutch mega star architect, Rem Koolhaas probably put it best, "No money, no details".


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stages - and just do enough, to carry the project 'over the line' using what 'technical'

architect human resources that they could muster, straight out of the schools.

In architecture, where the bulk of the activities and expenditure went into self-promotion

and advertising, winning new work and design awards, having early stage meetings with

clients who had all sorts of notions of what they might build - and having a couple of

architectural technicians down in the back room going pedal to the metal - to create as many

paper drawings as they could manage each day.

This model would not appear to be best suited to a 21st century construction

environment.111

“The architect will not release his 3D models to the Contractor, because he is worried

how much information is inside it, and worried about liabilities. Some architects

won’t even give over a 3D model, not to mind a BIM model”. 112

Nigel Clark (National Building Specification, 2011).

111 What it will mean for Employer's Quantity Surveying consultant is anyone's guess. One may only speculate as to the impact of the new BIM environment on the Employer's QS. But it is possible that the Employer QS will have to increase their fee in the near term, to justify the extra work needed to be able to withstand an avalanche of new well-presented claims that will emanate from the Contractor's side of the equation. 112 Nigel Clark, having worked with Mervyn Richards and others on Terminal Five project at Heathrow Airport, London, where a lot of the collaborative partnership arrangements in working were first test driven – spoke of how risk was dealt with very differently in that project – which led to the more collaborative framework. The work of Mervyn Richards (Richards, 2010)more recently in compiling together BS 1192 Part 2, owes a lot of its influence to the Heathrow airport work experience. Richards has also expressed the view, that the (Egan, 1998) report was motivated in direct response to earlier problems that had existed on the Heathrow airport terminal site – and from the lessons of Egan’s investigation – it did lead to a new approach being taken thereafter and a more successful outcome. The point of this elaboration and explanation is to note how the concepts of good ‘risk management’ in construction and Building Information Modelling technology, have cross pollinated one another in the United Kingdom. Many individuals with long experience working together on the most difficult projects, have been drafted in to assist in the compilation of standards and guidelines that will underpin the use of BIM.


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4.3 Peering into the Future

4.3.1 Information in the 21st century

“It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.”

― Famous quote from Clay Shirky.

(Gilder, 2006) has made the point, that companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft are busy at

the present wasting what is abundant (decreasing cost per megabit of broadband internet

traffic, and decreasing cost per megabyte of data storage), in order to conserve what is

scarce (Conway, 2002), (Dubberly Design Office, 2002), (Cowhey, June 2012), (Cowhey &

Kleeman, 2012), (Smarr, June 2012).

What is scarce in the early 21st century is the attention span of people. Attention of

individual human beings is what all of the giant internet companies are competing for

nowadays.

According to (van Berlo, et al., 2012), most users of BIM prefer to only receive data which

contains information that they really need at a given time. 113 (Carrara, et al., 2012) went to

efforts in their conference paper to explain that proper and useful synchronisation of

information between construction disciplines, would mean having versions ‘so simplified as

to be understood by the non-specialist’.

“In every era, the winning companies are those that waste what is abundant – as

signalled by precipitously declining prices – in order to save what is scarce. Google

has been profligate with the surfeits of data storage and backbone bandwidth.

Conversely, it has been parsimonious with that most precious of resources, users'

patience”. (Gilder, 2006)

113 Please refer in addition to the postulations of (Fletcher, 2011), an individual professional in Great Britain who has worked on various RIBA committees and task groups involved with technological change, over the last two decades.


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(Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) discovered that many of the best theoreticians on problem-

solving refer to ‘multiple models’, in which the different models of the problem are used to

discover different aspects to the problem. 114 Making data easier to receive and respond to

is where the largest productivity gains will be won from the use of cloud centric, Big BIM,

collaborative systems.

“. . . allowing the actors to interact and to mutually understand each other at a basic

level . . “

(Carrara, et al., 2012)

If the system functions well, an Architect will not have to work too hard to understand

information sent by an Engineer. An Engineer will not have to work too hard to interpret

data coming from the Cost Consultant, or the 4D Scheduler. The well-functioning Big BIM

system should be a safe playground for all to play inside.

Figure 4-7 Extending BIM beyond core (Race, 2012)

114 (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004) also advised that a good solution will solve multiple problems, some of which may not have been even identified by the initial project.


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(Lavikka, et al., 2012) stated that project teams ought to consider investing the time to learn

how to use BIM effectively together.115 (Carrara, et al., 2012) emphasize the need to

translate the input of different actors into common ‘lean’ representations. Real

collaboration is not possible without mutual comprehension and the sharing of choices.

“The test of the new global ganglia of computers and cables, worldwide webs of glass

and light and air, is how readily they take advantage of unexpected contributions

from free human minds, in all their creativity and diversity”. (Gilder, 2006)

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) investigated the opportunities for greater use of standardisation in the

construction industry. In order to conduct this investigation, the studies published in

(Thompson, 1967) were heavily relied upon to provide the intellectual basis. The research

conducted according to (Thompson, 1967), required division of work tasks for the project

into ‘independently performed’ type, and ‘reciprocally coupled’ task type.

4.3.2 Use the network ‘share capabilities’ to best advantage

This author would wish to draw attention of readers to the works published (Brooks, 1974),

(Brooks, 2010) and various lectures such as (Brooks, 2005). It is claimed by (Brooks, 2010), an

expert who has studied collaboration of project design teams over numerous decades, that

group participation can be very valuable during ‘design review’ stages. 116 117 However,

(Brooks, 2010) uses a Bernard Baruch quotation to explain that ‘design synthesis’ is a very

lonely pursuit. 118

115 (Lavikka, et al., 2012) also make reference to (Taylor & Bernstein, 2009), which argues that firms can gain BIM experience through delivering projects using BIM. However, (Lavikka, et al., 2012) cautions that based on their own results, the disparities in the level of BIM competency between different firms does pose a challenge. 116 In particular, more curious readers are directed to (Aberdeen Group, 2006) as a source of further insight, and also towards business models of companies based loosely around (Aberdeen Group, 2006). For instance, the products and processes inherent in Cortona3D visualisation software, used in manufacturing industries in such companies as Siemens and others. 117 (Lavikka, et al., 2012) is an excellent piece of research that builds upon the framework of theory in (Thompson, 1967), to study ‘reciprocal interdependencies’ between collaborators in BIM construction projects, especially at the level of sub-processes such as change management, simulation, scope definition and model integration. But it is fair to say that (Brooks, 2010), offers very good supporting advice in this same area too. 118 See also (Lawson, 1980), (Lawson, 1994) on the subject of ‘how designers think’.


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“There is no substitute for the dreariness of labour and the loneliness of thought”

(Brooks, 2010)

Many well recognized authors have explored the possibilities of what it might be like, in a

world consumed by network-based, de-centralized, collaborative working processes. One

the most famous publications which argue in favour of de-centralization of control is

(Raymond, 1999). 119 Authors such as (Shirky, 2009) have moved in favour of de-

centralization also. But the main point expressed in (Brooks, 2010), is that a singular ‘chief

architect’ is still valuable to assist in managing a successful project.

There has been a trend in the past number of years amongst those involved with the rollout

and implementation of BIM technological solutions in Ireland, to criticise ‘Lonely BIM’ (BIM

used solely in-house inside the walls of one company). This community of first generation

Irish BIM users are slow to understand the distinction recognised by (Brooks, 2010). That is,

the lonely path is still very important in design creation stages, if not for design review.

119 (Brooks, 2010), in part is reflection upon (Raymond, 1999). Frederick P. Brooks delivered a Turing award lecture in the early 2000s at a Siggraph conference, in which he posited some initial observations on the essay work of Eric S. Raymond, and proceeded throughout the decade of the 2000s to refine his thoughts on the matter (Brooks, 2005), which eventually materialized in the work (Brooks, 2010).


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Figure 4-8 The project life cycle (Race, 2012)

4.3.3 The online cash register

How ought a Quantity Surveyor could contribute their skill set in a modern day, BIM-

featured working environment in construction? The following focusses on the particular area

in pre-Construction, where a Quantity Surveyor could add a lot of value.

Frederick P. Brooks (Brooks, 1974), (Brooks, 2005), (Brooks, 2010) working at Chapel Hill in

North Carolina in the 1980’s and 90’s was one of the earliest pioneers into ‘virtual reality’

and discovered at lot of unexpected things (Rheingold, 1992). Brooks worked with scientists

who wanted to use visualisation technology to work on their protein folding research. The

chemists that were working for various drug companies knew their protein molecules like

they knew the back of their hand. They had spent major portions of their lives working on

these problems.

We is frequently misunderstood about virtual construction today, is that engineers and

architects who produce BIM models for each of the disciplines know their creations


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extremely well. BIM is a composite of human and silicon performance, a composite of

computer aided design, database technology and new communications infrastructure.

To his amazement, Frederick P. Brooks found that the 'point and click' routine he had

incorporated into the tool for protein folding problem solving was of no use. The researchers

had spent so much time working on the same molecule, and knew it so well, they could type

in the number of an atom, and get to where they wanted to go in the model in seconds. Why

bother then with point and click?

The obstacle is that those in the construction industry have not spoken nearly enough to

others who participate in other industries and have learned lessons about how to use

visualisation decades ago. The construction industry and the BIM managers spends a lot of

effort re-learning these lessons.

Nick Nisbet tried to explain the term BIM Collaboration file format (BCF for short) for the

benefit of non-technical people: 120

"It is a package of three files - a snapshot image, a viewpoint definition file, and a

issue and comments file. Each of these could be held in ifcXML, or be redesigned to

use the 'simplified' ifcXML being proposed by building SMART to complement

ifcXML". 121

Nick explained, that BCF isn't a recognised format as yet, but is getting some use between

various software vendors, to address certain needs.

BIM managers are employed to be the 'man in the middle' for doing BIM clash detection.

Difficulty can arise, where the BIM manager needs to draw something, to the attention of 120 Nick Nisbet, a British architect and computer software company owner has been a key part of the effort in Britain going back for several decades in preparing the industry for BIM and has worked as a British representative within the ‘BuildingSMART’ group, which has chapters in every part of the globe. Generally speaking ‘BuildingSMART’ are the liaison between construction professionals and software corporations, in terms of developing standards, for many aspects of the software including file format compliance. See company website here: http://www.aec3.com/en/3/index3.htm 121 This was part of a recent clarification offered by Nisbet to the ‘IFC’ file format LinkedIn networking group, which releases announcements and latest news in relation to BuildingSMART and OpenBIM on-going software engineering projects.

http://www.aec3.com/en/3/index3.htm


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the other major expert consultants (Collins, 27th March 2012). That is where the system can

break down.

The experts consultants seal their lips, until they are absolutely forced to address an issue.

That is delayed as long as possible on the promise that someone else might ‘blink first’. This

game of chicken has always went on between construction disciplines on projects.

Figure 4-9 Karpman's 'drama triangle' 122

One can think of it being like a market for commodities – pork bellies, orange juice, wheat

futures. 'Back in the day' human being traders could look at the market and figure out what

signal it was sending, and adjust their trading strategies accordingly.

Increasingly what the experts who look at the behaviour of markets have realized is that

commodities which used to be a reliable indicator of cause-and-effect economic trends,

nowadays they don't follow any logic that anyone could understand. The commodities

markets have been messed up (Harvey, 2010), (Woolley, 2010), (Krugman, 2009, June 08).

In the game of chicken that occurs between the different construction disciplines there was

an order and a pattern to it, in the olden days. It was horse trading. Experienced people

122 Source of diagram and more information, see (Boyd & Chinyio, 2006).


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went to the market and didn't get fleeced. Younger guys paid tuition fees and learned as

best they could how not to lose their shirts.

But there is more 'fence sitting' observed nowadays, by modern clash detectives123 and BIM

managers. It is a result of the traditional construction disciplines receiving a 'mixed signals'.

The strategy often adopted, is to sit there and freeze.

What BIM managers who run clash detection are finding is that a screen shot of a clash,

placed in front of the face of the 'expert' will often unlock the system from this apparent

freeze. It will make the market move again, so to speak.

The trading relationship that construction disciplines have had was never designed to

incorporate a real 'market maker' in the centre. That trading floor is taking a while to adjust

to the presence of a new species – the BIM management consultant.

The viewpoint definition bit, which Nick Nisbet refers to in the BIM collaboration file format,

is important. But the 3D model 'snap shot' is the most important bit need for disciplines to

get off the fence and resolve a clash.

The BIM management consultant will generally print the snapshot taken of the clash in the

virtual model (Collins, 27th March 2012), and hand that sheet of paper to the relevant

consultant(s). Think of it, like the crazy back and forth of papers and verifications that occur

on any trading floor that one may see on television. 124

What is so critical about that piece of paper? Quantity Surveyors should know. 123 ‘Clash detection’ is the process whereby a BIM management consultant, or sometimes the Main Contractor also, will assemble together all of the ‘models’ produced by the various consultants – and ascertain the areas in which two objects may want to occupy the same space. After clash detection has been done and the clashes are identified, a ‘to and fro’ process ensues whereby consultants are asked to make compromises to ‘resolve the clash’, which will lead to the best value all round. The basic principle being, that as clashes are resolved in the virtual building, they should not be encountered on the physical building site either. The theory sounds quite straightforward and sensible. However, in practice it may not prove that easy to persuade different consultants to make alterations to their models to facilitate a resolution. Many consultants have argued, that additional fees should to be forthcoming, to do this additional work on top of the standard design deliverables that they always had produced. 124 It is quite low tech. See also (Gray, et al., 2010) in relation to the ‘low tech behind the high tech’, at many new San Francisco web and social media start-ups.


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It is worth recalling the early days of e-Commerce. Those early e-Store builders understood

how to add everything, except the cash register (Middle Men , 2009). You could browse

around the early e-Stores all you wanted, but you couldn't pay for anything. Developments

like iTunes and other well-known internet market places, tried to retrofit the on-line store,

with a cash register that worked.

What we do have in construction is a cash register between the Consultant and the

Contractor – but not between the BIM manager 'man in the middle' and the Virtual

Contractors (The Consultants). What we are looking for is a kind of e-Currrency, by which to

pay virtual contractors. That is what is important about the 3D model 'snap shot' that Nick

describes in the BIM collaboration format.

Until now, there was never was a 'payment mechanism', by which to do this sort of trading,

in virtual construction. That is the next great project that the Quantity Surveying profession

needs to undertake. Quantity Surveyors understand a thing or two about negotiation, about

transactions and about trading.

What we have created with BIM, is a new kind of 'market place'. But the signals are all

garbled up. Participants end up sitting on fences rather than dealing, in the absence of

proper authorized instructions. We need to make the virtual market work. In the traditional

market place in construction, bits of paper fly around called RFIs, variations, change orders,

progress payments and final accounts.

Virtual builders do need to be adequately compensated for their work. Virtual builders may

appear to be ‘cheaper’ than real builders – but they still require some cash flow, like real

builders do. Think of the A4 piece of paper with the 3D model 'snap shot' being like a

currency. Or think of it like a document that an architect would issue to a Contractor, an

instruction, ‘please go and do this’.

From the Contractor's point of view, it is the equivalent of legal tender. It is money in the

bank. Without paper work there is no cash flow. The Quantity Surveyor’s job is to ensure


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that the paper work is kept moving, in order to maintain cash flow. This role has not been

fulfilled in the virtual construction world. 125

Contractors or Sub-Contractors in the real world will do nothing until the piece of paper

lands on their desk, which authorizes them, to build a wall, knock a wall, or do whatever is

required. Why should it be different in virtual construction?

It is cheaper to move a virtual wall. But it still costs money it still consumes labour, expertise

and time. An adequate payment system does not currently exist to deliver virtual builders a

needed cash flow. It is as easy to go broke in virtual construction, as it is in real building.

The key thing about virtual design and construction at the moment, is the payment process

is turned backwards. In virtual construction, the Consultant adopts a role similar to that of a

Contractor in the real world. The Consultant will not do anything, until they are issued with

the piece of paper. But the same work-out is required. A Quantity Surveyor is required for

record keeping and to do paper work, in order to maintain cash flow, on the new virtual

trading floor.

125 Quantity Surveyors in Ireland still work with composites of spread sheet and paper documentation even in 2013, whilst other design oriented professionals have moved to the second or third generation of electronic systems.


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4.4 Learning based organisations

4.4.1 Learning over time

Figure 4-10 Using intermediaries to simplify the supply chain 126

In a book about the silicon technology behind some modern digital cameras, (Gilder, 2006)

argued that personal computers are very dumb, because they were not given ‘senses’ of

sight, hearing, smell, touch and speech – in the same way that human infants are. 127

126 This illustration is featured in (Waters, 2003) introductory text on supply chain management. In the first diagram what is illustrated is the number of journeys needed over and back by various delivery vehicles. In the second diagram, the intelligent use of middle men and distribution warehousing greatly simplifies the amount of traffic required to achieve a similar end goal. So much to do with computer aided design systems in the experience of this author, boils down to the science of logistics. It is about creating a system designed so that the information flows towards you effortlessly, rather than one where each journey becomes a struggle to the bitter end. When this occurs, the organisation is beat. The members cease making journeys altogether, which is not what should happen. The aim is to encourage and sustain the flow of information, but ensure that each journey is designed to happen smartly and efficiently in relation to the ‘bigger picture’. 127 This is a well-trodden argument in the field of computer science. (Kelly, 1994) as mentioned elsewhere in this document, had observed that personal computers were exceptionally dumb before that technology was hybrid-ized with the tele-communications infrastructure. That is when computers started to get really smart. (Negroponte, 1996) on the other hand who spent a life time studying interaction of human beings and computers at MIT media labs, advocates heavily for the use of sound as an input/output interface between the human being and the computers. (Gilder, 2006) is quite distinct in his study of the visual capability of the modern personal computer.


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The idea offered by (Gilder, 2006), is that good systems should not be designed without

some kind of learning capability. But in the world of construction, the idea that a system

should achieve anything less than 100% accuracy of representation at any stage goes against

the culture.

“. . . it will link to trillions of sensors around the globe, giving it a constant knowledge

of the physical state of the world, from traffic conditions to the workings of your own

biomachine”. (Gilder, 2006)

This document does not have space available to discuss the nature of the ‘adversarial’

nature of construction contracting. Suffice it to say that an idea of different actors

contributing additional information to the ‘model’ over time – to improve representational

accuracy – may not sit well. It draws too much attention to a failure by the team to achieve

100% accuracy in the first place.

The author of this document made a study of (Conway, 2002), on the subject of ‘knowledge

management’ in the early 2000s, which became a foundation for the way the author

managed information over a number of years on several real life construction projects. The

core idea in (Conway, 2002), and in knowledge management, is the value of shared human

knowledge capital within organisations and the development of the same into assets over

time within the company. 128

The trouble with the approach to the use of modern CAD or BIM system, in the opinion of

this author, is that users aim to achieve absolutely perfect representation too early. This

results in the initial failure. Having achieved at best a 50% accurate representation of

building and construction information in the first release of documents – the process of time

and mismanagement may ensure that even that information is allowed to erode

downwards.

The ironic conclusion presented here, is that it is unwise and unnecessary to aim for 100%

accuracy of representation at any point. This is a thesis which resonates well with the

128 The key aspect of this is the ‘time’ factor. It is a process, and it is not achievable automatically.


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observations made by (Fletcher, 2011), (van Berlo, et al., 2012), (Carrara, et al., 2012) and

others. This question was posed by (van Berlo, et al., 2012).

“Users are very sensitive for BIM software tools that need process change that has no

added value except creating a BIM instance on a purely theoretical level”. (van Berlo,

et al., 2012)

In the conceptual architecture for BIM and collaboration presented in (van Berlo, et al.,

2012), “not all project team members collaborating in a project need to have the same level

of BIM expertise”. (van Berlo, et al., 2012) emphasizes a point that experienced practitioners

ought not to be focussed upon creating a theoretically perfect data instance – but on

“engineering a high quality building”.

A similar point has been argued by (Fletcher, 2011) in the United Kingdom. Before the term

‘BIM’ had even been coined yet (the term ‘single building model’ had been used), Fletcher

was writing in (Fletcher, 2000).

“If you build a Single Building Model today it will not be 100 percent complete in the

sense that many architects and engineers, some entire disciplines and virtually none

of the product manufacturers bother to capture their work in a shareable digital form

that can be input to the model”. (Fletcher, 2000)


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Chapter

5

Dissertation Conclusions

and Recommendations


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Chapter 5 Dissertation Conclusions and Recommendations

Figure 5-1 Laura Lee illustration (Lee, February 2011)

5.1 BIM from many angles

5.1.1 BIM for Design

“A design attitude can bring us path-creating ideas about new ways to use

technology, new materials and new work processes that can change the definitions of

cost and efficiency, making better solutions attainable at less cost”.


One of the most difficult questions to ask about BIM, is ‘what is BIM?’. Almost everyone one

talks to has some different answer to that question. It is like the joke about asking five

people the same question and receiving twice as many answers. What can be confirmed is

that BIM does hold a lot of appeal to a very many people. 129

129 At the time of writing this dissertation, there was a kind of ‘BIM boom’, or BIM mania going on within the construction industry. Refer to the very many public and private meetings, events and expo’s held to promote


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Perhaps this is explained by the fact that so many companies are at different stages of their

own evolution along a ‘BIM path way’. Some practitioners claim to be exceptionally

advanced along that path and talk a great deal about (Darwin, 1859).

(Lavikka, et al., 2012) identified in their research in Finland that many construction firms

move along a trajectory as they gain more experience in use of BIM. The path often starts

with things like visualisation and then moves on to coordinated documentation. After that,

models are shared out more to other firms in collaboration to carry out analysis and

simulation. Beyond that threshold, the firm with the most experience in use of BIM, will start

to achieve integration with the supply chain that delivers the physical construction to the

building site.

(Gehry, 2002), (Boland Jr & Collopy, 2004), (Sketches Of Frank Gehry, 2007), (Boland, et al.,

2008) can be used to gain some insight about integration of design with the larger supply

chain. 130

(Jeffrey, 2012) publishes the findings of one UK based construction company, Skanska UK,

who have made ambitious in-roads into the technology of BIM. (Jeffrey, 2012) recommends

that engagement with people in an organisation when defining a process was a necessary

first step to seeking an actual technical solution. 131 As (Jeffrey, 2012) points out, there are

many thousands of people employed in many different roles and in many different sectors.

BIM in 2011, 12 and 13 (CITA, 2012), and the very many publications on the subject that now fill bookshelves, blogs, social media and online video channels. But then again, that is also the problem with BIM – it can be viewed as being one very large attempt at marketing hype. 130 It fell beyond the scope of this enquiry to investigate the body of knowledge and theory surrounding management accounting. However, the author feels it necessary to provide some additional references here on that area of knowledge including (Cooper & Kaplan, 1991), (Cooper, 1995), (Cooper & Slagmulder, 1997), (Kaplan & Cooper, 1997). Though beyond the scope of enquiry, an important influence on debate during several important workshops in Ireland (CITA, 2012), were the arrival of new guidelines based upon EU directives for procurement in the construction industry (Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, 2012). 131 (Jeffrey, 2012) very frequently refers to a need for a ‘pragmatic, practical and planned’ approach to the uptake of BIM. He recommends a focus on the process of obtaining a common understanding across a large organisation such as Skanska UK.


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“BIM must be understood in its broadest sense of being part of Information

Management in the round, so that it can deliver benefits across the whole spectrum

of its participants”.

(Jeffrey, 2012)

5.1.2 BIM for Management

Many of the architectural professionals whom the author spoke to in 2011, 12 and 13,

expressed the opinion that architects should be placed at the centre of information and

project management. 132

“What is BIM? Meaningful coordination between disciplines”.

Alistair Kell, of Building Design Partnership (National Building Specification, 2011).

(Mitchell, 2012) noted from a Quantity Surveyors point of view that much of the discussion

about BIM has been about collaboration between designers – and that often in this

discussion, things such as ‘5D Estimating’ are dumbed down to simple one-liners of ‘quantity

take off’. 133 (Mitchell, 2012) speaks about the need for a design team to be provided with

‘real-time cost feedback’ as the design progresses.

132 It is unclear at this stage, the wisdom of such an approach. All that can be surmised at this date is that a lot of architectural professionals in Ireland are becoming more fluent and comfortable with the basics of BIM technology. The recent downturn in construction activity owing to a severe economic recession has meant that scores of highly trained professionals are turning to self-employment as their only option. It is understandable that in the current circumstances, many professionals are trying out new business models and approaches to earning their living. Alistair Kell, of Building Design Partnership (National Building Specification, 2011), suggested that the role of a ‘design team leader’ is one of coordination of different disciplines up to a certain point in time and has traditionally been fulfilled by an Architect. Whether it is to be done in a BIM environment or a flat 2D environment, it is nevertheless an activity that still has to go on. Robert Klaschka Architect (National Building Specification, 2011), expressed a view on what BS 1192 standard sets out to do. You do not need a ‘BIM manager’ according to Klaschka. An architect rather, is responsible for coordinating the zones within the building – as set out by the guidance in BS 1192. 133 One of the major reasons why this author aborted from a career working in architectural design and project management in 2010 to come and study Quantity Surveying at Limerick Institute of Technology, was in order to obtain a more mature understanding of what financial management of construction projects is all about. It has been the authors experience, that his designer colleagues from Ireland and many other countries only view BIM as a one-sided thing, that is only about three dimensional visualisation and drawing document extraction. To look at BIM in that manner, is to avoid seeing a whole other part of the technology. This is a view that seems to have been confirmed by a visiting lecture delivered recently in Limerick IT. "First off, those people who think that by using ‘3D CAD’ they are using BIM – are not even half ways there". (Spillane, 7th March 2013).


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(Jeffrey, 2012) spoke greatly in favour of BIM when it came to facilities management, and

offered the example of Skanska UK working at Barts and Royal London hospital recently.

(Jeffrey, 2012) anticipates that fully coordinated models will become the norm for most

construction projects. But until that time, there will be a ‘transition period’ where

information necessary to ‘populate’ the models will have to be gathered, rationalized and

reconciled.

“During the transition period described, BIM should be thought of as embracing all

the associated and supporting databases utilized by the supply chain and the links to

them”. (Jeffrey, 2012)

(Jeffrey, 2012) suggested that the various technologies and databases currently being used

will evolve and be ‘absorbed’ into BIM processes – thereby ensuring greater compatibility

and connectivity. 134 (Mitchell, 2012) spoke of how construction professionals perceive a lack

of protection of the input of information and data, “if and when it is changed, by who and

how it is tracked”.

Understanding about room number protocol, asset registers, coding structures, operational

and maintenance templates and CAFM systems was low on the Skanska UK projects

described by (Jeffrey, 2012).135 Which has led to difficulties in management of very large

estates.

134 Please refer to (Poillucci, 2011), a researcher working for Skanska’s USA operations. The transcript of the same lecture by Dean Poillucci at a Beck Technologies conference has been included as Appendix 04 of this document. 135 CAFM, meaning ‘computer aided facilities management’.


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Figure 5-2 Development of BIM content (Richards, 2010)

5.1.3 BIM for Controlling Costs

A concern expressed repeatedly by Irish construction professionals in (CITA, 2012), is that

newly introduced methods of procurement in the construction industry do not appear to

synchronisation well with advances that are made possible today with information

technology. 136

An observation that was universal in any academic paper of any merit, and by several

individuals the author spoke to, was that about the need for transparency in the work

process. 137 (Mitchell, 2012) spoke about good 5D BIM estimation work procedures,

supported by the skills that a Quantity Surveyor can deliver, resulting in a better building.

“. . . available money can be targeted at the most important features of the building

design in a transparent way that builds trust amongst all project partners”. (Mitchell,

2012)

136 The most damning findings amongst made others in (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012), is that “existing procurement methods have not sufficiently addressed key issues of open collaboration using BIM . . .” 137 (Mitchell, 2012) and (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) were both very emphatic on this point. Both described the requirement in BIM for a transparent work process that could be implemented either within an organisation or between several. (van Berlo, et al., 2012) also devoted a lot their conference paper to the same problem in 21st construction using BIM.


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Only a few brave researchers have been willing to expose the real problems that can exist in

the use of BIM and information sharing. For example, the failure of BIM owing to an absence

of high level decision makers in the process. 138

(Mitchell, 2012) explained that in the current BIM process which is focussed more on

collaboration between designers, that costs are not known until the BIM model has reached

‘level of detail 300’ or greater. The design is not benchmarked against any known elemental

costs. Not nearly enough development has happened in the fields of 4D-linking of time and

scheduling data to the 3D model, or of 5D-linking of cost data.

Figure 5-3 BAM Contractors 4D scheduling simulation

138 (Mitchell, 2012) and (Jadhav & Koutamanis, 2012) were more adamant than other papers read by this author, on the subject of Owner involvement in the BIM modelling and design process. (Sebastian, 2011) did raise some very poignant issues in relation to public procurement and healthcare facility management an planning in the Netherlands today. See also (Lawson, 1994), for some legacy research from the pre-computer days of architectural design.


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5.1.4 BIM and increasing Complexity

One thing that seems clear to this researcher, is that the number of different digital tools

that young professionals have to encounter and negotiate in their daily work, has increased

steadily since the early proliferation of ‘desktop’ computer systems from ‘Windows 95’ and

onwards. 139

This author can recall in the late 1990s, when it was common for architects to do everything

using a single software application. But by the mid-2000s, the young professionals were

using as many as a dozen different applications to achieve the same thing. Certainly, the

presentation quality was enriched by hopping and skipping between different applications

and adjusting the ‘image’ in all sorts of ways. But one wonders if the level of complexity

added to systems nowadays has been worth it, or if it is even sustainable? 140

The sense of desperation felt by many construction professionals and Sub-contracting

company owners interviewed by the author in Ireland had to be accepted as one proceeded

to do work for this dissertation. This contrasts starkly to only a few years ago, when this

author and many, many colleagues were too busy to even think. 141

The character in a recent movie about the financial crisis (Margin Call, 2011), commented on

his past life (his before he became a ‘quant’ working for a Wall Street investment bank),

where he had worked as a civil engineer building actual physical things that people could use

and benefit from. One can only hope to gain some encouragement from thinking of a brand 139 Structural engineer at Michael Punch and Partners, Tom Cosgrove recounted how the number of completely independent digital models built from scratch by different parties for the new Thomond Park stadium construction project was no less than seven (Cosgrove & Hanrahan, 11th November 2008). In (Horn, 2010), Chris Horn the founder of Iona Technologies company, provides a remarkable account of the challenges faced by the software programmers in the modern day, in trying to develop products which will be suited and proof functional and safe for the construction industry. 140 (Carrara, et al., 2012) dealt with this question particularly well and it is an important concern that deserves much more future attention this author believes. Notwithstanding Paul Morrell of the UK Cabinet Office, calling for an ‘Apple model’ where ‘apps’ could be created to do almost any analysis or calculation – what happens one would ask, when each profession adds data from a half dozen applications into a central data storage? What kind of chaos might then ensue? 141 According to (Molloy, 2012), “The way Parlon [director of CIF, construction industry federation in Ireland] tells it, builders did nothing to trigger the boom, but were instead innocent victims of the public’s insatiable demand for housing, who must suffer the consequences now that the arse has fallen out of everything”.


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new future in construction, where the disciplines of design, management and information

technology are combined together in a more useful and intelligent way.

"Do you know I built a bridge once? A bridge. I was an engineer by trade. It went from

Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned 912 feet above the Ohio

river. 12,100 people use this thing in a day. And it cut out 35 miles of extra driving,

each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville.

That's a combined 847,000 miles of driving. A day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And

304,920,000 miles a year . . . . saved.

Now I completed that project in 1986. That's 22 years ago. So over the life of that one

bridge, that's 6,708,240,000 miles that haven't had to be driven. At lets say, what,

fifty miles an hour. So that's what. Ah, 134,164,800 hours. Or, 559,020 days. So that

one little bridge has saved the people of those two communities a combined 1,531

years of their lives not wasted, in a car. 1,531 years". (Margin Call, 2011)


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Dissertation Works Cited


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Dissertation Index

Index

2D, 71, 90 3D, 29, 60, 73, 81, 82 4D, 46, 75 5D, 30, 60 accuracy, 85 adversarial, 85 America, 49, 50, 58, 59, 70 architect, 28, 35, 47, 50, 71, 72, 73, 77, 82, 90,

115, 118, 119, 122 architectural technician, 71 architecture, iii, 46, 72, 73, 86, 116, 122 asset, 37 Atkins, 65 automation, 27, 68, 70 Big BIM, 24 BIM, 13, 14, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,

31, 33, 34, 39, 40, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85, 86, 89, 90, 92, 93, 115

BIM manager, 79 BIMserver, 22, 23 brief, 47, 65, 121, 122 Building Information Modelling, 27, 30, 31, 33,

37, 40, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 69, 72, 73 building site, 89, 122, 123 building SMART, 79 business, 15, 21, 56, 57, 65, 69, 76, 90 Cabinet Office, 15, 47, 53, 69, 71, 94 CAD, 14, 53, 71, 85, 119 car manufacturing, 69 cash flow, 72, 82, 83 change order, 47 Client, 61, 69, 70, 72 Cloud, 25 collaboration, 14, 15, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 45,

46, 49, 69, 76, 82, 86, 89, 92 collaborative, 24, 29, 36, 73, 75, 77, 121 Collard, 15, 60, 61, 62, 68, 70

communication, 27, 29, 31, 50, 53, 65 company, 25, 41, 43, 49, 65, 66, 67, 68, 77, 85,

94, 115, 118, 121, 122, 123 computer aided design, 23, 49, 53 conceptual framework, 48 construction phase, 72 consultant, 31, 42, 47, 51, 57, 71, 72, 73, 122 contract, 40, 42, 47, 68, 70, 71, 121 contracting, 42, 59, 85, 94 Contracts Manager, 68 coordination, 26, 29, 30, 47, 90 Cost Consultant, 75 culture, 85 de-centralization, 77 decision, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 93, 122 department, 66, 67, 121, 122 design, 14, 15, 17, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33,

35, 36, 37, 46, 47, 50, 53, 61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 73, 77, 88, 90, 93, 95, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122

Design Build, 35, 66, 67, 68 discipline, 24, 31, 38, 46 Egan, 73 electrical, 28, 65, 117 employer, 41, 43, 51, 71 engineer, 27, 47, 49, 60, 70, 95, 115 Estimator, 63 Ethical Practice, ii European Conference on Product and Process

Modelling, 49 Facilities, 63 fee, 72, 73 file sharing, 24 file storage, 67 firm, 15, 25, 26, 29, 35, 43, 48, 65, 89, 119,

120 format, 14, 29, 63, 79, 82 Google, 14, 74 government, 30, 40, 49, 51, 60, 67


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healthcare, 15, 93 human resources, 56, 57, 64, 71, 72, 73, 121 ifcXML, 79 incomplete, 47 information technology, 47, 51, 53, 57, 66, 67,

92, 95 insurance, 40, 41, 42, 43, 50, 51 intelligent, 15, 95 interaction, 35, 50, 84 knowledge capital, 85 Laing O’Rourke, 15, 60 Lean, 27, 31, 33, 35, 37, 69 legal, 14, 15, 40, 41, 50, 58, 62, 65, 82, 121 liability, 39, 41, 42, 66 Lonely BIM, 77 management, 16, 24, 27, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37,

46, 49, 50, 57, 58, 60, 62, 65, 66, 73, 76, 85, 89, 90, 93, 95, 121

mechanical, 28, 49, 60, 65, 117 Mechanical, 28, 29 Microsoft, 74 money, 41, 71, 72, 82, 83, 122 multi-disciplinary, 15, 27, 28, 65, 66 multiple models, 75 network, 21, 22, 65, 66, 77 objects, 14, 26, 28, 66 organisation, 32, 33, 35, 56, 66, 92 planning, 16, 26, 29, 70, 93 privity of contract, 42 process, 17, 27, 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 37, 47, 49,

57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 83, 85, 86, 92, 93, 118, 121, 122, 123

procurement, 15, 23, 49, 57, 59, 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 71, 89, 92, 93, 121

production, 28, 37, 69 Productivity, 18 profession, 30, 47, 63, 72, 94 project manager, 29, 31 quality, 47, 56, 64, 86, 94, 123 Quantity Surveying, i, 15, 36, 46, 47, 48, 63,

64, 66, 67, 72, 73, 82 recession, 71, 90 Richards, 30, 58, 73 RICS, 41 risk, 40, 41, 42, 73 rules, 23, 26, 51, 53, 72 scheduling, 27, 30, 46 silicon, 79, 84 Site Agent, 68 software, 15, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 46, 49, 50,

51, 52, 53, 57, 63, 68, 69, 70, 76, 79, 86, 94, 115, 116, 117, 119

spreadsheet, 63 structural, 27, 28, 33, 41, 47, 65, 70, 122 supply chain, 15, 27, 29, 35, 53, 61, 89 team, 29, 32, 33, 34, 61, 65, 66, 70, 85, 86, 90,

118, 119, 123 three dimensional, 14, 26, 118 value, 15, 21, 36, 38, 41, 49, 50, 57, 59, 64, 78,

85, 86 virtual design, 22, 29, 70, 115


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Dissertation Appendices


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Appendix 1 – Conversation with an Irish Architect

Extract from conversation with Michael Tweed, an Irish architect and from a

speech given by Richard M. Stallman of the ‘Free Software Movement’, to the

Open Source community at Trinity college Dublin, in Ireland in 2004.

The following extract from a lecture about software engineering and patenting of software is

included in this dissertation, because it explains better than most quotations, the views of

one very talented and experienced Irish architect, a Mr. Michael Tweed, MRIAI – who having

carefully assessed the benefits and implications of new BIM software in a Design and Build

company in Ireland in the late 2000s – offered the following view.

That all that people using these new BIM softwares are doing, is playing video games.

Furthermore, it gets them into trouble very quickly, because it enables them to push physical

materials to places they were never intended to go. Just because in the credit fuelled,

buoyant economics times of the 2000s in Europe and the British Isles, the Contractors

somehow found a way to achieve that which the Design community was inventing as their

buildings, still doesn’t make it good responsible design.

But it is interesting to listen to a software engineer, looking at it from the total opposing

view to Mr. Michael Tweed architect. Tweed having spent his life working with real physical

construction materials, and having acquired knowledge over that time of the ‘perversity of

matter’ (Stallman, 2004), can be contrasted with Richard M. Stallman, who has spent a life

time dealing with things that have no matter at all.

Communities in Ireland in construction and elsewhere have been slow to realize this, but

moving into VDC, virtual design and construction does carry with it that added responsibility,

to self-impose a reality check upon one’s self. That is, to look at oneself regularly and ask

oneself the question that Michael Tweed would always ask when interacting and

interrogating his own designs,


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“Am I just fooling myself? Have I been sucked like the rest of them, into this computer

generated digital world, where I have advanced beyond the capabilities of ordinary physical

building materials? Am I pushing these materials to places they do not want to go?”

(Michael Tweed, in one-to-one conversation with the author in late 2000s)

It is interesting however, to note that two very skilled artists, that of Tweed in physically

constructed architecture and Stallman in software engineering, both came to very similar

conclusions after spending several decades building things in either universe.

"In software we make things that are very big and complicated. They have lots of different

features and lots of different methods going on inside. Which means, that in one program we

are combining lots of different ideas that might be patented already by various different

patent holders at the same time. And why is this? This is no accident. This is not just some

historical outcome. There is a fundamental reason for this.

The reason is, that in software we are making designs out of combinations, by putting

together idealized mathematical components. In all the other fields people have to deal with

the perversity of matter. Because they are making physical things, and the matter does what

it does. If it isn't what you expected, tough luck. So they have to deal with lots of problems,

which we in software, just don't ever face.

For instance, if I put an 'if statement' inside of a 'while loop', I don't have to worry about

whether the voltage drop through the while loop may be so much, that the 'if statement'

won't get enough voltage, and it won't work. I don't have to worry, that as the 'while loop'

goes around, the 'if statement' will shake and eventually crack. I don't have to worry that as

the 'if statement' goes faster, it will generate radio frequency that makes noise that will

cause false statements elsewhere in the program.

I don't have to worry that corrosive fluids will get in between the 'if statement' and the 'while

statement' and chew away at the contact between them, and eventually there will be so

much voltage drop that the 'if statement' won't work any more. I don't have to worry that the

'if statement' will burn out. I don't have to worry about how I am going to sink the heat

dissipated by the operation of this 'if statement'.


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I don't have to worry about how, if the 'if statement' does crack or burn out or corrode or

whatever, how I am going to remove it and put in a replacement 'if statement'. In fact, I don't

have to worry about how each time I build a copy of the program how I am going to put the

'if statement' inside the 'while statement'.

When you design a physical product, often the really hard job is designing the factory that is

going to make it. But we don't have that issue in software. If I want to make copies of a

program, I type 'CP', or maybe I type 'DD'. There is some copy command and it will copy any

program exactly the same. There are so many problems that we just don't have to deal with,

because our components aren't physical things. They are mathematical ideals. They have

definitions, not just models. So they do exactly what they are supposed to do.

So, what does this mean?

I presume that the intelligence spectrum of people in the software field is the same as the

intelligence spectrum in mechanical or electrical or chemical engineers. But their fields are

harder. Our field is easier. So what do we do? We push to the limit. People push all of their

fields to the limit.

If you make your job big enough, eventually it gets hard. That's what we have done. We have

developed programs that are very big. Bigger than things other people can design, when you

measure it in terms of how many components there are. A program with a million different

parts in its design, would be a program with two or three thousand lines of code. Because

each line has two or three components typically put together. This is something that a few

people can do in a few years. This is not abnormal. This is not among the biggest programs.

A physical design with a million different parts. I mean, not repeating sub-units, but a million

different parts in its design counting repetitions only once. That is a mega project. That's at

the limit of human ability".

(Stallman, 2004)


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Appendix 2 – Earliest thoughts about cloud computing

An article by the author which appeared in the October and November 2005

issues of ‘Plan magazine’, an Irish publication with a wide circulation at the

time amongst architects, engineers and other professionals and builders.

The popular image of an architect is someone carrying a bundle of drawings and a great deal

of responsibility. The famous bundle of drawings is an architect's perceptual window into a

design problem. This is an attractive image, but one far removed from the reality. The

quotation below is part of an essay written in 1988 by John Walker. Walker is a talented

computer programmer and co-founder of the AutoDesk software company.

"Users struggling to comprehend three dimensional designs from multiple views,

shaded pictures, or animation will have no difficulty comprehending or hesitation in

adopting a technology that lets them pick up a part and rotate it to understand its

shape, fly through a complex design like Superman, or form parts by using tools and

see the results immediately."

Computers have augmented the intelligence of workers in the knowledge economy

throughout the world, but architects are reluctant to use computers for design. Why, is the

question I wane co ask? Well, architects like to use diagrams to analyse a project. A

diagrammatic way of thinking can capture the essence of a project in a few lines. It is

something "readable" at a glance, like shorthand. If a client was shown a complicated

construction drawing, confusion would occur. As a result of the confusion, the client may

lose confidence in the architect's ability. Confidence building is part and parcel of what an

architect must do.

Architects are concerned that getting attached to an electronic device might upset the

balance and their relevance within the design process. A diagram composed of "reduced

information" helps an architect to focus on their client. But the same diagram may not focus

on the needs of a building contractor. Limited information can hide all sorts of ‘nasties’

related to cost and fabrication of the project. In the past, a team of architectural technicians

could labour away to bridge the gap. But the gap that exists nowadays is one that happens in

cyberspace.


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Here in Ireland, we have a proliferation of small, principal-based architectural firms. I think

the small firm is a good model of efficiency, but it needs to change with the times. For good

deployment of digital design methods, you need a team-based office structure rather than a

principal-based one.

Digital design methods give the opposite to what an architect is hoping for. The view of a

project obtained using a computer can be complex, multi-layered and fragmented. Without

the right navigational skills, an architect could wander aimlessly through cyberspace without

a sense of purpose or direction and be left standing alone alongside a digital highway.

In a principal-based office structure, all the information must pass the scrutiny of one

individual. The main advantage of that system is the authority of the architect remains intact,

but I think architects over-simplify the diagram by avoiding the use of digital design methods

altogether.

Principal-based architectural firms learn to get by on modest means. They rarely learn to

harness the intelligence augmentation capabilities of a computer. Even such a task as

computer-aided drafting is outsourced to cheaper "on-demand" drafting services. It is like

hiring Fed-Ex to deliver your parcel on time. The architect's design must enter cyberspace via

the assistance of a CAD technician and arrive on sire as a finished project.

Architects seem to struggle with a language barrier in cyberspace, but all they can do is stand

beside a printer or email inbox and wait patiently for something to happen. It is not the fault

of architects that computer systems are horribly complicated. Companies who sell

computers need to build greater flexibility into their design. Utility computing is one form of

computing that offers flexibility.

Have you ever wondered where electricity is generated? If you are like me, you do not care -

you simply use the service. Someday, computing power will arrive into your office building

like electricity, phone lines, gas central heating and mains water supply. Compact disc media

is the current method used for distribution of software. Unlike other products we buy, the

compact disc costs virtually nothing to reproduce and can be sold in vast quantities, if it

contains software that people want.


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Next year, that CD ROM is out of date and you need to install a new one, or several

additional bits and pieces. I think the biggest fault with the CD ROM method of distribution is

that you end up with lots of extra rubbish that you will never use! Utility computing should

allow people to take advantage of a larger and more comprehensive tool set, but stay within

budget. You may need word processing capabilities and computer aided drafting this

afternoon and PowerPoint and several other presentation tools tomorrow. Utility computing

would permit the subscriber to build their own environment using a variety of digital LEGO

bricks.

I could "assemble" an environment suitable for an occasional user, or tailor one to suit the

special needs of a professional. The charge for using the utility would relate to my usage. It

would be a much fairer way to bill customers for using digital tools. We have all struggled

with the same old question: What computer system should I buy? For all the hype in the

media, there isn't a whole lot of choice.

The size of an architectural firm dictates the size and sophistication of the computer system

you end up with. In utility computing, the "computer" is no longer sitting on my desk, it only

has a virtual identity in cyberspace. Small and medium-sized architectural firms would have

the confidence and ambition to undertake large projects using digital design methods.

Mobile phone technology has demonstrated the augmentation of the communicative powers

of a single human - utility computing would allow the computer to augment the design

intelligence of a small architectural practice.


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Appendix 3 – Early observations on collaborative construction

An article by the author which appeared in the Sunday Tribune, August 23rd

2009, was entitled ‘Developing on the back of a cigarette box’, and was an

attempt to try to describe to a mass audience a collaborative working process

employed at Zoe Developments construction company in that decade in

Ireland.

A lot of things were chaotic about Zoe in the early years. Royceton, the company established

within Zoe Developments to look after design and construction management, became very

important. Royceton's staff was kept ultra-lightweight but still imposed order on things. Liam

Carroll's relationship with his 'contractors', (usually known as subcontractors in the

traditional model) depended on their being able to carry out a lot of detailed design.

In the Zoe developments model you had a couple of guys at Royceton in charge of millions of

euros worth of construction. You didn't have the numbers of employees at Royceton that

you see working for other professional practices. With Carroll, the electrician or metalworker

'contractor', who would otherwise be a subcontractor in usual arrangements between the

main contractor and the client, interfaced directly with Liam Carroll, the client. All that

Royceton did was facilitate that relationship in an orderly and regulated fashion.

Royceton was the accountancy, cost control, finance, procurement, property management,

and sales department of the Zoe outfit. In the end, it expanded to include rental and hotel

management, retail and commercial lease supervision, and so on. You had contract

management, health and safety, human resources and fire safety. We always had external

auditors in the building from accountancy firms, who kept the books of 250 companies in

order. Royceton had to outsource for its legal services. Usually, a Royceton director would

step in and act on behalf of Liam Carroll himself.

Royceton employees were representing the 'client' in many ways, but still doing their own

specific jobs in design, engineering or finance. Building repetitive projects such as apartment

developments, the brief for projects could be drawn up by the quantity surveying


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department in cooperation with the financial staff. You could almost cut designers out of the

loop to a significant degree.

The plan was very fluid, because Liam would leave it until the last minute to acquire crucial

plots to make up a 'building site'. The design process had to remain flexible enough to

accommodate these late alterations to the brief.

Carroll was willing to give everyone a chance to act on behalf of his company. Employees

developed within themselves an ability to see what was required and what price one should

have to pay. Architects, who would otherwise be interested in spending as much of the

client's money as possible, began to see things in a different light. Engineers, who would

otherwise not worry about the structural efficiency, began to speak up and demand

consideration for cost savings in terms of structure. External consultant architects and

engineers often found it difficult to fit into this process.

Even if you worked within a speciality in Zoe, such as architecture, that was only part of your

job description. Your main purpose was to learn how to act on behalf of the client in

whatever you did. If you could cut costs and improve efficiency by producing fewer drawings,

or fewer lines on a page, that is what you did. One would take drawings to site and deliver

instructions individually to the person responsible for using a blowtorch on a roof or driving a

nail. The regular consultant model cannot afford this level of engagement with projects.

At Royceton, the architect had direct access to electricians, plumbers and many other

tradespeople. We often became acquainted by first names. That would not happen on a

typical building site. The main contractor would be present and take notes of everything that

was said.

Working at Royceton was a bit like playing as the midfielder. You had a mandate to roam the

entire field, or as much of it as you were able to. If mistakes were made, we made good on

them and kept going. It used to freak people out who came to work for Royceton, to see they

dumped all of the earlier revisions of drawings issued to site for construction. If we were on

revision 'F', you would not be able to find revision A, B, C, D or E.

That was not to do with laziness or lack of understanding. It was a very conscious decision

not to bother looking backwards. Because Danninger and Royceton were working for the

same company effectively, there was never a conflict over what an earlier revision of a


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drawing showed or didn't show – the very thing that causes most of the conflict in other

building situations.

You can imagine what a job it must have been for the main directors at Royceton – Liam

Carroll, David Torpey and John Pope – to supervise and organise such a radical departure

from the norms of the construction industry in Ireland.

Danninger had a strange role in all of this. Liam, David or John could instruct Danninger to

stop a job and move resources to a different construction project if they wished. You would

sometimes see a building site become quiet as resources were diverted elsewhere. You don't

see that happening on too many construction projects. But it doesn't bother Zoe

Developments to have building sites sitting there doing nothing.

Having Danninger enabled Liam Carroll to operate in a way that no other property developer

could afford to. It meant he could send in his team to do excavations before any contracts or

tenders had been agreed or drawn up, even before full sets of drawings were finalised and

drawn up. It was not uncommon to have a building complete up to first-floor level before a

single architectural drawing was released. That is where the expression 'doing it on the back

of a cigarette box' comes from.

Danninger had an interesting privilege of being the 'apple of the Liam Carroll's eye'. Royceton

employees and directors were also satisfied working for the company. It afforded them a

unique relationship with the process of building, one they could not find elsewhere.

Royceton would actively look after Carroll's interests and ensure that safety, quality and

economy were enforced throughout the different projects.

There you have it. Somebody who was a lowly subcontractor in another context was

interfacing in Zoe with a billionaire client. No other billionaire except Liam Carroll would have

been comfortable in that situation. It is funny when you think about it, really. As a client,

Liam Carroll was unconventional in that he could distribute responsibility among so many

people. As a builder, Liam Carroll was unconventional in the extreme.


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Appendix 4 – Notes from ‘Parametric Cost Modelling of Complex Building Types’.

Dean Poillucci, Life Science Centre of Excellence Leader, SVP Preconstruction - Mid Atlantic,

Skanska USA speaking at the Beck Technologies, DProfiler User Groups conference, on 1st

November 2011.

Poillucci describes the process at Skanska for internal investment in construction innovation.

He is heading a research project using DProfiler to predict detailed costs specifically for in

complex MEP projects.

Skanska have reached out to Beck Technology for their support. They have also reached out

to Sage Timberline software. And also reached out to academic establishments such as Penn

State, the Architectural program. To put together a team that would analyse D-Profiler in a

slightly different way, with the focus on, how do we make it work on more complex building

types - versus the residential and commercial type of project.

That is, where MEP costs reach 50% or become more than 50% of the overall cost per square

foot. That is, where normal square foot cost really don't make sense. 142

The research team wanted to develop methods with D-Profiler and Timberline to replicate the design

parameters that are utilized to develop quantities and costs for MEP systems. Taking the basic D-

Profiler package, working with the Timberline products and really looking for ways to take the core

information available in Timberline and develop it into far more complex parametric equations and

models, to get to the quantitative estimates versus the square foot estimates, for complex systems

and components. 143 MEP Estimators look at the project early on, and they hold discussions with the

architect and owners, and they develop the system sizing and quantities, to come up with quantified

142 Skanska globally has an $18 billion turnover, and work in all kinds of contractual arrangements from CM at risk, to Design and Build, to Lump Sum. The attempt to industrialize construction is always at the forefront of their research projects. They are looking at new ways of doing construction, to improve the cost, and increase value to the buildings and to the owners. 143 In the United States, Poillucci submitted for an innovation grant and was accepted. They kicked it off with Beck Technologies in Dallas Texas, and a week’s long of training.


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estimates early on. What we are trying to do is replicate that, to download that (as Dean calls it) and

integrate it into a series of parametric equations, so that we are harnessing all of the core ability and

knowledge in the senior estimating group and integrating it into a software program.

“Then we need to validate those methods we have developed against known projects. We

want to go to the world, to say, we found a better way to make bread”.

Why the focus on MEP?

The buildings that we are most interested in are Life Sciences, healthcare type projects where MEP is

king, and really drive the functions of the facility. The project demonstrated by Dean Poillucci, was a

roughly 140,00 square foot building and approaching a thousand dollars a square foot for a research

facility, some clean room components to it and some process components to it. Skanska researchers

worked on a building having 50,000 square foot of MEP support space, supporting about a 100,000

square foot building. It is pretty high density, given that it is, basically a biological research facility. No

less than forty five mechanical and plumbing systems that provide the services to the laboratory

spaces.

“As you can see just from the images of the service shafts, it is a great indication of the

services complexity”. 144

MEP is really the cost driver for this kind of job. What is the problem with square foot estimates? With

MEP, square foot estimates just don't allow design management to get to quantities at the system

level, to provide a level of cost certainty. MEP systems are highly dependent upon each other. How

the mechanical system ultimately ends up getting designed, impacts the electrical. How the electrical

system ultimately ends up getting designed, in the lighted, impacts the mechanical. You get this

interactive approach, that if you don't nail them down, you never really get to a total cost on a square

foot basis.

“Our approach on the Innovation grant was to take a project that we understood well. We

have had this project, this concept design. We were on board about the same day as the

architect for this project. The project had a 24-month schedule that includes design and the

scientists working in the labs, sitting in their seats, fully commissioned and operational”.

144 Dean shows slides of a riser shaft, that communicates from the penthouse with all of the floors down below, of four 25,000 sq. foot floor plates, and a basement full of MEP and equipment and a penthouse that was nearly the 25,000 square foot as well.


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In the workflow we established for the grants was, to take the schematic level documentation and

have an estimate at schematic level, that was produced the old fashioned way. Poillucci is essentially

replicating that in DProfiler, and creating the parametric equations that are necessary to compute

system size and capacities that would hopefully drive quantities for the mechanical and electrical

systems. 145 But he is then validating that against the actual final design quantities and cost, so he gets

a direct measurement of the same project.

What Skanska did to avoid confusion and scope growth that might have occurred between schematic

and final design, was that they actually updated our model within D-Profiler, to match the final

program that was put into the building, and rating the calculations based on that. They could take

away the 'noise' of design change and Owner input that occur between schematic and final

construction documentations.

“We really want to capture information at the room level. One of our goals is to identify

enhancements to D-Profiler that may be required to fulfil our dream, and make it a purely

commercial way to use D-Profiler”.

The Skanska researcher also leveraged the 'ASSEMBLY' capabilities within Timberline (sage software),

to assist in that process. They wanted to look at the room data sheet information that would normally

be available.

“We know enough about the room space types normally in concept and schematic design to

know how many air changes, to know if it needs outside air, to know what the heat load

generation is due to people equipment and lighting - and use that information on a room, by

room, by room basis - and 'sum it up' to a total system size. Add to it the energy model for the

facade requirements and cooling gains, and total system load for cooling and from there in

knowing the system breakdown between air handlers that might be 100% outside air, might

be minimum air exchange, we can then calculate all of the system sizes. There is no reason

why we can't do that, and then push all of that information into actual quantities”.

145 Dean Poillucci pointed to a slide, which showed on the left hand side the D-Profiler model, and on the right hand side was the actual Revit model that was developed for the project. The first floor is probably the most complex, with all of the high air flow requirements etc.


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The Room by room basis

At the room level Skanska researchers are calculating quantities that take them back to the

distribution, and from there back to major equipment. They are taking quantities and getting down to

those connection points, at the room level. According to Poillucci, it is a fairly simple approach. 146

“I think there is enough momentum to demonstrate it at the end as a viable approach. There

has been a tremendous supporting effort from Beck and from Sage to get us through some of

the practical hurdles associated with firewalls and servers”.

As a design develops from schematic stage – it is not to hold the engineer or designer accountable –

but to inform them that everyone agreed that the design basis was 'X', and the design migrated to

'Y'. 147

“Room by room, air handlers are going to drive the chillers, are going to drive the boiler

plants. If you end up with an energy recovery system, its going to drive the energy recovery

systems. Fire protection systems, the same way. Electrical systems, the same way”.

Poillucci recommends that one started by adding up the impact from all the rooms, the overall energy

plant for electrical and plumbing systems. The methodology will also lead us to, the domestic water

supply. It is going to add up all the users, and come up with a total flow. Once you have the room type,

and one pop’s that room type into the model, all of the parameters come with that room type. One is

not re-calculating everything for the building. Poillucci explains that it is fairly comprehensive, what

Skanska USA are going after. 148

“If you stacked up a building that was 30% office and 70% laboratories, you would get the

resultant system size as to support that building. You would not only get it as a total system

146 Not everyone agrees with the 'room by room' approach that Poillucci used to drive the cost model in this project. He used that information on a room by room basis, and sum it up to a whole system size. Add to that the energy model, for the facade requirements. Total system cooling load. From there, in knowing the percentage of air cooling units that might need 100% outside air, might be minimum air exchange, the can calculate all the system, and push all of that information into actual quantities. 147 Poillucci qualifies that, “We are not saying that is a bad thing, but we just want people to be informed. In that way, we know we have cost control as the design moves”. The Skanska researchers take these DProfiler models and use that as the cost control model for the project, as they move forward into the timberline estimation software. It is not a second estimate that has to reside in Timberline. The estimate is actually generated in DProfiler, but is stored in Timberline, as it allows for cost management tracking, and so forth. 148 Skanska want to be able to accommodate chill beam systems. The current projects don't have chilled beams, they don't have the ‘parametrics’ evaluated. Poillucci stated, “We have projects coming in the door, that are chilled beam projects. The idea is to be able to accommodate more. We are not going to build the database for every opportunity. When they surface, they will have to go through the development and validation”.


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size. We want to know if the room type, is 100% outside air, or if it is re-sourced air. We want

to know if it is clean room, or if is general classification space”. 149

149 That way, as Poillucci states, “Skanska can assign the CFM to specific air handler types which drive total CFM into the building. Totally clean air".


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Appendix 5 – A Preliminary Questionnaire used in some investigative conversation.

Q: Do you subscribe to the notion that Building Information Modelling, will make possible

tangible monetary savings (and perhaps higher quality delivered at the same time), from the

point of view of the construction Client and the Contractor?

Q: How do you see the role of the Contractor changing when Building Information Modelling

is properly utilized?

Q: What advantage is to be gained from early Contractor or Sub-Contractor involvement in

projects?

Q: What other analytical or simulation tools and methods do you see as being useful, when

we have a high detail BIM model to work with?

Q: How do you see the opportunities for Building Information Modelling, during difficult

economic conditions, such as in Ireland at the moment?

Q: Please explain some advantages inherent in moving beyond 3D digital design and into the

4D or 5D levels of sophistication beyond.

Decision Making and Design Cognition in the age of Building Information Models

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