African Design Magazine ADM #41 June 2018 | Page 37

BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING
USING BIM TO COORDINATE
PROJECTS SAVES TIME AND MONEY
African Design Magazine spoke
to Simon Bromfield at the
recent Autodesk Future’s Forum
about the advantages of using
Building Information Modelling
(BIM) for building design and
construction projects.
A
recent McKinsey &
Company report stated
that large infrastructure
construction projects “typically
take 20% longer to finish than
scheduled and are up to 80%
over budget”. According to
Bromfield there has traditionally
been a great deal of wastage
in construction in terms of
processes. However, technology
is available to improve these
processes. Digital twinning of a
building in the software design
program before construction
begins allows design teams to
pick up any errors early in the
process, for example, where
ducts are placed through beams.
The design team can then
quickly and easily amend this
specific layer within the design
software.
“Once on site changes to the design
and processes can result in excessive
unnecessary costs and quickly erode
the contingency budget. By using BIM
to coordinate designs, architectural
and construction teams are released
to work on other sites as quickly as
possible. In addition, BIM can be used
to drive the construction process in
terms of snag lists. Instead of manually
checking erroneous elements and
then drawing up a list, these can be
AFRICAN DESIGN MAGAZINE © | JUNE 2018
37