BIM Modeller: The Emerging Career with the Advent of BIM

BIM is a paradigm shift of the way the building information is recorded. Conventional information recording about building which can be in forms of drawings, descriptive text, or tables have limitations and cause significant inefficiencies during the building design, construction and operation phases. BIM is introduced as a solution to overcome major inefficiencies by enabling all parties to the building process (Clients, Architects, Engineers, Quantity Surveyors, and Builders) to collaborate through a central information model which will contain all necessary information about the building project. The structure of the central model is developed in a way so as to minimize information errors, and the central model assures that all parties work on most updated information. Therefore, BIM adoption is the search for perfection of information generation, sharing and consumption. BIM has already proven significant cost savings in building projects making it more demanded day by day.
In a BIM based project implementation, participant will be required to be “BIM ready” to obtain the expected benefit of such an endeavour. Interestingly, they will not be required to possess in-depth knowledge about BIM technology; instead, they will only need to develop skills in using BIM software tools specific to their specialization. However, undoubtedly, not all practitioners will become BIM ready. This opens the opportunity for new careers to emerge in order to bridge the gap. In the similar manner that CAD Draughtsmen bridged the gap between designers and CAD (Computer Aided Draughting) Systems; a layer of BIM Modellers would bridge the gap between designers and BIM Systems. However, not like CAD Draughtsmen; BIM Modellers would not be generic, but would be identified with the tag of the software tool they are specialized in.

Note: This is an extract from an article I wrote to EDEX Magazine.

Middle East Goes BIM – Are we ready?

There is an increasing interest and trend in adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) for property and infrastructure development projects in Middle East region. Increasing numbers of job vacancies are posted for BIM Modellers and BIM Managers for the region. Recent developments include the Qatar government funding for a research on how BIM can be used for saving billions of dollars in their massive development plans. The Teesside University of UK has been granted with 900,000 USD by the Qatar Foundation, under the Qatar National Research Fund. This shows that the government is serious about it. 10 billion USD of overall saving is predicted during next 10 years by implementing projects with BIM.

It has been evident that the state or the government has played the key role in promoting BIM in almost all BIM mature nations. The Qatar BIM initiative is likely to spread across the region when the benefits become evident in practice, or it may happen much earlier merely due to perceived competition among states. When states take the lead, BIM will become the standard in near future.

When projects are implemented using BIM, obviously the participants will be required posses BIM skills. Currently, Sri Lankan professionals, especially the Quantity Surveyors, enjoy an unmatched demand in the region. Will they be able to retain it once BIM becomes the standard?

BIM - Sky is the Limit

This video by openBIMLab is one of the best videos I found in YouTube. It is an excellent narrative of what BIM will do while identifying the importance of open BIM standards.

iBIM² Launched

Welcome to iBIM² website. Today, 17th of November 2013, I launch this website as a community-built web-blog as an initiative to bring together the developing BIM and related expertises in Sri Lanka. I invite all BIM enthusiasts to join us in the iBIM² forum.
Forum users, feel free to ask any BIM related questions, we will collectively try to find answers.
Authors, this is your blog. Login to Blogger to post articles. Articles can be your own write-ups, or they can be abstracts of other published material with a link to the original (where possible). Please remember to acknowledge the original publication when you post abstracts of other publications.
You are encouraged to post your own thoughts. History shows that some of the most stupid ideas turned become most innovative ideas. So don’t waste your thoughts; give them best value by sharing with others.
The idea of this web site came to me when I was thinking of future of our research website BIMLab. Resource restrictions often caused me to limit its usage. Currently, Private Hosting is not affordable. Therefore, I thought of using free to use Google technologies for this initiative. My thanks to Google for offering these cool facilities for free.
I hope iBIM² will help to identify future BIM experts of Sri Lanka and develop their knowledge and skills to enable fruitful adoption of BIM in Sri Lanka.