Understand the levels of BIM adoption

- [Instructor] One of the terms that the industry's created, is the Level of BIM Adoption, or BIM Levels of Maturity. This is expressed as BIM Level 0, through BIM Level 3. Defining the Level of BIM Adoption, is really critical to managing everyone's expectations on a project that's utilizing BIM. This is where things have gone wrong in the past. An architect may be creating a Building Information Model, as part of the design process, and actually, as I said earlier, many of them do this now, as the standard way they design. So they design in 3D, and in so doing, they do create a Building Information Model. They use this to show their clients a three-dimensional virtual representation of the facility that they're designing. And then they use it, and the software, to extract and generate those two-dimensional construction drawings that go to the field. But the owner, having heard of BIM, and knowing there's a Building Information Model being created for their facility, believes that at the end of the project, they'll have a complete digital model that contains all of the data on their new facility, that they can use for maintenance and future modifications. I'll tell you, that owner is going to be very disappointed if they have assumed that the project is using a much higher level of BIM Adoption than it actually is. Without managing those expectations, and without clear project specifications outlining the required level of BIM Adoption, all the owner's likely to get is a Building Information Model that contains the data the architect placed there, and nothing else. It takes very clear specifications and contract requirements to achieve the level of information sharing and flow that's described by many people when they discuss BIM. Yes, it has that ability, but only if everyone participates at the same level. And without requirements for participation, this is not likely to happen. So for this reason, the industry has begun to define the levels of BIM Adoption, and they look like this. BIM Level 0. Effectively, this means little to no collaboration. Output and information to the field is in the form of 2D drawings, and those could be paper or digital. I see sources quite often say things like, "Almost all the industries "already voluntarily ahead of BIM Level 0," but I got to tell you, I disagree. I see this all the time on typical design bid build projects, where the designer provides nothing but 2D construction drawings to the general contractor for bidding and construction, that's all they get. And that's BIM level 0. BIM level 1 can be described as using a combination of three-dimensional models, and two-dimensional drawings. In BIM Level 1, the 3D models are typically used by the design team during the design phase of the project, but 2D construction drawings are used for review, permitting, and construction. A Building Information Model's generated, but it contains very limited information as there are no specific requirements for adding data to the model. This level best describes my earlier scenario where I discussed managing expectations. There's nothing wrong with BIM Level 1, as long as all the stakeholders understand that's what's being used. A BIM Level 2, is distinguished by more of a collaborative working environment. It requires the specifications to include an information exchange process, so that information can be exchanged and shared between specified parties on the project. Each party or trade, still uses its own model, but any software used by the different parties, the architect, the engineers, the trade contractors, that software has to be capable of exporting their individual models and their data, in one of the industry standard common file formats. This includes the IFC file format, which stands for Industry Foundation Class, and it's sort of like the PDF format for BIM files. That just means that lots of different modeling and drawing software can open and use an IFC file. So in this level of BIM, each party still works in their own model, but they share the information in that standard format, so that the data can be combined to create a more complete model, a single model. BIM Level 2, is what the ISO 19650 standard, that I mentioned earlier, attempts to fully define. The UK government is an example of an entity that's mandated this level of BIM Adoption on all public sector projects. BIM Level 3, is really still being completely defined, but it generally refers to a system where one model is used by all parties. Sometimes this is referred to as, Open BIM. The idea here is to facilitate deeper collaboration between all parties who simultaneously contribute to a model that's stored in a central database, to reduce the chances of conflicting information, and those clashes between trades. Understanding the Level of BIM Adoption, or the Level of BIM Maturity on a project, can really help to manage expectations. If it's clear that a project has adopted BIM Level 0, the contractor should not expect to receive anything but two-dimensional construction drawings. If the project's adopted BIM Level 1, the contractor can assume that a three-dimensional model exists, but whether or not they have access to the model is still unclear, unless it's defined in the project specs or the contract documents. A BIM Level 2 adoption, means that the model will be made available, however, further language is needed to clarify what contributions have to be made by the contractor and its trade partners. In other words, the model will be made available, but are you required to contribute data to it? And if so, which trades, and what types of data? With BIM Level 3 adoption on a project, you can reasonably assume that the trades will be expected to contribute to the open model. However, I still think there's additional language needed to define exactly which trades, and what data. To further clarify expectations, the industry's adopted additional terms, and I'll discuss those next.