The 6th breakfast meeting of the Smarter Cooperative Building Series 2016 took place on October 19th in the Gibson Hotel, Dublin and was titled ‘Future Proofing BIM for Construction Manufacturers’. The well attended event was a great success with informative presentations.
With Manufacturers the event’s focus, the speakers were Steve Thompson, Senior BIM Consultant with PCSG, Vice Chairperson BIM4M2; Tony Woods, Managing Director, Midland Steel; Nick Leach, Group Head of BIM for UK and Europe Division, Multiplex; and Brendan O’Riordan, CEO of Zutec. The Chairperson was Noel Kennedy, Intel.
The opening address came from Chairperson Noel Kennedy. He discussed the ‘Intel Leixlip Campus from 1989 to now’ and its construction and spoke of futureproofing. Steve Thompson was the first speaker. His presentation was titled: ‘The Future of Construction Product Manufacturing’. PCSG are multidisciplinary information consultants. He spoke about PCSG and the future of construction product manufacturing, describing how information should be used throughout the lifecycle, and the information required for a product. He talked about, COBie and IFC, the UK BIM Alliance and the future: BIM Level 3 and BIM Level 4. He spoke of the Farmer Review and the issue of skills in the construction industry with digitisation changing work roles, and the new jobs that will arise in the future. Steve said, ‘getting to work collaboratively was the biggest challenge, bigger than the technical aspect of BIM.
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Tony Woods, Midland Steel, was the next speaker.
Tony spoke of his company’s services, projects, and the company facilities in Ireland and the UK. He told attendees about collaborative working on projects. Using BIM in preparing offsite prefabricated components is highly beneficial; according to Tony ‘offsite prefabrication is the future’. He spoke in detail of Midland Steel’s UK projects: London Bridge Station, Liverpool Docks, Thames Tideway, and Great Western, Bristol. Midland Steel are working impressively with BIM to deliver big projects throughout the UK.
Nick Leach of Multiplex was the next speaker. Telling attendees of the company’s large projects in the UK, he said in the past four years the use of BIM has escalated on projects. Nick described the London Wall Place project and told the audience of de-risking design using BIM. Nick showed the variety of technologies used on projects such as video conferencing, smart screens, and laser scanning.
Nick introduced Brendan O’Riordan, CEO of Zutec. Zutec are working on a variety of projects with Multiplex. He said the ‘London Wall Place project is a trailblazer’. Brendan described how BIM is used on site in monitoring products and materials: doing checks and snagging using data. It was a great technical presentation. He concluded saying ‘gathering data rather than documents is key – having information in pdf is useless’. He handed back to Nick who concluded saying clear requirements are essential, and that people not collaborating in the industry is a problem.
The Q&A session featured questions for the panel on BIM implementation, education, product data and procurement. Tony Woods answered a question on integrating BIM into a company, saying communicating the benefits to staff is key. Brendan O’Riordan said companies should get involved in BIM now, ‘it has to be done’ he said.
‘The future is digital and we encourage you to embrace it’
CitA Managing Director Dr Alan Hore concluded saying the speeches were high quality. He spoke of the success of the Smarter Cooperative Building Series, thanking the Construction Industry Council members and the sponsors. Alan told attendees of the upcoming Irish BIM Innovation Awards in November, CitA’s plans for 2017 and the BICP. His final statement was ‘The future is digital and we encourage you to embrace it’.
Noel Kennedy, Nick Leach, Brendan O’Riordan, Steve Thompson, Tony Woods & Alan Hore.
You can view the reports from the other five CitA events on BIMIreland.ie.
Become a CitA Member: http://www.cita.ie/join-cita/
BICP: http://www.cita.ie/bicp/
Irish BIM Innovation Awards: http://www.cita.ie/events/2016-irish-bim-innovation-awards/
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