Building information modelling (BIM), a framework used by architects, engineers and contractors to create and manage detailed representations of complex structures, has taken another step forwards in the Middle East.

In November, Dubai Municipality announced it would be mandating the use of BIM in certain projects from the start of this year. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) and architectural work must use BIM processes on all buildings that are 40 storeys and higher, or 300,000 square feet and larger. Schemes delivered through international firms must use BIM, and it is also mandatory on complex, specialised buildings such as hospitals and universities.

The whole idea is we can capture some information up-front so that we have a digital model of the asset

Malcolm Walter, Bentley Systems

Announcing the move, the municipality said it had made the decision “based on the ability of BIM tools and workflows in improving construction quality, enabling collaboration between project participants across project phases, lowering costs, reducing time, unifying specifications/standards and facilitating [materials and manpower estimates] and cost planning”.

Growing impetus

Dubai Municipality is by no means the first government body to mandate BIM. In May 2011, the UK government announced that all its projects must use collaborative three-dimensional (3D) BIM by 2016, and the impetus is creeping eastwards. The $22.5bn Riyadh metro project has stringent BIM requirements. In a region that is traditionally slow to adopt the technologies and processes of more advanced markets, such moves have been welcomed by BIM’s many proponents.

A 2011 study of BIM in the Middle East by BuildingSmart ME, the regional branch of a US-based BIM advocacy group, found that only 25 per cent of companies in the GCC and Jordan were using BIM, compared with 36 per cent in Western Europe and 49 per cent in the US. “Most firms engaged with BIM were in an early adoption phase and were typically using BIM in its most basic capacity – as a tool for visualisation, coordination, drawing extraction and, in a few cases, for construction planning,” said the survey’s authors.

“Mandating open BIM is likely to happen first in organisations with large portfolios of facilities that they have responsibility for from inception onwards, as they have the most to gain by understanding the cost of operations for the life of the facility,” they added.

Hassan Malki, sales manager for the Middle East and Africa at Autodesk, one of the better-known manufacturers of BIM software, says his company’s growth in the region was 25 per cent year-on-year in 2013, and he predicts it will grow at between the same rate and 30 per cent in coming years.

“BIM adoption has been driven by mandating the technology as part of the engineering contracting being designed in construction,” he says. “We have seen many organisations in the Middle East starting to adopt BIM from the owner-operator perspective in municipalities such as Dubai Municipality, in museums like some of the Abu Dhabi museums, and in large contracts that are complex in nature – be that by iconic design that… requires more 3D usage in order for them to manage it, or the fact that they have become so scalable that you need some systematic way to manage centralised information.”

BIM is more than 3D modelling. It is best described as a series of processes supported by technology, says Malcolm Walter, chief operating officer of US-based software firm Bentley Systems. BIM fulfils three main roles: “to create, manage and share”. Architects use BIM to create rendered models of a project, and when it is being built, BIM can ensure everyone is working from the same plans. “You have to maintain a single source of truth about the information,” says Walter. This information can then be shared with the project owner and those who will operate it once it is built.

“The whole idea is we can capture some information up-front so that when we move into operations, we have a true digital model of the asset we are now operating.”

Practical applications

Practical applications of BIM depend on the user’s role and the stage of the scheme, says Malki. Senior management can track the progress of a project; a design firm can look at concepts and alternatives; a contractor can examine how to win and best execute a scheme; and an owner-operator can use BIM to manage an asset, enhance its operations and make it more productive and efficient.

As well as producing 3D models that allow architects, engineers and contractors to share information on how a building is constructed, BIM can also work in four and five dimensions, factoring in time and cost to its models. It can show when, as well as where, work packages will meet up, and estimate what materials and manpower will be needed to complete a project on time. It can be used to monitor supplies, with materials tagged as they enter a site and their storage locations optimised and mapped to where and when they will be needed in the construction process.

BIM does not come cheap. The Building-Smart survey found after “availability of skilled staff” (cited by 51 per cent of respondents) the main obstacle to BIM adoption was “cost of software” (48 per cent).

Bentley and Autodesk are both reluctant to say how much BIM implementation typically costs, and legitimately so. There are so many aspects of BIM – from hardware and software licences to staff and training – that costs can vary immensely from client to client and project to project. However, Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), part of a joint venture working on Abu Dhabi International airport’s new Midfield Terminal, spent more than $2m on BIM before the contract had even been awarded.

“When a client would ask me how much it is, I would say, ‘horribly expensive’,” says Malki. “Firstly, this qualifies if he’s serious or not because if he backs off that means he’s not serious. But then I say, it’s not about how much it costs you, it’s about the value that it brings to the table.” Autodesk’s clients have reported return on investment over a period of six to 12 months of as much as 10 times the cost of hardware, software, salaries, training and time. “They are not one-ticket items; it is not a commodity,” Malki says. “It’s an asset, part of the organisation, rather than buying an expendable item that is consumed at the end of the project and disappears.”

Saving costs

The pay-off against the substantial up-front cost comes in efficient planning and monitoring of construction, and in savings at the operations and maintenance (O&M) stage. Malki says that in the region, there is less data on O&M savings than on those made in construction – in part because much of the infrastructure is relatively young. However, he points to studies from other markets: “They say managing your information correctly in a collaborative way can save you up to 10-15 per cent of the O&M budget, which is a substantial amount of savings over the lifetime of the ownership of the asset, which typically spans 20-30 years.”

Walter says the savings can be more. Studies cited by the UK government indicate savings of up to 20 per cent of the total cost of an asset over time with an information model, he says.

Once BIM software has been used to create a 3D model of a project, it can generate work packages, monitor supplies of building materials and model scenarios. These can range from what-if calculations to forecast the effects of natural disasters or expected ageing, to estimating the changes existing structures are likely to have experienced over their lifetime.

In the BuildingSmart survey, of companies not using BIM, 62 per cent said one of the reasons was “not having been asked”. The strongest driver for using BIM is client demands: 59 per cent of all correspondents cited “mandated for project” as a reason for using BIM.

Walter says the design-bid-build model of project tendering is detrimental to BIM adoption. If BIM is not mandated at an early stage, architects and engineers will understandably be reluctant to implement it. “As the owner that is managing this, if I don’t say I want to have a full information model, then you as the architect aren’t going to do that work as you are not going to get paid for it,” he says. “A contractual structure tends to reinforce the old behaviours. It’s also because owners aren’t requesting [it].”

Initiatives from major owner-operators such as the UK government and Dubai Municipality are changing this.

As BIM adoption increases, the skills shortage is still an issue. BIM has been around for a few decades now, but it is evolving fast. Engineers versed in industry-standard software are in high demand, and although veteran contractors have more field experience, they are often untrained on the highly technical computer programmes behind modern-day modelling.

Malki says he is often called upon to make connections between firms adopting BIM and universities, where graduates are better trained to run software packages than their more experienced seniors. Training in BIM packages is also an important investment on top of software and hardware.

Software suppliers are constantly upgrading the capabilities of BIM. Malki says Autodesk’s international research and development budget is in the region of $500m a year, and at Bentley Systems’ annual Be Inspired awards in London in October, owners, architects and contractors were showcasing the ways they have used BIM for much more than constructing buildings.

Technological advances

The main changes BIM users are seeing include a move into the cloud and on to mobile, and improved visualisation. BIM no longer needs to be installed on large computers in a company’s headquarters. Now, engineers working onsite or inspecting schemes can access vital data from their iPads or smartphones. A tablet computer held up to a wall can show the components behind it through augmented reality technology. The software itself can be accessed from machines anywhere in the world at any time. This not only means BIM operators are more free in how they access their models, but also that applications can be scaled: a company running BIM on 100 computers for a major project can simply reduce the number of sign-ins it requires for its next, smaller piece of work.

The visualisation aspect, too, has several advantages. As graphics capabilities become more advanced, BIM suppliers are keen to keep up. Better rendering of models on screen not only makes engineers’ jobs easier, but it can also be appreciated by laymen. As models begin to look less like abstract lines and more like attractive, complex computer-game graphics, BIM models can be used to present virtual walkthroughs to clients and customers, showing them how a scheme will look and operate before the first brick has been laid.

Such developments are being seen first in the more developed markets of Europe and North America. But as BIM is picked up in the Middle East, regional project owners and contractors are doing more and more with it.