The NBS BIM Toolkit, previewed last week at a meeting of the London and South-East BIM Hubs, has received positive feedback from some quarters of the industry, with commentators saying that it will be a “watershed” that makes Level 2 BIM “Business as usual”.
The Toolkit consists of two parts: the Digital Plan of Work and the unified classification structure for spaces, systems and products within buildings. Both are due to soft launch in April.
Stephen Hamil of the NBS predicts that the Toolkit will be a BIM “game-changer” for the industry, saying: “Being able to collaboratively define who is doing what and when on a construction project by following the Level 2 BIM process is something that will change the industry and we’re now ready for the soft launch in April.”
According to the NBS website, the Digital Plan of Work is a free tool that allows a project leader to clearly define the team, responsibilities and an information delivery plan for each stage of a project. To start a project, the user creates an account and log-in, which can then be shared with the project team.
The Toolkit was launched at a meeting of the London and South-East BIM Hubs
The unified classification structure will develop 5,000 templates defining the Levels of Detail and Levels of Information needed to populate Level 2 BIM models. The templates will be freely available online in both IFC and Microsoft Excel format.
More information and a presentation of the system is available here.
David Miller, director at David Miller Architects, who was present at the preview, told BIM+: “Technology is not a barrier to BIM Level 2, but complexity is. BIM processes have to be as user friendly and accessible as possible, otherwise there will be resistance and we will fail.
“Up until now the BIM standards and protocols have taken a certain amount of effort to understand and implement. Worth the effort, but not easy. So the Digital Plan of Work has the potential to make BIM accessible to the majority and therefore allow BIM to become ‘business as usual’ for non-specialists.”
John Eybon FCIOB, a BIM and design management consultant at Open Water Consulting, added: “This is where this gets interesting, because this is something we just haven’t had before. These are the final pieces of the Level 2 puzzle locking into place. Potentially our whole industry working the same way, same language, processes, information standards – we’ve never before seen anything like this. This takes us to the brink of a new era moving the industry into the digital information economy articulated in the Level 3 strategy just published.”
“The Plan of Work tool gives us common process. Expectations in terms of activities and deliverables will become aligned over time. It’ll become the way we work – business as usual.
“I think this is a cracking piece of work but it is just the start and the launch of the Digital Toolkit will be a watershed for the industry.”
