Summarising Day 1 of BIM 2012

The Building Information Modelling 2012 was held in Sydney recently and we have a brief coverage of each speaker’s session on Day 1 of the conference.

Jorge Pautasso, BIM Integration Manager, GHD
Jorge Pautasso, a GHD Service Line Leader for Structural and Global BIM Integration Manager, started off with an in-depth introduction on BIM. He leads the knowledge sharing and innovation effort of over 400 Structural Engineers worldwide. Adding now to his portfolio the rollout of GHD BIM capabilities involving multi-disciplinary work in the information modeling environment to service GHD’s key markets. This includes Property and Buildings, Transport, Energy and Resources. During the summit, Jorge Pautasso mainly spoke about the IPD value of BIM, which is essential but more importantly, he touched on a project he was involved in. This project consists of more than just a BIM model but it incorporated a GIS model to develop an accurate environment somewhat of a virtual test facility used to train future miners.

Rob Malkin, AEC Sales Director APAC, Autodesk
Rob Malkin, the Chair of Day 1, is the Director of the Architectural, Engineering and Construction business for Autodesk in Asia Pacific. Rob is responsible for expanding the solutions of design across the workflows of the AEC space. He spoke about the progress and the various processes of progress that has taken place and that has to take place for BIM to avoid becoming a stagnant technology, and how Autodesk is a big player in assisting or being a mode of transportation for BIM technology to thrive.

Alex Marfleet, Associate, Whitefield McQueen Irwin Alsop
Alex Marfleet, an associate of Whitefield McQueen Irwin Alsop, was a joy to watch as he brought a more fundamental aspect of BIM to the table. Spoke about technical issues with current CAD systems and how they take away to an extent the Design aspect. That being said, Alex Marfleet is a true believer in the BIM technology. Alex also explained how major problems can be avoided as BIM doesn’t have a standard template throughout the process of development. Topics such as data management and a solid comprehension on BIM and its components was deemed essentials by Alex.

David Sutherland, Director Planning and Design, Fender Katsalidis Australia
David Sutherland, a BIM enthusiast from the late 90s, who is the Director for Planning and Design for Fender Katsaldis Australia, enlightened the crowd with fresh ideology on BIM technology and its implementations. David focused more on why a firm should convert to BIM. David was responsible for the introduction of BIM based workflow process into practice in the late ’90s.

Lydell Stokes, Consulting Services, Executive Board Member, KarelCAD
Lydell Stokes, Consulting Services, Executive Board Member of KarelCAD stressed on the importance of incorporating BIM technology into the design process and to think about the work that would be carried out within a developed structure eventually. For example, while modeling in a 3D environment, it is easy to overlook tolerances between elements, therefore one has to allow for sufficient space for work to be carried out during the construction process of a building. Clash detection process were also covered during Lydell’s presentation.

Tony Gulliver, Head of Development, DEXUS
Since joining DEXUS, Tony has negotiated and overseen numerous CBD office development in Australia and New Zealand including 1 Bligh St, Sydney. Tony gave an in-depth look into the whole development process of 1 Bligh St which consisted of examples from development timelines to who, when and why BIM technology was implemented.

Andrew Hill, Chief Operating Officer, CSI Global Services
Andrew Hill the chief operating officer of CSI Global Services spoke on the definition of BIM deliverables, popularity of BIM, the way it is evolving and the versatility of BIM. Numerous stages of BIM phases were discussed ie planning, design, build, and the management phase. Fundamentals of BIM were discussed, such as progression specifications, comprehensive workflow or cross functional process maps, timelines and milestones with all contractor-based projects required, QC process plans and how they achieve as built BIM.

Russell Bunn, Senior Technician; CAD Leader – Infrastructure, Arup
Russell Bunn, a senior technician and CAD Leader – Infrastructure in Arup, spoke on the Infrastructure implementation of BIM technologies and how BIM was applied to construct a 42 km bored tunnel in central London with 8 new underground stations. There was also talk on a development in UK utilising GIS and games engine to achieve 3D public consultation. Russell did stress on the fact that the industry should stretch the capabilities of the current BIM application that are available and that the solution is achievable sometimes.

Keith Marr, Innovation & Sustainability Lead, SKM
Keith Marr, who provides leadership across SKM in the area of innovation and sustainability, spoke on the integration of BIM technology into the industry’s current process. Keith Marr’s focus was primarily on the method people interpret visual data. Therefore, the visualisation factor of BIM was put to discussion. Keith also spoke about the benefits of design on the on-going building cycle.

Vikram Grewal, Director, Obelisk Consulting and Trevor Williams, Associate, Jackson Teece
Vikram Grewal,  the Director of Obelisk Consulting, and Trevor Williams, an Associate of Jackson Teece, presented a project based on bridging the gap though collaborative work sharing . Throughout the presentation, processes such as operational workflow assessments, project team delivery, model documentation and cash detection were analysed using BIM techonology. A case study on the collaborative project led to an in-depth analysis of their management system. Other collaborative documents were presented, and an in-depth look into the tracking system of changes during the collaborative process led to a discussion of the enhancement of BIM capabilities.

That summarises Day 1 of the conference! Look out for Day 2’s summary – coming soon.