Delegates attending the AIS FPDC-led BIM4FitOut conference at the Business Design Centre in north London heard about Building Information Modelling (BIM) maturity, surveying existing sites, using the data in the specification process and how new BID4Free software allows models to be viewed by specialist contractors on any device at no cost.
Mark Norton, the chair of BIM4FitOut, warned that if the sector ignores digitisation it could face the same challenges Nokia experienced when it failed to develop smart phones. BIM Academy’s Mark Stodgell outlined BIM maturity while Wai Cheung from Armstrong highlighted the need to talk to clients about objects before developing them and also indicated the benefits in the specification process when structuring performance and maintenance data in a product data template.
BID4Free software means the supply chain can access a model and respond to tenders by using the free at point of use software. BID4Free is being developed with help from Innovate UK and support from Balfour Beatty and AIS FPDC.
Finally Steven Ramsey from Leica Geo Systems indicated how existing sites can be modelled using point cloud surveys.
