| "The gold standard for the construction industry." That's where BIM (Building Information Modeling) is headed, according to Houston-based Walter P Moore senior principal and CIO Jim Jacobi. We're not accusing them of pandering, but they were at the BIM Texas 2010 conference, hosted by TEXO and Texas A&M, at the Omni Dallas in Irving Thursday. We snapped him mid-sentence, explaining how BIM greatly improves clash detection (rocking the Casbah); meaning, historically interference between architectural, structural, and mechanical elements were detected in the field. With BIM, the clashes are eliminated beforehand, avoiding costly delays. Project profitability creeps up almost 50% when using BIM, he says. | |
| Jim says Walter P Moore started using BIM in 2005 and has used it for 300 projects. In the firm's Houston office, it has a visionarium that Jim characterizes as a mini-Imax theater, allowing people to walk through a model. Using it for healthcare projects, for example, he says facility owners, clinicians, and hospital administrators, among others, can play a role in the design early in ways they couldn't when working with flat drawings. Citing McGraw Hill's “The Business Value of BIM” study, Jim says about one-half of the industry has adopted BIM, a 75% increase from two years ago. In 2007, only 5% of contractors considered themselves BIM experts. In 2009, that number grew to around 50%, he says. |
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