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A picture is worth a thousand words…

This sentence is very true if you need essential information in a compacted, easy to read form. The best way to present it is a graphical form. It is critical for the business and the proper project management that the clear and correct information about the project’s status is available at any stage and presented in an understandable form. A Building Information Model of a structure could be a powerful tool for delivering the project progress and information about its current status.

I will present the concept of using Building Information Model as a very efficient project management tool based on my long-time experience with Tekla Structures software and precast concrete. The principles can be easily adapted to any structure modelled using a 3D BIM software package assuming it is flexible enough to do required customisation.

A 3D model of the structure offers a lot of advantages over traditional 2D drawings. BIM software allows creating a 3D model of the building, combining models produced by the specialist contractors into one federated model, performing clash detection, and coordinating designs. All this is already very helpful, but you can get much more.

A 3D model created in the modelling software is a graphical representation of a powerful database containing each created object’s properties. If the database is flexible enough, the user can create their own parameters describing object properties and assign them to the item or modify existing parameters. A Building Information Model of the precast structure is a perfect tool for graphical presentation of the project workflow and progress. All activities related to the precast element workflow can be assigned to the element as a database field and easily presented using predefined or user-defined filters. Depends on the software package, this could be predefined database fields already existing in the BIM software, or the user could easily create them.

For every precast element in the model, a set of standard user-defined parameters can be created. A typical list of the project workflow parameters may contain the following information:

• Uniclass parameters
• Design related information
• QA records
• Production records
• Delivery records
• Erection records

The 3D model of the structure and the associated database offers almost endless filtering and custom made reports options. This information can be presented as a colour-coded or filtered 3D model, 2D GA drawings where every object can have a custom-designed label containing required information or in the form of text reports in Excel or PDF format. Using a simple Object Representation tool and user-defined colour patterns the user can present at any time a visual presentation of the project progress, showing for each precast element:

• design status
• approval status
• production status
• QA check status
• delivery status
• erection status
• handover status.

Of course, you can only get from the 3D model the information already properly collected and updated in the model.  The model can be updated manually based on daily progress reports using object properties tabs. This process could also be semi-automated when the data is imported into the model using CSV files and the software API. There has to be proper information flow within the company to have the right information in place. The production and quality records can be easily updated if there is already a production management system implemented like Impact, ELiPLAN or any other dedicated precast plant management system. In this case, the users can input the information into the model by exchanging information between software packages. Otherwise, the model must be updated manually by filling Excel spreadsheets and importing them into the 3D model database.

The information about delivery and erection status can be updated in the model using, for example, Trimble Connect with the Status Sharing tool. Of course, you can collect the required information using any other system that can produce a report in a form that can be imported into the 3D model database. The way of managing product information depends on the system you are using in your precast factory. The easiest way to collect the required information would be scanning the barcodes or QR codes on the products’ labels or reading the RFID tags cast into the precast elements. The product labels containing a barcode or a QR code can be produced using the 3D modelling software like Tekla Structures or can come from your production management system. The product tags can be scanned and recorded using a mobile phone or a tablet with the installed app or a dedicated wireless scanner.

Once the procedures of collecting the product status information and updating the model database are established and followed, the project progress can be monitored using 3D model visualisation or other available reporting tools. One can also create an animation based on the saved data, showing the project progress at daily, weekly or monthly intervals. All of this and more can be done using a Building Information model as your single source of information. The next step could be using machine learning algorithms to analyse project progress information, suggest possible improvements and automatically alert when something is going wrong. I’m sure this is already happening, and the new BIM tools based on Artificial Intelligence will be soon available.

This article is also published on my LinkedIn website.