Transcript: BIM - Your Path to Compliance

Hello and welcome to the Constructor Podcast, the future of the built environment. I'm your host, Brittany Campbell-Turner, and this podcast is dedicated to helping property owners have certainty in their decisions about their construction projects. We talk about fostering trusting relationships, help you to understand how to lower risk, be under budget and on schedule, and most importantly, exceed your end user's desires. Welcome to this episode of the Constructor Podcast. So last week I shared my conversation with studio leads Jeff Hoffman and Cal Hudson at Via Technic.

We talked about the intersection of BIM FM and digitizing real estate. We talked about the importance of stakeholder engagement, how an initiative changes based on if it's a company-wide, top-down initiative from executives versus bottom-up and what good BIM looks like. Last but not least, we talked about ROI, being understood better by owner-operators and how tracking of asset information can be improved by using BIM with real estate. So before I share about what today's episode is all about, I want to make sure to make another quick announcement this week that I will be podcasting at the Lean InDesign Forum in Chicago, taking place on May 29th and 30th.

I'll be asking attendees how much they're actually focusing on VDC or BIM and how that really supports communication and collaboration on their projects. You know, I'm fascinated by the opportunity to disrupt, and it just so happens that Cliff Mosier, author of Architecture 3.0, the Disruptive Design Practice Handbook, he will be the keynote speaker. I'm also really looking forward to seeing some of my old friends from the Lean community. If you haven't signed up, do so at leanconstruction.org slash events and look for the 2019 Lean InDesign Forum and register there.

Now, let me share with you who you will be going to hear from today. This week, you will hear from a colleague of mine, Marcia Bolpani. She is a BIM management consultant at Mease. She's also the BIM Dictionary co-editor and an overall BIM advocate. We had a really good conversation on what BIM is looking like today and compliance within public regulations and client specifications.

We talked about how to maximize BIM level two requirements via PASS 1192 and how we're actually transitioning to ISO 19650 and how we actually will need to start complying to a new standard in public work, at least within Europe. We also talk about what BIM good looks like and last but not least, talk through some really great BIM resources. Here is my interview with Marcia Bolpani. I wanted to interview you today because you're doing amazingly in this industry and the amount of research that you've done thus far around BIM.

I just wanted to understand what is your fascination with BIM? What draws you to it? What makes you excited about it? Yeah, so thank you very much for this invitation. I think that also you're doing great job with the podcast.

So I started my interest on BIM in academia. So when I was in the university, some people complained that still the education sector is not ready for this, but I was lucky being in environment when they were like professor promoting this. And since I started my research with my master thesis working in collaboration with VTT in Finland, then after with my PhD, I really wanted to work with the industry, for the industry and to understand how billion information modeling was already implemented, especially from the client point of view.

So it's important to start in the right way. So with an intelligent client that understand what it is about. So working with the Massachusetts Port Authority in Boston, and then with the UK Minister of Justice, for me was really important to understand where the gaps were. That also take the best from them. And so my research was really about understanding what the client should do in order to drive building information modeling, and then how to set the requirements, and then how to check and validate, and how to manage information during the entire life cycle.

So you wanted to know what good looked like to start with. You wanted to understand what good clients are doing and work with clients that are setting it up properly, essentially figure out how to do that for other clients so that they can roll that out. Yeah, exactly. Now my role is mainly a client advisor. So if they want to set a strategy, want to implement and develop a billion information modeling, and in general, digital innovation in their organization, how they need to start, what they need to do, not only from the technology point of view, but also from the process and then from the people point of view.

And also the policy. So I didn't mention before, but as part of my research, I investigated the topic about LOD. Level of development. There are different specifications from the BIM forum. There is the LOD BIM forum specification.

And in other countries here in UK, with the PASS 1192, that created the concept of level of definition as a combination of level of information, level of geometry. It's really about information requirements. So again, to understand what the clients would like to receive at the end and during the process. So that makes sense. So that ties to what the client needs essentially and what detailed level of that might be.

So that makes sense why you're fascinated about it and why you're actually here at MACE. I didn't mention earlier that you just so happen to work at the same company I do, based in the UK, but you also travel around here, right? Yeah. Where do you travel to for work then? Yeah, so as part of my work here, I have also the opportunity to continue my activities at a European level at SEND on BIM standardization.

So I'm task group leader of this group on LOD standardization at SEND TC442 that is responsible of a standard for building information modeling. So mainly I'm traveling for this European meeting, but also for different conferences and to share my knowledge about this. Yeah, so it is good. It's not easy to find company that promote research and development in this kind of activity. So I feel that very lucky that I can do it, yeah.

What's the most recent conference you've been to and what did you talk about? Recently I was endorsed, so in Netherlands, for this SEND TC442 meeting. So it was like a working group section. So there are people that are responsible for the terminology, for the data exchange, for the process, and also there is a group on infrastructure. So we were like discussing and try to continue our work on the standardization.

And then I also have been in Italy at the Mada Expo on this BIM user group. So it was an event where different users with different experience in the industry were sharing their knowledge and also I was very proud to be able to bring some of the talents that are here in UK, but they are Italian. So we were there and it was like a good opportunity to share experience working in different countries, working then some people from their design practice, other from the contractors, some from academia.

So it was really a good opportunity, I think so. Well, that's good. Sounds like you had a fun time and you were able to make some really good connections that you already had and bring them to your world essentially. So that's really cool. Let's talk a little bit about something you mentioned earlier, compliance and what the BIM needs are that a client might have and how does that tie to compliance.

You've participated in writing a white paper of sorts that focused on digital compliance. Could you share with us about what digital compliance is exactly and then your contributions to that paper? Yeah, yeah, sure. So the port is also available online for free. So I think that we can share also the link with the people that are listening to us.

So as part of this DECOM network on the digitalization of compliance of regulation in particular building regulation, there's been finance by the Center for Digital Britain and the aim was to understand first of all, the state of the art and then to provide advice to the government how to promote and implement digital compliance checking. I think that is a really relevant topic because especially from the client point of view, the client is spending money and effort to define their requirements and they would like to receive good quality information that they can use really about how much you can trust of the information that you have and that you can reuse in the future for different purposes.

And at the moment, the checking process mainly is manual. So there is only few automation on this. Even if there are good example of tools that are available in the market, in particular checking the model, that is not only about the model. So it's really to understand if what we specify first as a client is taking into account different regulation and different specification that are already available and then that what you receive is in compliance with all these complex, I will say, amount of requirements. If you don't mind, I just wanna clarify and contextualize.

There's obviously PAS 1192, that is, how would we just be describing that as a policy or regulation? Yeah, as a standard. As a standard that needs to be met based in here in the UK for public projects, right? But in addition to that, there's a specification side that might be coming from the client specifically saying, okay, these are the specific attributes for the different components that need to be built into their facilities. And then in addition to that, many more requirements based upon structural design needs, mechanical design needs.

So it could be a plethora of layers, if you will, when it comes to the compliance question. That needs to be understood at the first stage. And then in addition to that, there's that checking mechanism, understanding how then the next step takes place to make sure that it's meeting what's been required, even when there's sometimes a subjective approach through this paper process that we have right now, both in the UK and the US, and finding a way to digitize it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all, I would like to say that now with the ISO 9650 series, part of the pass has been re-re-drawn.

So now there is an international standard that we can use for the building information process. And yeah, you're totally right. So there are different rules that we need to follow. It can be specific for the design. It can be fire acoustic requirements, but then also can be requirements related to which and how many deliverables you need to produce in order to satisfy the client's need.

There is also the difference between verification and validation. So first of all, to check if you receive the information and then to check the contact. So yeah, also different way of checking. You are totally right about the subjective approach that most of the time we have. So we can interpret the rules in a different way.

So the future is really to start analyzing the current regulation specification and then to understand how much can be digitalized. And in order to create requirement that can be machine readable. And so to add more objectives in the checking process. And this is also related to a topic that I know that you are investigating a lot, these blockchain and smart contracts. So how contracts in the future will look like and how we need those so the contract that is machine readable and then also what we produce that can be read by the machine and so we can have an automatic or semi-automatic results.

I think that by now the human part is still important. I'm not sure that we will be able to digitalize all the requirements, but the important thing is the awareness. So to be aware of what we can easily change quickly in a digital way, in an objective way, and what instead is still open to interpretation. And maybe we like it that there is this freedom for some things. Well, and you mentioned that you listened to the interview that Bill and I did with Maliki and he focuses on this behavior component of BIM and really the governance structure, but not only that, just really how the team interacts.

Going back to the research a little bit, the way you described it to me a little bit earlier as well is there's BIM level two, right? That the team that developed this paper is focusing on in order to make sure that we can at least work well within this BIM level two process, even though we all wanna get to this common data environment that is the holy grail, if you will, BIM level three, right? But I think we do have to think of what are we gonna do to take those baby steps and get there and it cannot be done without understanding how we as communities work with each other, how we build trust with each other, how do we set up those contractual mechanisms so that we can communicate more easily with each other and then make sure that we're keeping each other accountable.

So, I guess that's sort of my summarizing thoughts there, but I wanna know what are your next steps? What are you planning on working on next? I think that this is really important, this behavioral approach to understand how people use the space and how they behave also during the entire process. So, moving to analyze instead of only the final product but also the behaviors of people, how they work and also to reward the good behaviors and to promote and to have this possibility of to attract activity and this transparency to use in a good way in order to reward the good work that company but also individual professional are doing.

And then another thing is also how we use the pace in order to improve the performances of the building and how we can sell an additional service to our clients and the contractual part is really important. So, I think that we need to work more and more on collaborative procurement. So, the way that we work because if still we speak about collaboration and important of this promoting different way of working but then also you need to mirror this from the contractual side. So, to embrace collaborative procurement that are already there, to understand the possible risk or the fear that people they have in changing that way that they use the contract and to experience this and not only speaking about this need but to do in reality.

So, there are also some good examples here in UK and I would like to work more on this direction, yeah. That sounds really exciting to me actually. I've spoken with a couple of people on the vested approach which is really a collaborative procurement process. I'll put a link here in the podcast to tie back to that interview that I did. I would say that's really focused on facilities management.

Okay. So, in addition to that though I'm intrigued by your interests in that and seeing how that ties into preparing a better MIMS setup right like for the entire project. So, by getting the project setup right from day one and that's what I'm hearing from you is how do you make sure that like you have the right people, the right processes, the right structure and the right plans set in place? Yeah, I think that coming back to the first point of our discussion is really when I work with clients is really to explain with the building information modeling you can achieve a lot of different things if you leave this process to other professional, they will look at these from their perspective and they produce the information that they need to fit their purposes.

So, it's really important from the client point of view to understand okay, what is important for you? What does it mean? What are the key information? Can be properties, it can be from the geometrical point of view, it can be documentation. What is relevant for you because there are people from the design that they complain that in construction, so for example, the model is not used but it's because it's not fit for purpose.

So, again, also the client is important, the client is receiving what is relevant. So, it's really important to have more and more like intelligent client that are aware of the potential of this digital journey. Oh, that's good. Anything else you wanna share with the construct audience? I didn't mention in my activities that I'm also a assistant editor of the BIM Dictory.

There's a tool that is available online for free so we can also add a link to this. So, it can be used for educational purpose but also in your organization to use it and include in your BIM documentation or also in your contract. By now it has been translating 19 languages. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, and there are at the moment more than 80 volunteers working on this.

Especially for the organization that are working across the globe, so it is a good tool because you can find the same term translating in different languages. And some people when they're at the beginning of this journey, there are a lot of acronyms, a lot of concepts that maybe are not so intuitive. So, I suggest to have a look and try to type, for example, what is a BIM execution plan? LOD, what is a BIM project? What does it mean?

Also the definition of building information modeling. So, I really suggest you also are interested to volunteer your time on this project and also the BIM Dictory is part of the BIM Excellence Initiatives and there are also other projects that you can volunteer. So, just have a look now. Also the BIM Dictory has been an open source project so you can contribute to this. And I really think it is important to provide so this support for the community.

Well, that's awesome. Thank you for contributing to that. And then also thank you for taking the time out and taking the interest and doing this podcast episode with me. Thank you very much again for the invitation and congratulations. I will continue to follow your work.

If you liked this episode, find out more in the show notes at constructor.com slash Marcia Bulpanit. That's M-A-R-Z-I-A B-O-L-P-A-G-N-I. If you learned something valuable in this episode, share it with your friends and colleagues. You can also let me know if you enjoyed our discussion by connecting with me on Twitter at britney underscore C-T or find me on LinkedIn. You can also email me at britney at constructor.com.

That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-I-E at construct double R.com. The 2019 Lean InDesign Forum might just be the right place to learn how upfront lean design planning can streamline design coordination and help the design to be more constructable. Find out more at leanconstruction.org slash events and go to Lean InDesign Forum to register for May 29th and 30th. Don't forget, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do so at your favorite podcast player. I look forward to continuing the Constructor Journey with you next week.

Thank you.