BIM may initially appear bewildering but, once adopted, its workflow capabilities will provide you more time to spend on design.

The acceptance of BIM – or absence of it – by small practices remains a general subject of concern both in the press and on the conference round.

Architects are challenged with plenty of different statements. Merely few examples include: ‘Small or medium enterprises (SMEs) are struggling with the limitations to BIM,’ ‘Innovative SMEs are forming pathways in BIM,’ and ‘The government has made a commitment to hand over 40% of contracts to SMEs’.

Added to this is an increasingly polite tone, with ample contractors and consultants offering to support or teach SMEs what they should do when on closer examination those larger companies don’t even understand BIM themselves.

There are vast opportunities both internally among the associated abilities of your information getting from a single model environment, and also when you are exploring new business. It is because more and more clients and contractors are rising to look for systems that can deliver through BIM. Thus, this solely may get you a seat at the table.

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As the owner of a work, an essential thing you should consider is how the process and software can benefit you to improve productivity and performance. Before you even think about buying licenses or creating libraries, first and foremost, you need to consider what generates business for you and what your unique focus is.

Don’t enable your workflow that can manage by software highlight files and marketing. It is easy to bring it into fabricating information out of sequence or that you don’t require because the software enables you to. But you have to secure the system work for you, not the other way round. Think about the process and deliverables of a job and let them handle how you use the software. Each sector has particular libraries and software that should be examined to see how it might be of use.

Small methods by their nature are more liable for sharing and collaborative workflow!

If you have your team who are already skillful in using BIM technology, use them as a sounding board to know their experience. This information should serve to notify your decision making but hold your business priorities at heart. It is also essential to examine the consultants you work with. Are they able to work along with you if you choose new processes?

When you begin working with others, don’t try and reinvent the wheel. In the UK we have gold standard process in the BS and PAS 1192 (specification for information management) suite of records for collaborative operation. Learn how to use them because, even if you are not in need of your first collaborative projects, there is no reason for creating your version. While these are complicated documents, the principles are clear and much more honest to set up for a smaller project.

Don’t worry too much about the noticed problems and dangers of the collaboration process. Small practices by their nature are also open for sharing and collaborative workflow. The lack of collaboration culture is more a problem for large corporates, which tend to be more risk-averse.

Start now because, for smaller projects, involving houses, BIM suits well. And it will obtain your product information workflow much more effectively through more automatic coordination, drawing production, visualization, and scheduling.

Hence, you take the benefits. It is your choice what you do with the time you save: lower fees or more design time. I know which I would choose.

Thus, it was all about why and how BIM is ideal for small practices and projects.