Thanks for joining us at the Connected Local Authorities event

‘One of the major barriers that we see is when teams are siloed resulting in teams working with their own standards, rather than a universal standard that everyone can work too. The other major barrier we see is when people have very little understanding of what BIM is about. ‘
Femi Olaiya, Portsmouth City Council

Procurement is an effective way to drive the digitization of assets. The procurement process for contractors and projects could be done so that the digitization agenda is put forward at the very early stages and included in the tender packages. This would result in competent people who understand BIM being assigned to the project.’ Femi Olaiya, Portsmouth City Council

‘Clash detection was a key part of the Hampshire story shared at the event. The biggest benefit we found was having all the information in 3D combined models, all stored in one place. Anything that was in the wrong place or that was clashing, could be detected a lot earlier than with 2D drafting information. ‘ Mark Dolan, Hampshire County Council

‘BIM plugs into our structure at Hampshire. For example, inside Hampshire we have a series of gateway processes that we must pass through, and there are a lot of checks and balances as the project moves through the phases. So, we feel a lot of the project management that comes with BIM are already imbedded in our processes.

Benefits we take away from BIM project Management are, for example, asking the client to think hard about their asset information requirement. What exactly do you need to know for your operations team to move forward?  It’s the outcomes that we can deliver at the end of our process that are moving forward in the asset management side, it really helps us to focus on those outcomes at the beginning and ask those questions. However, as a council, I expect we won’t be adopting BIM project management completely as we will merge it into or existing project management structure.’   
Mark West, Hampshire County Council

‘One of the biggest things you need to learn initially is how much details you should put in. Once you have got around what you need and when. The modelling process can be quicker. However, the big-time savings come from that proactive problem solving. Finding those little issues before they become problems. So overall, I would say we are saving time. It’s interesting to see those who are more conversant in Revit are generally reluctant to go back to 2D drafting’ Mark Dolan, Hampshire County Council

‘Fundamentally I think you start with asset information requirements. We need to understand from an owner perspective, what the owner needs to know about the assets, and understand what information would be beneficial when they are having to maintain and operate assets. To do this, there is an engagement process with the engineering, operations and maintenance teams.

There is no big bang approach to data. We recommend starting small, with a pilot project. Help other business units centralize their requirements, to embed them into the contracts and procurement process. Start to document those in a manner that is easily digestible, which is aligned with a classification structure, and which can be quickly reviewed and quantified out of the model using standard checking tools to give us an indication of the completeness of the delivery. ‘ 
Lewis Watts, Autodesk

'There are a number of options available today. So, what do you start to use? Start piece-by- piece and start with the highest priorities and with the most appropriate. And at the heart of all of this is a platform for a common data environment.

Autodesk offers a range of information online and there is loads of tuition available. For example, https://academy.autodesk.com for online learning of tools and getting certified.’  
Marek Suchocki, Autodesk 

‘Start with quick wins, look at the key priority processes and see which ones might be easier to move into a digital workflow. ‘ 
Marek Suchocki, Autodesk

‘You are not alone. Everyone I have ever spoken with started with a 2D traditional document exchange workflow. The way I would begin to migrate into more intelligent workflows would be to first map out your existing workflow, piece-by-piece in a flow diagram, and detail exactly how the ‘as-is’ process works today. Even doing this on a whiteboard or MURAL, you will see inefficiencies. They are very quick to itemize and very simple to work through. Even just starting to work in a digital workflow rather than a paper-based workflow will streamline your process workflows and efficiency.

When we do mature to a point when we can start to use more advanced technologies, we can standardize workflows, have roles and responsibilities for approvals, and have the system drive the workflows. We can also look at things like issues tracking and management, where users are able to raise issues based on specific assets within a much larger model, and track audit and report on these at regular intervals or manage within the live environment.  

Start small as mentioned previously. Everyone was there at one time or another. Call on expertise resources around you such as that offered within this group. Starting with workflows is a really nice place to start and share problems, solutions, and best practice. The ISO 19650 standards can help inform and standardize your improved workflows as you progress your digitalization journeys and will certainly give you food for thought moving forward. ‘
Lewis Watts, Autodesk

‘Finally, I would add one thought that I think it’s inevitable that you will eventually start to adopt digital workflows. The Construction Playbook, for example, is driving that. ‘  
Marek Suchocki, Autodesk.