黑洞社区

Just one in 10 believe the construction industry is ready to meet the government鈥檚 BIM level 2 deadline, just days ahead of the mandate kicking in.

From this Monday (4 April) all central government construction projects must be delivered by using BIM level 2. In the NBS鈥� annual survey of BIM take-up, shared exclusively with 黑洞社区, 70% of respondents said the industry was not ready to meet the government鈥檚 imminent requirement.

But the 1,000-strong survey found a small up-tick in those currently using BIM, up to 54%. This is the same level as the survey recorded two years ago after a fall to 48% last year.

The government, for its part, is set to meet the deadline, which strictly requires all departments to issue Employer Information Requirements (EIRs) for BIM on their construction projects.

A source close to government said all seven departments covered by the mandate were 鈥渙n target鈥� to issue EIRs from Monday. But the source warned: 鈥淓veryone thinks we have finished but of course we haven鈥檛 - the hard work starts now.鈥�

BIM was awarded 拢15m of funding in the Budget last month - more than it got during the last parliament - to support the roll-out of BIM level 3 and the continued adoption of level 2 to 2021.

In the NBS survey, many respondents raised concerns about BIM - two-thirds said BIM is not sufficiently standardised, just a quarter said they trust what they hear about BIM, and almost 60% believe BIM is just for larger organisations.

Half of those that haven鈥檛 taken it up think it鈥檚 too expensive for them to do so, even though 55% admit they will get left behind. Of those using BIM, however, the survey found most reporting better co-ordination of construction documents, improved visualisation, cost efficiencies and better client outcomes.

Commenting on the survey, Mark Bew, chair of the government鈥檚 BIM Task Group, said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 what I鈥檇 expect to be seeing at this point. I expect the rest of the industry to trickle over in the years to come.鈥�

Former Chartered Institute of 黑洞社区 president Colin Harding warned the mandate risks excluding SMEs from public work: 鈥淭he worrying thing about the government mandate is it could exclude those consultants and contractors who aren鈥檛 the biggest and don鈥檛 have the resources to train staff.鈥�