This week it was great to have Mervyn Richards , lead author of PAS1192/Part 2, give a workshop for the SEBIMHUB, on the PAS, information management and BIM. Mervyn should need no introduction – he is a leading figure in UK BIM.
Hopefully this will be the first in a series of workshops over the coming months.
Mervyn gave us a great overview of information management and how the PAS1192 works. There were many highlights but a few things stood out for me.
Firstly technology – was hardly mentioned. Although we were talking about BIM , we concentrated on process, collaboration and best practice methods of working.
“My version” prevents collaboration – everyone makes their own versions of standards , plans, tools etc. In that moment “my version” becomes a barrier to collaboration – “my” version is different to “your” version! So suddenly something that was intended to help us work together is now preventing us because we made our own versions which will be different! Spread this across the industry and the problem multiplies. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to just adopt the standards we have instead of rehashing everything all the time and putting our own badges on it? Of course this is counter to our culture of protectionism….
Tried and tested, measured and evaluated - the 1192 guidance and processes have been independently evaluated and arise from the Avanti project. The benefits have been measured.It is these tried and tested methods that give comfort and confidence to the PI insurers (check out the CIC guidance note). At the heart of this is the elimination of waste both in product and process, which delivers cost savings.
Whilst perhaps understandably we focus on the technology, even at times distracted by it, fundamentally we need to be looking at the processes we use and how we work. Our inability as an industry to adhere to processes and standards undermines consistent delivery of high quality projects and continuous improvement.
The upside is that adopting BIM can help us achieve all of this and more – it is this marriage of process and technology which can enable our industry to achieve the things that Latham and Egan were talking about years ago.
We need to seize this moment.
Cheers
J.
