In the business of building design, a structural engineer is often expected to be strategically proactive. But even as building information modeling (BIM) is touted as the future of the industry, many structural engineers remain hesitant to take the lead and use BIM software tools. According to our case study, there are many reasons why a newfound proactive attitude regarding BIM could benefit your firm and your clients.
To create a baseline, we approached small- and medium-sized firms and asked if they were using BIM software in their offices. Companies using the programs (though not regularly) said the use of BIM tools on any particular project depends upon whether other disciplines are also using the software. Companies not using the programs yet said, usually, that their client hadn’t requested BIM usage. These responses indicate dependency on the behaviors of others, rather than a decisive, proactive approach.
But a seven-person firm in Indiana decided that BIM technology would provide a better platform to integrate the design process with the production of construction documents. In addition, the firm believed that BIM modeling would increase interdisciplinary coordination and reduce potential change orders. The difficult decision was not whether to utilize BIM technology, but rather which software platform to use. Upon making that decision, the company trained two engineers on the software, and then started using it on a project where they were the only members of the design team implementing a BIM approach.
Although they didn’t have the benefits of upstream or downstream data exchange on this first project, they still impressed their client. From the BIM model, they created a video that included a virtual walkthrough of the structure that was shared with the architect, and later shared with the owner, who used the video in subsequent presentations.
Implementation challenges
What challenges has this Indiana-company faced along the way? While they currently have only two of their five engineers trained on the program, training additional staff has been difficult because of the startup costs involved. The purchase of each license is a big commitment, too, as the startup costs include not only the cost of the software itself, but also hardware upgrades and training costs.
Another challenge is ownership of shared information in the BIM model. On a specific project, both the architect and the engineer included load-bearing walls in their models. The engineer felt that as structural walls, they would be created in the structural model. Any changes to these walls would be done by the structural engineer’s model and linked into the architectural model. However, what they found is that the architect created the same wall in the architectural model and would make the changes to these walls as necessary (such as adding window openings). The structural engineer was able to coordinate the changes by linking the architectural model with the structural model and checking for interferences.
Benefits
Although there have been challenges, there have also been great benefits. On another project, the use of BIM technology enabled the company to increase productivity and deliver within the accepted design fee. At the beginning of the project, two design-team meetings were budgeted into the structural engineering fee. As the project progressed, a decision was made to conduct weekly meetings to review the status of the project and incorporate changes requested by the owner. At the end of the project, the costs associated with the extra meetings were calculated, and the engineer found that even with those meeting costs factored in, the project was completed within the design budget.
For today’s structural engineer, being prepared when a client is ready to implement a BIM process can only come from a proactive approach. In the project example described, other disciplines are lagging behind, while the structural engineer has already determined some best practices and is ready to tackle the project and make a difference for the client—they are taking the lead.
Lisa Willard, P.E., is with SE Solutions, LLC—a firm dedicated to helping match top-notch structural engineers with great companies and unique opportunities. Brian Quinn, P.E., with SE Solutions, also contributed to this column. They can be reached at lisa.willard@findyourengineer.com or 805-482-8436, and brian.quinn@findyourengineer.com or 616-546-9420, respectively.
