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What does building beyond BIM mean?

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July 31, 2020

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Interviewer: How do you guys kind of envision what building beyond BIM means?

Tanja Gut, Product Marketing Manager, Trimble MEP Europe: So I believe that BIM centers around information or information modeling, which is already a step up from what the industry was engulfed in doing.

But BIM for me doesn't necessarily think about the process of constructing the building, right?

And that can be by the use of manufacturer content that exists in real life. It can be to create a constructible model that allows me to make sure that I have no clashes when I am installing the material and therefore also no changes later on which are gonna be costly for everyone involved in the project.

Paul Wallett, Regional Area Director, Trimble Middle East & India: Building beyond BIM, to me, actually goes far out reaching into the actual operations and maintenance of the building.

Beyond BIM is actually beyond the lifetime of the actual project that we're constructing.

Chris Bell, VP of Marketing, e-Builder: Can I riff on that for a second cause I think that's a great point. So today, if you took a facility, the average life span of a facility somewhere around 32, 33 years. And if that was 100% of the cost, 20% of the total cost over those 33 years is in the construction phase of the project.

80% is in operations and maintenance of the facility. So from a facility owner perspective, going beyond BIM means making data and not drawings, right, data actionable during the entire life cycle of the facility.

Aristodimos Komninos, Customer Success Manager, Trimble SketchUp: For me, coming from an urban planning and design background building beyond BIM actually means BIM beyond the building and in the city, right?

And we're already talking about city information modeling right now, which is you know, what would happen if we take that the next level. What would happen if that scaled up and you had BIM not only in buildings, but also any infrastructure.

Like, how do we leverage all the data that existing buildings have to look the impact at the bigger picture?

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