From the archive in 2010

The use of force

With this week’s issue of Building focused on BIM, it seems fitting to cast our eye back to October 2010 - to when then chief constructor adviser to the government Paul Morrell indicated that the government intended to adopt BIM for the procurement and management of public assets.

The benefits of BIM at this point had already been noted, with the example of huge savings to the project costs on Heathrow Terminal 5. However, many were still reluctant, with a survey taken that year by McGraw Hill showing that a little over a third of the industry had adopted BIM - with a large part of those being early adopters who began using it five years previously. Since then uptake had been flat.

On 22 October 2010, Building’s feature The Use Of Force evaluated what compulsory BIM could mean for different sections of the industry. For main contractors, writer Stephen Kennett commented: “UK main contractors lag well behind architects and engineers when it comes to embracing BIM, which is strange given that it can reduce project risk and increase productivity. The reason is partly down to cost. According to the McGraw Hill study, contractors in western Europe perceive a low return on investment, with 40% expecting either only to break even or lose money by adopting the technology.”