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Balfour Beatty is by no means alone in realising the significance of the in-coming government mandate to use BIM on public projects, and the competitive advantage such practices and processes can offer. Their activities in promoting, supporting and doing BIM, both internally and across their supply chains are to be welcomed.

Indeed, they represent one of the ‘best-in-class’ for UK construction. But there are two vital aspects missing in the current BIM discussion in the UK, and the way in which organisations are addressing the challenge, which suggest the need for further reflection.

The first is the way in which BIM is consistently positioned as primarily a technology, or technological solution. To advocate training and other means of support, especially for smaller organisations, is absolutely right, but this is too often reduced to learning software packages, or navigating around issues such as lack of inter-operability.

Our research at the University of Reading with leading design and construction organisations points towards much more deep seated issues. It reveals the interdependencies between realising the promise of BIM, and rethinking issues of ownership of information, sequencing of activities, contractual obligations, risk allocation and professional roles.

Implementing BIM is not a simple substitution of one technology for another (such as moving from drawing boards to CAD, or 2D to 3D). It brings with it a fundamental shift in how the sector goes about its business.

This is a significant challenge, and one implicitly recognised in the UK government policy of attaining level 2, rather than level 3 BIM by 2016. This is a more modest (yet still challenging) goal than the full ‘good news’ vision of integrated and collaborative working often touted by BIM evangelists. Regardless, focussing on technical aspects of BIM over process and practice reconfiguration will not enable the full benefits to be attained across the sector.

The second is the way debates around BIM fall back into a rehearsal of the perceived problems which have been prevalent in construction for as long as we can remember. These are the problems of uneducated clients, and of dis-interested supply chains lacking in both the capability and inclination to adopt new ways of working and move away from tried and tested industry recipes. The same issues have been raised in a long series of reports on the state of the UK construction sector, and in previous debates around IT improvement, implementing partnering and adopting lean. Careful selection of supply chains might be one way to force the hand of the recalcitrant, but it takes a brave and powerful organisation, whether client or contractor, to select on BIM capability, rather than price, convenience or prior history. And let us not forget that what might have worked for Toyota or Ford is no means guaranteed to be repeatable in a construction context.
These are certainly interesting times for the sector, and the prevalence and visibility of the BIM debate provides a great opportunity to rethink what we deliver and how we do it in the 21st Century. But we risk retrenching into the stalemate of pointing to others’ inadequacies, or of trying to use technological tools to fix social and cultural differences if we do not take this opportunity to really engage with the issues that have retarded collaboration and integration over decades of debate. BIM is being heralded as the force which can do what lean and partnering were unable to - transform the sector. Now we must collectively ensure the opportunity to make substantive and lasting change to the way we operate is not relegated to another episode in the history of a recalcitrant industry.

Dr Chris Harty Reader in Design and Construction Innovation Construction Management and Engineering, School of; Faculty of Science University of Reading.