US, October 14, 2014: 40% of US owners and 38% of UK owners expect that more than 75% of their projects will involve BIM in just two years, with a particularly high level of growth in the US, reports a recently released McGraw Hill Construction SmartMarket Report.
The report estimates that the growth in the UK is being driven by the approaching implementation of a central government mandate requiring use of BIM on all national public projects by 2016, with over two thirds (67%) of UK owners reporting that the mandate has a high impact on their use of BIM.
“The McGraw Hill Construction report clearly shows the most important driver of BIM use in Singapore and the UK has been their national BIM mandates,” said Phillip G. Bernstein, Vice President of Strategic Industry Relations at Autodesk, which was one of the premier survey partners.
"With these two governments continuing to make infrastructure development a high priority, the adoption of BIM has become a critically important step towards minimising lifecycle building costs and improving the design quality of their built assets. The report makes evident that the desire to become an industry leader is an aspect of the BIM policies of Singapore and the UK. To this end, a significant impact of these BIM mandates has been to ensure that construction sectors are becoming more globally competitive,” he added,
The study also suggested that the influence of the mandate in the UK is driving a much higher general level of involvement with BIM by owners than in the US. Mark Putnam, President and CEO of Skanska UK noted, “The government's mandate is helping to drive change across the UK construction industry. Its 2016 deadline is accelerating the adoption of new tools and processes, which will ultimately deliver the collaboration and data needed to help achieve the industry's long term objectives.” He added, “When Skanska is an owner, we mandate BIM and have done so since 2008, as we believe it brings significant benefits. However, the report clearly shows that there is still much to be done before BIM is routinely used to develop more sustainable buildings and infrastructure.”
Despite the vigorous involvement with BIM by owners in US and UK, the study also revealed that they would expand their engagement with BIM if there were more industry professionals with BIM skills at design and construction firms, if their operations and maintenance staff had a better ability to utilise the model and if there were standards of model development and exchange to better enable use of the model across the entire project team.
The report also contains research on BIM policies in over 20 major construction markets globally, as well as qualitative research with owners on the use of BIM in Singapore and Scandinavia, two regions with strong, effective support of BIM by their national governments.
Source: McGraw Hill Construction
