Does the US need a BIM mandate?

As BIM continues to mature and move from early adoption to the mainstream, some organizations around the world have developed specific standards for the organization of BIM data and mandated its usage for public projects. For example, there are multiple British Standards currently ratified and in use in the UK, e.g. BS EN ISO 19650. However, the United States has been slow to follow suit, and currently there is no universal BIM standard or mandate. While some might argue that a BIM mandate in the US is needed to drive adoption, that’s not necessarily the case. The dramatic improvements in collaboration and overall quality that result from a model-based design approach will be the primary drivers of change in the industry. Universal standards are valuable and their development will benefit AEC as a whole, but a universal mandate is not needed to effect the inevitable transition from CADD to BIM.

Current State

The US arm of the international buildingSMART Alliance has developed a National BIM Standard-United States. Similar to the US National CAD Standard (NCS), these resources provide guidance for standardization and implementation of BIM processes. From my vantage point, it seems that the BIM standard is enjoying some level of adoption within the vertical industry. There are also signs that this standard is starting to see some uptake for linear projects. This is encouraging, as it could help avoid the fragmented CADD standards adopted to varying degrees by individual state DOTs. Although road and bridge construction is very similar from one state to another, there is some friction in context switching between interstate CADD environments. A pooled effort to develop standard workflows, business processes, and terminology would be a great benefit and avoid duplicate effort at the individual state level. Vendors such as steel suppliers could then count on the fact that fabrication data supplied via IFC in one state would be consistent with others, thereby reducing overall production costs and RFIs.

Probably the biggest obstacle to BIM implementation is that our industry in general - and especially contractors - are wary of new tech and comfortable with the status quo. There is risk in that which is unknown. Risk ends up being priced as additional costs in bids as contractors insulate themselves when undertaking more work. This can be compounded by experiences of the ghost of tech rollouts past that have not gone smoothly. However, this issue seems to be resolving itself naturally as older generations continue to age out of industry and are replaced with younger workers that are more comfortable with technology in general, having grown up with mobile devices and social networking.

Parallels to the Built Environment

We have national standards for physical items such as steel sections and precast concrete beam configurations. Just as these standards for physical components help drive uniformity and efficiency, so too would standards for the data structure of the corresponding digital twin be beneficial. As these standards are implemented and battle-tested, they will be better understood by practitioners and better implemented by software vendors. A precaster wouldn’t want to buy a separate set of forms for each DOT they were prequalified in - especially if the variations were minor and seemingly aimed at individual preference as opposed to specific function. Similarly, software developers would much rather avoid significant configuration differences to accommodate multiple jurisdictions. Uniformity reduces both the initial development effort as well as the cost of ongoing maintenance and new feature development for a digital product offering.

Summary

A universal mandate for BIM seems attractive in theory, but it’s not a requirement for the disruption that is already underway in AEC. Practitioners that have already embraced BIM and model-based design would never dream of going back to 2D-only workflows. The improvements by utilizing a shared model as the single source of truth will continue to naturally drive adoption, as has been evidenced in the vertical industry over the past 15+ years. Universally applied standards for BIM data and workflows will be a force multiplier during this transition, but the transition will happen with or without a universal mandate.