Digital Construction Week
Digital Construction Week returned once again to Excel London on 5 June 2024, and it certainly seemed to be bigger and better than ever. As one of Airey Miller’s service offerings is Information Management, we always strive to keep up-to-date with industry updates in this field as well.
And the show certainly did not disappoint! Presentations were ongoing throughout the day on 10 different stages ranging from Asset Management to Net Zero - all very hot topics in these circles nowadays. Visitors were not only spoiled with a plethora of expert presenters introducing their latest findings in their subject matters, but also a huge array of exhibitors related to AEC.
Information Management
The day kicked off with NIMA’s IM mandate review update detailing the benefits of the revised mandate, emphasising the importance of digital twins and that of creating an infrastructure in the industry based on data sharing where data is treated as an asset.
Ian Massey from Bouygues, whose company utilises BIM in all areas of their work processes in passive fire protection, focused on their Golden Thread of Information initiative to build a safer future for everyone. He summarised the undeniable benefits of working this way as: creating a single source of truth; gaining robust, trustworthy information; creating a digital record/GTI and upskilling your supply chain in the process.
Net Zero Theatre
A heated debate was in full flow sparked by “We have the standards so why have we not fixed construction?” question. It was concluded by the panel that our standards are not yet fit for purpose; not only are they too complex, but there are too many of them too. Re-focus is needed to solve the basic problem of lack of understanding which should be achieved by training, sharing best practices, and providing guidance.
Asset Management
Better/Building Information Management should be the new norm - their main concern being that the digital way of working is not as widespread as it should be, and they are still working on effectively bridging project handover to operation. They called for the creation of a centralised digital asset register which would be make asset data transfer much easier and efficient.
“Avoiding the digital dusty drawer” presented by Trevor Strahan of BakerHicks. He used very entertaining examples to reinforce the absolute necessity of structured data and adopting a digital mindset. As Information Management is essentially providing the right information for better decision-making, it is certain that classifying information adds value to this process, but we need to understand the purpose of information to classify it correctly and to work with it in harmony. Inevitably, the use of a Common Data Environment and naming conventions is crucial for achieving good classification of information.
The fundamental need of workforce digitalisation was further discussed by an expert panel who advised from their experience that the main hindrance of the digital transformation journey the construction industry is on is the attitude of its people – the mindset has to be changed by education and upskilling.
The vital need of unique naming and classification was further proven by Jose Ignacio Montes Herraiz (Acciona) who demonstrated how the implementation of BIM strategies aids the delivery of the North London heat and power project.
Up and coming AI’s role in BIM was analysed by Lilian Ho of AECOM while the presenters from Mace shared their views on how to future proof data for the AI revolution and demonstrated how AI can be harnessed to assist with construction data collection, to check IFC and to create readable reports from these, to utilise it for COBie asset register validation and as a COBie compliance checker or a material identifier. They also pointed the audience to the government’s ‘Data Analytics and AI in Government Project Delivery’ document as a related read.
In conclusion, Digital Construction Week was a useful event and provided assurance to us that Airey Miller are well placed to deliver the digital information requirements of asset management, through our building safety case work with gathering building information through various formats of on site inspection using digital platforms, use of drones and mobile Lidar scanning equipment to produce point clouds and 3D visual walk throughs of building assets and tagging those assets with the key information.
Airey Miller have our ISO 19650 accreditation and dynamic technical flowcharts to ensure that we deliver to a consistent approach to Information management and generating the golden thread for our clients through our common data environment, lead by our IM team we ensure that we start with the end in mind.
