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Cloud Computing: The New Face of BIM and Real-Time Design

Historically, companies are tied to their
heavy-duty office workstations, which
makes it very difficult to achieve the
ultimate goal, the Big BIM process
Bart Vande Kerckhove, BIM Manager
SUMMA-architects

THE STATE OF BIM

GAINING A COMPETITIVE EDGE

Some architects and engineers refer to

Building Information Modelling (BIM) as an
evolution of existing 2D-to-3D technology.
But BIM is much more than access to Revit
applications or clash detection capability.
For example, a building owner recently
asked one of our partners to recommend
materials in his new project that would
appreciate in value over the years. The reason,
of course, is that he plans to sell the building 10
years from now at a much higher price.
This meant selecting the right materials in
the early phase of the design by focusing on
such attributes as durability and reusability
as opposed to cost alone. Today, it is possible
to save this type of data in a BIM model that
stores all relevant building information during
the building projects life cycle.
BIM also facilitates project collaboration.
Participants in the building process can
cooperate on information models that are
perfectly connected with each other and
are integrated in a central database. Once a
project has been completed and delivered,
this database can be handed to the building
owner who can then use it for facility
management and operation. These modern
tools bring transparency and efficiency
to the building project life cycle, and help
ensure that a building can be completed on
time and on budget.

In Q2 2016, the BIM level-2 framework will

become mandatory for public projects. A
recent conversation that we had with the
Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), shows
that their members face major challenges. For
example, the ICE brought up a situation where
a large architecture firm from the UK recently
lost a project to a competitor because it
couldnt demonstrate sufficient BIM expertise.
As a result, ICE will step up its efforts to drive
BIM adoption among its members.
According to the BESIX Group, less than 5%
of projects are currently delivered on time and
on budget. Clearly, we must find better ways
of increasing project management efficiency.
Interoperability and collaboration among AEC
companies, in particular, is crucial, and BIM
technology adoption will be essential in order
to remain competitive over the next few years.

REAL-TIME COLLABORATION ON 3D MODELS:

THE CLOUD ADVANTAGE
Information Technology (IT) plays an
important role here. Deployment speed and
performance limitations, however, hinder
collaboration among multidisciplinary teams.
Deploying infrastructure and managing
systems performance is a time-consuming
and devious process, says Kristof
Vandenbogaerde, BIM Manager at BIMplan.
A Belgian company, BIMplan works as a

With new technologies such

as GDaaS, engineers can
work from anywhere, at any
time, on any device.
Rudi Van Thienen, Revit
designer 2Rebuild

mediator on large BIM coordination projects,

and often faces IT-related issues in the early
stages of joint ventures.
Speed is always a factor in these projects.
All project phases must go through a planning
process. But this planning doesnt always
take into account the time that is needed for
effective IT deployment. IT managers must
be quickly brought together to provide project
engineers with the necessary BIM tools and
workstations.
Project participants also run into Revit
Server collaboration issues. The participants
may all use their own servers, but who will
be hosting the central model, and who will
assume responsibility for the database?
Discussions can also quickly arise among
partners about who will pay what and to
whom. Systems performance during the
design phase can also suffer because of poor
3D model synchronization across servers and
workstations -- particularly in geographically
dispersed sites that end up wasting time
and money.
Fortunately, cloud technology can now
deliver a solution by providing easy access to
Revit servers and workstations in the cloud.
Revit workspaces are simply virtualized
workstations that engineers can access on any
device -- including laptops, tablets, and thin
clients -- over an Internet connection.
These workstations CPU, graphics cards,

Windows OS and apps run virtually in a

datacenter. Only the screens are transferred
to the end-user. Both data servers and
virtual workstations for computing reside
on the same cloud. This makes real-time and
synchronized design on the same 3D models
possible. Whats more, this IT infrastructure
-- including virtual workstations -- can be
deployed in minutes instead of weeks.
This new technology is called GDaaS -where G stands for GPU / Graphical and
DaaS for Desktop-as-a-Service. The result
is shorter lead times for overall building
projects, as collaborating teams no longer have
to waste time synchronizing data and waiting
for IT support. Interested engineers can
request a trial via www.gdaas.com.

WHAT ABOUT SECURITY?

The future of design may lie in the cloud,
but is this technology secure? We asked Jan
Festjens, product manager at Cloudalize and
former IT manager at a large architecture
firm to respond to this concern. Ive seen
workstations and CAD laptops stolen on
construction sites, he replied. Security on
these computers is often deficient. Data
and 3D models, as a result, may fall into the
wrong hands.
Under the cloud model, in contrast, the
Windows OS, apps and even the entire
computer run in the cloud. Only the screens

get transferred to the end-user device.

So the disappearance of a device isnt
associated with the loss or theft of expensive
hardware or data. In fact, the securitylevel protection associated with virtual
workstations now compares favourably with
that of home banking.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR BIM MANAGERS

Adopting a BIM collaboration model does not
usually happen overnight, and BIM managers
continue to face challenges. Implementing
a disruptive technology on 30-year old
workflows, for example, requires more than
learning new software.
It is important to understand what resources,
roles and responsibilities are needed to create
a self-sustaining BIM ecosystem. As new
countries mandate BIM adoption, however,
we can expect that use of this technology will
continue to expand exponentially.

RUNNING THE NUMBERS

BIM technology, cloud computing and
real-time collaboration go hand in hand.
As statistics become more available, it also
becomes easier to support a business case for
adopting BIM and collaboration models.
Indeed, the cost of errors/failures now
ranges from 5 to 15% of a projects total
cost. This is a huge waste of resources and
money that can be avoided through the

use of BIM technology.

We know, for example, that detecting a
potential clash or error in the design phase
of a BIM project costs up to 13 times less
than during the construction phase. BIM
technology also reduces CAD drawings
rework from 48% down to 2%. Equally
important are commercial advantages:
leveraging BIM technology in sales proposals,
for example, can increase by a factor of six the
odds that a company will win the project.

ITS TIME TO CONSIDER CLOUD

Not only can BIM technology can assist
with the bidding process, but there are other
benefits as well. Among them: real-time access
to project information, a reduction in the
number of potential failures/mistakes, and
the ability to identify potential clashes early at
the design stage. The emergence of improved
4D simulation and project visualization
techniques confirm these trends.
Thanks to new developments in cloud
computing, such as the emergence of the
GDaaS cloud platform and integration
technologies, fast and efficient BIM adoption
by IT is at last becoming possible.

If youre interested in a presentation featuring the

statistics that are mentioned in this article, you can
download it for free at
www.gdaas.com/bimcs