Although there were many discussions about the possibility of someday eliminating 2D drawing deliverables, no one has yet to break through the BIM delivery barrier. Instead, we heard of the move from merely talking about “lonely BIM” and “social BIM” to the topic of “big boy BIM” (perhaps more aptly named “grown up BIM”). What’s the difference between “social BIM” and “grown up BIM?” It all comes down to right of reliance. When John Tocci (CEO of Tocci Building Companies) shared the concepts of lonely and social BIM several years ago, he referred to the phenomenon of either keeping or sharing one’s BIM data. Grown up BIM addresses not only sharing model data between project stakeholders, but asserting the reliability of the data so that downstream users can avoid replication and redundancy.
We learned that before we can start to think about transformed deliverables, our industry needs to transform our processes and relationships. Design professionals have been focusing on ‘pushing’ data downstream, rather than thinking about ‘pulling’ it forward based on the needs of those who will consume the data (Josh Emig). All project stakeholders must buy into the BIM process for it to be truly successful, unfortunately, we are currently in an implementation state somewhere between distraction and leadership (Lindsay Pflugrath).
Also of note, the LOD Specification team announced a brand new “Part B” that addresses the development of model element attributes. This new addendum to the publicly available reference standard is posted for a public comment period