The development of a policy driven adoption processes for BIM and Digital Engineering (DE) across both buildings and infrastructure projects, has provided opportunities for strengthening consistency and enabling growth for an industry which has so often been at the edge of demise. And events in 2020 certainly pushed us to the edge!
The continuation and commitment to the development of industry skills and knowledge has instigated an amazing uptake in the desire to educate our teams in modern methods of construction and new practices for digital information management.
With this increase we have seen an upsurge in the way buildings and infrastructure project support growth in our cities and utilising BIM and other digital methods has become a matter of urgency for the built environment.
The international standards developed to support BIM have been exemplar when it comes to providing a framework for industry to work to globally. Without strict standards and governance, it is impossible to work collectively and consistently across an industry.
The release of the ISO 19650 series brought about great excitement and interest in the BIM community and beyond. It contains all the same principles and high-level requirements as UK BIM Framework and its Learning Outcomes and as such the UK BIM Framework has produced a guide to support trainers, such as Convergence in mapping out desired learning outcomes for training and education in information management through the use of BIM.
As BIM training specialists, we author our courses to these guidelines, which incorporate five core sections:
- Why information management using BIM is required, and its strategic context in the UK
- The implications and value of information management using BIM for your organisation
- How information requirements are identified and communicated
- How information is shared between organisations
- Understanding the legal and security implications of the UK BIM Framework and its interfaces with other important processes such as health and safety management
We believe that continuous learning is about the constant expansion of our skills and skill sets through with the purpose of increasing our knowledge base. As industries change the need to adapt both professionally and personally is as real as the changes themselves.
The development of digital skills from the very early stages of the implementation of the Government Construction Strategy and beyond have proven to the UK the importance of a policy driven approach when it comes to BIM. As we now know, the use of the standards supporting BIM are being used and driven globally to support other regions and we are on the right track to globalisation of BIM.
As an industry we need to understand the importance of training and workforce skills, what skills are needed now and what we will need for the future.
It’s also important to remember digital construction doesn’t exist in a silo, it is a supporting mechanism for a multitude of components which need to fuse together to form a greater part to allow the construction industry to better inform, collaborate and innovate.
Our industry in the UK – and across the globe – has the people, technology and resources to solve any construction problem or challenge. And the fastest way to achieve this is to recognise the importance of training and act upon this now.