Advisian is the consultancy arm of Worley, an international engineering firm supporting projects across the energy, chemical, resource and other sectors.  The Christchurch Advisian office deals primarily with safety and risk management, from cyber security to climate change mitigation. Today we talk with Kristin Hoskin, about Advisian and BIM.

How does Advisian utilize BIM models? 

BIM is primarily used with our projects to assist with health and safety by design, assurance elements in work planning, user needs, sim-ops, and turn around or decommissioning planning. We also use BIM models as part of remote site monitoring and activities in places as far away as Africa, where a proxy person on site can assist with virtual reality overlays of design on actual work.

What changes in BIM use has occurred over the last few years?

BIM has gone from a novelty “nice to have” to being an expected communications, planning and assurance tool on many projects. BIM literacy is still weak, especially in in the contractor/worker space but with its many benefits there is definitely appetite to change this. BIM is increasing being used as an integral part of a project rather than as a future technology exploration. In the last seven years I have seen it progress from primarily a design tool to a range of on-site applications. The questions around BIM have changed from “what could it do” to “what is it doing now”.

What do you see as the main opportunities for BIM at the present?

A BIM model is a “true” set of quantitative data which can be used for cost/benefit analysis. The cost/benefit can be financial or representative of performance outcomes like Health and Safety or change of use planning. For health and safety, the particular opportunities are around communication, zoning for safe work, and high hazard risk minimization like working at heights. It can also be used for assurance purposes so demonstrate how a safe work process can be achieved before work starts.  Engineered design buildability becomes obvious much sooner and is far more apparent with a BIM model than a 2-d plan.

What do you think the future holds for BIM?

I compare BIM to other (relatively) recent technological applications such as GIS. GIS has gone from a silo tool to an everyday application in that it is now used everywhere in the same way as battery powered tools. I see a similar future for BIM in that tablets with BIM readers will be an everyday tool on site. My only real concern will be around accessibility of records as technology develops further. Paper records are easy to look up, find, and archive. As technology changes reading “old” files becomes increasing difficult, and the usefulness of a BIM file might not last for the 50 years that a structure may be designed for. However, the use of BIM makes design cheaper and easier, and makes future design changes much cheaper and easier. These efficiency benefits will be realized more and more as BIM use increases.