Building information modelling: road to 2016

As is common knowledge now, in 2016 it will be mandatory to use BIM on all public sector projects. This has clearly spurned a lot of interest in BIM within the construction industry. However, the industry appears to be struggling to find its feet as to what it needs to have in place before BIM based projects become a reality. Uses of BIM technology and associated processes have been categorized into 3 levels and the 2016 requirement is for Level 2 implementations only. This paper outlines the requirements of level 2 BIM implementation and assesses the status of the industry as a whole as to its readiness. There are various pre-requisites that need to be in place, mostly in relation to process protocols and standards. This paper gives an understanding of the roadmap that needs to be traversed in order to be ready for BIM. This paper presents an outline of the UK Government’s requirements for 2016 before discussing and assessing the UK construction industry’s readiness. Finally, the paper gives an outline of what needs to be in place for the government’s ambitions to be achieved as well as a summary of some of the challenges along the way and possible ways of addressing some of them.