In his recent Architecture, Engineering & Construction Industry Trends presentation, Marty Doscher, Vice President, AEC Industry, Dassault Systèmes, identified four accelerating trends that are driving transformative changes across the industry:
- Higher usage of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA), prefabrication, and modular construction.
- More data-driven decision-making as a result of greater BIM adoption.
- Expansion of Building Information Management (BIM) beyond design—in all stages of the project lifecycle, and by users across all disciplines.
- Growth of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) as a social industry experience.
As these industry trends build momentum, demand is growing for solutions to overcome the barriers to greater success.
For example, with increasing BIM adoption, Doscher expects to see a further increase in the use of VR as a design tool that boosts collaboration.
The 3DEXPERIENCity “Experience Room” is one example of how AR/VR tools work for AEC: stakeholders are projected into a collaborative workspace through which experts from government, business, urban planning, infrastructure design, and so on, can work together in harmony to define a city’s future.
The Shortcomings of BIM
BIM solves some of the AEC industry’s problems, but is not a total solution. BIM alone is incomplete.
Tweet: “#BIM alone is incomplete.” @MartyDoscher
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Most projects are still over budget and behind schedule—even now, more than 15 years after BIM was introduced.
Today’s document-centric BIM methodology is still unable to break down silos among stakeholders. Too much energy is spent managing lines of communication that, when broken, lead to RFIs and heavy administrative costs.
Plus, design, construction, and operations remain separate from one another. Once a facility is built, the operations team may receive BIM data. However, this data is insufficient for what is needed to support long-term maintenance. Instead, the operations team typically creates their own “digital as-built” of the facility with the information they need.
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