Bradley BIM-Revit Resource Portal

New York City Department of Buildings Approves First 3-D BIM Site Safety Plans

Turner Construction released their ground-breaking BIM Site Safety article in May 2012.

Turner Construction Company Received Approval for Building Information Model (BIM)-based Site Safety Plans

3D BIM Site Safety Plans Enable Building Inspectors to Take Virtual Tours of Construction Projects and Review them in Real Time on the Construction Site. Continue Reading >>

In August 2012, Turner Construction, provided a BIM Design-Build Healthcare Success Case Study for the Fort Benning Hospital at our DBIA - Federal Sector Conference in Washington DC.

The Turner Construction case-study, shared how they used the hospital BIM model to provide a dramatically safer construction process for their workers. In addition, the revised process increased the Turner Construction worker's output twelve-fold; thereby improving the construction schedule.

Description of Improved MEP Hanger Installation Construction Process:

Turner Construction is using a BIM-based construction process; that delivers a dramatically faster process for installing MEP hanger inserts; while providing a substantially safer work environment for construction workers.

The BIM process has enabled sub-contractors to connect geographically-position (GPS) technology and BIM facility files to create a way-finding, installation system. Turner teams collect hanger point locations; from the GPS coordinated BIM file (In the Office) for layout in the field.

Traditionally, MEP hanger inserts were installed from the underside of the deck; after the concrete topping was poured. We used a ladder (Less safe), drilling up into the underside of concrete. One worker could install approximately 20 holes a day.

The GPS \ BIM-enabled process, empowers a crew of 3 workers to install (From top of metal deck and walking with no ladder needed– (Safer) to install 750 hanger inserts\day.

Installation is much faster and safer – Simply walk to a hanger insert location using the GPS device --and screw in the threaded rods for pipe hanger racks, cable tray, electrical conduit racks, etc.

This is an excellent example of a time-saving, safer, and more efficient process to install 100,000+ hanger inserts into metal deck before concrete topping is poured.

Download 60-page BIM Report:

McGraw-Hill Construction Business Value of BIM for Owners Report

Facility owners currently using BIM, plan to actively increase their use of BIM on more than three quarters of their projects over the next two years.

Top BIM benefits perceived by owners include:

• BIM visualization to enable better understanding of design.

• Fewer problems during construction from deficient documents or coordination.

• More well-reasoned design due to BIM analysis and simulation.

• Beneficial impact on the project schedule.

   - Taking the Mystery Out of BIM for Owners & Principals | CM-BIM Classes -

Excerpt: As owners expand their BIM involvement, there is a growing need for them to understand how best to enable their project teams to provide them with he greatest BIM value. In other words, what makes a good "BIM owner"? Several experienced AEC firms offer perspectives on that question.

- Mayo Clinic BIM Manager – Project Model Development Specification (MDS) -

Excerpt: Owners who adopt BIM for facilities management are viewing numerous potential benefits, but they face a range of cultural and technological challenges along the way. In order to achieve integration, are pursuing a variety of these strategies.

McGraw-Hill Construction Press Release (Jan 08 2014) announced the download availability of their new BIM for Construction SmartMarket Report:

This sixty page report reveals the value contractors find in their use of BIM in nine of the largest global construction markets: Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, U.S. and U.K. It offers insights, both overall and by market, into the profile of contractors using BIM, the benefits and ROI derived from their BIM investments and the critical activities and practices for which they are using BIM. Specific snapshots of the contractor responses by region also provide additional understanding of the current use and future potential of BIM globally.

This link takes you to the McGraw-Hill site to obtain the free download thru their e-store.

 The Business Value of BIM for Construction in Major Global Markets SmartMarket Report

If you prefer, you can download the report from Bradley BIM site:

The Business Value of BIM for Construction in Major Global Markets SmartMarket Report

Recent (2013) and additional McGraw-Hill SmartMarket BIM Reports can be downloaded from the Bradley BIM Industry Links Page.

"Lean Construction" and "Information Mobility" SmartMarket BIM Reports were both released in 2013.

Forty videos and PDF downloads are posted on the Fall 2015 BIMForum Presentations Page from their October event in Orlando, Florida.

Hours of video and dozens of PDF presentation-class documents are available for your BIM Manager monthly BIM-Revit Lunch-N-Learns.

Visit The BIMForum YouTube Video Channel to access hundreds of hours of video content for business, project and BIM standards planning and training.

BIM Level-Of-Development (LOD) was highlighted within several presentations. Those presentations providing LOD are bold-faced in the list below. I admit, I haven't listened to all the presentations on this list --as they were released 2 weeks ago. I'll update the boldfaced list of LOD presentations once I review them all.

 2015 Fall BIMForum Class Presentation Topics | Videos and PDFs

1. BIM/VDC for Precon at Ledcor

2. Optimizing Project Decision Making with VDC

3. Designers Taking Back Control of BIM Design Coordination

4. How BIM Impacts the Structural Steel Fabrication Business

5. A PDF Does Not Equal Paper How the PDF Revolution is Advancing BIM Workflows

6. BIM before BIM’s

7. Owner Actions to Define Transparency in the Model-based Design Process

8. BIM Utilization Effectiveness – How We Became Effective BIM Producers While Driving Innovation Forward

9. Organizational Modules: Studying the Effects of Organizational Repetitions Using QCA

10. Taking Control of the Game – An Exploration of Virtual Reality and Gaming Workflows

11. Building Blocks in your BXP: BIM-M Initiative

12. Pre-engineered Metal Building Systems

13. Precast and BIM

14. Laser focus on accuracy in BXP: USIBD LOA & LOD

15. BIM Legal and Insurance Issues

16. Raising the Roof with your BXP: Steel Joist and Deck

17. Building Quality in your BXP: NISD CM-BIM by David Merrifield (NISD)

18. AEC Supply Chain Optimization – Building Information Modeling for Improved Productivity and Content Management for Off-Site Prefabrication in a Semi-Conductor Manufacturing Facility Retrofit Environment

19. 4D > 3D Model + Schedule

20. Preconstruction in Construction: Managing Change in a Billion Dollar Hospital

21. LOD Update

22. Live Cost Modeling & Production Analytics with BIM

23. Constructible Design: Merging Design, Detailing and Coordination to Mitigate Risk and Create Predictable Outcomes

24. Managing Design as an Information Supply Chain

Similar to Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line processes; BIM processes are reshaping the MEP design and construction (manufacturing) processes for facility projects.

Ford's automated automobile assembly-line process; reduced labor time & costs, while reducing material waste with modular, standardized parts.

Sheer production of the Model T dramatically increased. The production time for a single car dropped from over twelve hours to just 93 minutes due to the introduction of the assembly line.

Skanska Construction's BIM MEP Prefabrication construction processes are highlighted online via Tradeline with an insightful, visual article;

Building Blocks: Offsite Prefabrication Saves Time and Money -- Compressed Work Schedules, Worker Safety, and Access to Constrained Sites Top Benefits

Several maturing, project delivery processes are integrated to produce more efficient, 'manufacturing-oriented' design and construction processes.

(March 2014) I'm pleased to publish Bentley's formal announcement of Autodesk Revit Family support for their new AECOsim Building Designer V8i (SELECTseries 5) BIM software.

Our thanks to Bentley for using the Bradley Revit Family Library (1,000 families) as part of their larger data set --to test Revit family import stability \ integrity in the new AECOsim Building Designer V8i (SELECTseries 5) software.

Bentley's Technical Manager (a former Revit Manager) for this project, focused on

1. maintaining the Revit family geometry's dimensional integrity,

2. retaining the Revit family parametric & visibility control behavior,

3. retaining the embedded parameter data type values,

4. retaining the Revit family types (embedded or family catalogs)

This new feature immediately provides Bentley users access to 10's of thousands of Building Product Manufacturers' (BPM) Revit families in their native RFA file format.

 Bentley will supports Revit family file formats for Revit 2009 through Revit 2014. When Autodesk Revit 2015 is released; Bentley will begin testing the Revit 2015 new features of the family file format (RFA).

It demonstrates Bentley's commitment to both interoperability between different BIM software tools --and the value of providing their users with pre-built BPM BIM content for their Bentley design projects.

The Bradley BIM Initiative (founded in 2009) achieved five (5) new milestones for serving architects, engineers, contractors and facility owners using BIM processes and Revit. In 2014, Bradley BIM expanded its roles into these five (5) processes:

1) BIM for MEP General Contractor (GC) Prefabrication

2) Revit Content Interoperability (Bentley)

3) Revit Model Data Standards

4) Design-Build | Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) with an Expanded Digital Toolset

5) Revit As-built Model | General Contractor Collaboration

1) BIM for MEP General Contractor (GC) Prefabrication

In late 2013, I visited several BIM-based MEP GC fabricators; that were using Bradley TMV and re-circulation stations models in their CADmep plumbing fabrications. One firm was constructing one of the nation's largest corporate facility projects. Throughout 2014, we confirmed national MEP GC\Fabricators using Bradley Revit models.

In early 2015, Bradley TMV, re-circulation mixing stations, dialysis boxes and shower valve Revit models will be configured & available --to serve both SysQue (Revit) and CADmep (AutoCAD) for plumbing fabrication clients.

Related Articles

• BIM Means Business | Plumbing Engineer Magazine – ASPE

• Skanska Revit-MEP Prefabrication | Ford Assembly Line Flash Back?

• BIM Means Business | Plumbing Heating-Cooling Contractors – WI Association

Download 50-page BIM Report: