No-23-Bsi-Newsletter

Newsletter No 23 • April 2016 Global standards for openBIM Launch of Swiss chapter New chapter to accelerate local BIM uptake A new buildingSMART chapter was launched in Switzerland in January. It has attracted membership of over 100 companies and more than 35 organisations along the whole value chain of the construction industry, making this a chapter with wide reach and influence. Background Although Switzerland is the youngest chapter in the buildingSMART family, Above right: The Monte Rosa Hut, a sustainable it is not new to the organisation, as the and largely self-sufficient lodging in the Swiss Kajima joins SAC country was previously represented Alps, was built using BIM software; the case study by the German-speaking chapter. is reported on the BIM HUB and the Vectorworks Kajima Corporation, the Japanese ‘But Switzerland is a country with website Credit: TBH Editor construction company with operations four different regions, four different ‘BIM uptake in Switzerland is around the world, has joined the languages and at least four different rapidly accelerating,’ confirms Alar Strategic Advisory Council (SAC). types of cultural behaviour, not to Jost, board member and formerly Kajima is the first company from mention the differences between the a member of the German-speaking Asia to join the SAC and is the cantons,’ explains Birgitta Schock chapter. ‘Strong clients like Siemens, second company from engineering who chairs the chapter. ‘Consequently Roche, SBB, Post and Credit Suisse and construction on the Council. we recognised that it was time for are actively developing their strategies The SAC now has representation Switzerland, with all its diversity, to to make use of the BIM benefits. from architecture, engineering and become an independent chapter.’ There are also initiatives from large construction, and software vendors. construction companies which are ‘We believe that digitisation within BIM maturity and benefits broadening the “pull” for BIM in the the industry is gathering pace and BIM is relatively new in the country. market.’ that the key enabling technologies ‘There are not yet a lot of projects ‘We are a small country,’ adds developed by buildingSMART are that can be officially branded as open Birgitta. ‘Knowledge is one of our critical to its future,’ says Hiroyoshi BIM,’ says Peter Scherer, who is resources and a way forward for Koizumi, representative director and responsible for national issues. ‘But our industry.’ executive vice president of Kajima. Kajima has global operations and there is already strong recognition Continues on page 4… of the value of IFC and open BIM wide expertise but is particularly processes at a grass-roots level.’ known for its advanced seismic At least half a dozen projects technologies. Having built the using open BIM are underway, in a first skyscraper in Japan, Kajima range of sectors including healthcare, Corporation has always been ahead commercial and university. One of the times in developing construction project that is attracting attention is methods for safe buildings. the LimmiViva hospital complex in This made it possible for Schlieren, near Zurich – an eight- Kajima to build the first storey building due to be completed high-rise building in Japan of in 2018. reinforced concrete, as well as The benefits of BIM to a small the world’s first building with country like Switzerland are beyond seismic response control. question, as board member Mark Staying ahead of the Baldwin strongly believes. Mark’s times, Kajima has been connection with buildingSMART developing new seismic goes back some six years, having resistance methods such as served as the IUG representative base isolation and vibration for the Middle East chapter during control, new materials such 2010–12. ‘Stakeholders all along as large-space membranes the value chain of our industry will and new nuclear power station benefit from open BIM,’ he says. ‘And construction methods. buildingSMART, with its international Above: the Himeji Castle restoration involved Kajima’s strengths in construction standards and programmes, will help repairing and reinforcing the structure, as well as will make it a valuable member of the replacing the roof tiles the Swiss industry get up to speed.’ Strategic Advisory Council. 1 to keep track as What the intranet can do for us… people move An interview with Richard Kelly between teams, ensure the As buildingSMART has grown, with the addition of new rooms and activities, filing structure the need for improved internal communication has become evident. The isn’t becoming buildingSMART intranet was developed during 2015 and given a soft cluttered launch after the Singapore Summit. Richard Kelly, director of operations, and respond takes questions from editor Betzy Dinesen and explains the rationale and to continuous development of the intranet. improvement With buildingSMART a growing yet break it. We’re a big believer in the requests. We are widely dispersed organisation, the continuous improvement approach to employing a PhD need for an intranet was clear. But quality. You know – plan, do, check, student, Juan how did you define requirements? improve. These first ten people tested Echeverria, on a part-time basis The main requirements were that it it really well and we made several at the moment had to make people’s lives easier improvements to its usability in those to help with the so they can work together more first few weeks. administration and first-line support. efficiently across the planet to deliver Once I was confident that the This is sufficient for now. solutions for a common cause. system was good enough to stand We are gradually giving team However, it also had to be scalable wider use, we started inviting in leaders administration rights as and capable of managing many other users. This was done on a well, so they can manage their own different teams so that people weren’t team-by-team basis rather than, say, team structures. I’m doing this in a drowned out with information but alphabetically. controlled way when we are sure could find what they need for their We now have over 200 people that people have got the right level particular activities. on the system with more being put on every day. Who knows how big it of capability in order to maintain the Can you tell me something about the will get? quality of the system. development process? Have you received feedback? In the wider context of internal communications and of enabling Richard Petrie – our CEO – and I set Yes, lots. Feedback is a gift and we the working groups to progress their ourselves a summer project. When actively encourage it. It’s an essential projects, how do you see the role of you are busy running an organisation part of the continuous improvement the intranet in the future? on a day-to-day basis, it is difficult to cycle. We are encouraging people find time for the big developments to use [email protected] for It is central to it. We want the intranet unless you give yourself a challenge. requests and feedback. to be the core of the working structure We originally thought that we could of buildingSMART. develop a system ourselves with What would you say are the top three some technical help; in retrospect benefits of the intranet? this was naive. But we knew that Collaboration, information-sharing and Tips for using the intranet the German-speaking chapter were efficiency. • Provide full and accurate profile pleased with their intranet and Rasso information – people need to know [Steinmann] introduced us to the team What does the management of the who you are and where you work from Plattform – a company attached intranet entail? And are you looking • When you write a news story, to the University of Mannheim – who for improvements? remember that only the title and had developed their intranet. When During this initial period, it has been the first part of the abstract will be we met them, we found that they quite time-consuming to ensure that displayed, so make them informative understood our needs immediately. everyone who is invited in is given a • Hover your mouse over an icon to That said, our needs grew as we meaningful and informed introduction. see the auxiliary text – most icons have text as well came to understand the layers of our Also, because we are populating it • And if there’s more than one green work structures and the capability of rapidly from empty, there has been a arrow, use the auxiliary text to see the system. I think we pretty much lot of work to do to make sure people what each arrow does managed to keep within our six-week have the correct access rights for • When you create an item, it will plan to have a trial system ready to their teams. This won’t be completely inherit the access right from where roll out. correct, by the way, so again we urge it is created, eg a news item created Can you tell me about the launch? people to tell us if they don’t have the in the ISG will inherit the group’s Why did you opt for a ‘soft launch’? access rights they need. access rights • Add [email protected] to We launched immediately after the The volume of effort will tail off as the rate of new introductions eases. your ‘safe senders’ list, so that Singapore Summit with ten volunteers emails from the intranet reach your However, there will always be a need who were asked to use it and try to inbox correctly 2 A common construction market for Europe CEN to adopt IFC4 The European Committee for Standardization, CEN, brings together the standards bodies of 33 European countries.

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