The design and construction sector will start to see the impact of new Queensland Government requirements for the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) this year.
From July 1 all government construction projects with a value of $50 million or more will be required to incorporate BIM from the early planning phase, the State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning department confirmed this week.
The system will be progressively applied to all new major government construction projects by 2023.
Townsville-based FortisEM consultant engineers and managers have wide experience with BIM and company director Bill Hutton believes the new State Government policy is a step in the right direction.
“I think it’s great to see the government taking a proactive approach to implement this,” Mr Hutton said.
“It will only lead to better outcomes for government projects.
“BIM has become a mainstay of our business. In our experience it leads to more accurate design, a higher level of co-ordination and more accurate results for clients.”
Among the greatest benefits was the ability to clearly convey a design concept to clients in 3D format, demonstrating its efficiencies and incorporating any changes made ‘on the fly’, he said.
However he cautioned that some misunderstanding surrounded BIM as a tool and a lot more training was required across industry.
“Many people think they are doing BIM – but it’s more than doing some 3D modelling,” Mr Hutton said.
“A lot of information goes into the back end of the model.
“It’s something that we and all our staff take a lot of pride in.
“We have taken a lot of time to train and make the most of these tools.”
BIM is an intelligent 3D model-based process that digitally presents physical features and characteristics of buildings, infrastructure and environment.
State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning Minister Cameron Dick said the new Digital Enablement for Queensland Infrastructure – Principles for BIM Implementation policy would help improve the way government infrastructure was designed, constructed and used.
“The principles used to implement BIM will be put to work as the system is progressively applied on all new major government construction projects by 2023,” he said.
“Our leading approach to the digital design and delivery of Queensland’s public infrastructure is front and centre, particularly for our number one infrastructure project – Cross River Rail.”
A department spokeswoman said the vast majority of architectural and design companies who tendered for large-scale jobs had already incorporated BIM into their operations.
But the Department of State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning and partner agencies like Housing and Public Works were developing implementation plans to include capability and capacity development for entities yet to adopt the technology, she said.
The Digital Enablement for Queensland Infrastructure – Principles for BIM Implementation policy can be found at dsdmip.qld.gov.au/bim.
