The BIM Toolkit required to complete Level 2 BIM will move into its public BETA phase on Wednesday April 8 at BIM Show Live in Manchester.
This will enable the industry to begin trialling the Toolkit and giving valuable feedback for the final stages of development, before it is officially launched in June.
Comprising a new unified classification system and digital plan of work, the NBS BIM Toolkit will be free to use and made available via a dedicated website.
The NBS BIM Toolkit website will move from private to public BETA to coincide with BIM Show Live, one of the UK’s leading BIM events, enabling construction professionals to start using the Toolkit on Level 2 BIM projects. Users will benefit from step-by-step support, enabling them to define, manage and verify responsibility for information development and delivery at each stage of the asset lifecycle.
In a special conference session covering the BIM Toolkit and digital plan of work, Dr Stephen Hamil, Director of Design and Innovation at NBS and project lead for the BIM Toolkit, will be joined by Steve Lockley, Professor of Building Modelling at the BIM Academy and David Philp, AECOM’s Director of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Head of BIM for the UK Government’s BIM Task Group.
Live demonstrations will follow on day one and be held throughout day two for the remainder of the conference. Following on from BIM Show Live, NBS will also be hosting a series of webinars to provide further opportunities to understand how the digital plan of work functions and how to formulate a project using the software.
In addition to a wealth of technical content, users will be able to access a support area that will include a series of articles providing expert advice on a range of relevant subjects such as; the concept behind Level 2 BIM, the levels of detail for construction objects and how to develop employer’s information requirements.
Free-to-use, the NBS BIM Toolkit will empower all parts of the construction industry. Clients and managers of assets will be able to comprehensively define information requirements to ensure their needs are met and better project outcomes are guaranteed.
Design and construction teams will be able to assemble a team with clearly assigned roles and responsibilities to work collaboratively on their Level 2 BIM projects.
Finally, manufacturers will be able to provide digital information quickly and easily to specifiers on thousands of construction projects.
The Toolkit has been developed by NBS in conjunction with colleagues from BIM Academy, BDP, Laing O’Rourke, Mott MacDonald, Microsoft, Newcastle University and RICS. In September 2014, the team was awarded £1m in funding from the Technology Strategy Board to take forward development of a digital toolkit, in preparation for the Government’s 2016 BIM mandate for all central government projects.
The project, which is being supported by the BIM Task Group and Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, is seen as a vital part of the global race to develop an open standard and supporting tools for BIM adoption.
With the UK market for BIM-related services estimated to be £30bn annually by 2020 and UK-based firms already exporting £7bn of architectural and engineering services, taking a leadership position in developing BIM will provide strong potential for further export growth.
