Zero to (BIM)Hero: Shift from 2D into 3D in Digital Construction

Hello, everyone. I'm Vaishali Aggarwal, and I will be presenting today about 0 to BIM Hero, the shift from 2D into 3D. And this is the case about digital construction.

Me, I'm Vaishali. I worked with different automobile companies, which is described here. And I will be sharing what I learned from these companies, and also from my personal learnings from my academic education background.

So historically, the construction industry has always or mostly underperformed. The construction industry, which encompasses the real estate infrastructure and industrial structure, is the largest industry in the global economy, which is accounting for 13% of the world's GDP. And a closer look at its underlying performance highlights the industry's challenges in good economic times, if this alone is the time of crisis.

That's why in construction productivity opportunity, it's an opportunity where we see that 13% construction-related spending is done for the world's GDP. 1% of the overall sector's annual productivity growth has only increased. And if you see the amount of 13%, 1%, it's really tremendous. However, the spending in the construction tech industry has constantly increased from 2014 till 2025. So this gives us to the fact that there will be a productivity boost of-- at the moment, it is already 5x to 10x boost after BIM. And when all the technology and tech companies comes and digital construction is applied properly, then the productivity will be much higher.

For this, we have the opportunity of the lifetime when we see at the moment the manufacturing industry is 65%, while the construction industry, the increase is only 2.3%. But the GDP of US shows that it's much higher. So we have the full case where construction industry can already grow.

The root cause of the problem was all from the productivity impact. Three factors which are forming were external forces, industry dynamics, and firm level operational factors are majorly these factors which accentuates to the decline of long-leading task in construction. And then you see here the level of digitization which has affected in different fields-- the utilities, mining, retail, information technology. Construction is the least. So there is a full case where it can be applied.

The several ways to solve the problem would be if the regulations can be reshaped. And when it's reshaped more transparent to rewire the contractual framework; to rethink the design, and engineering process, and increase the standardization; to improve procurement and supply chain management; improving on-site execution in four key factors infusing total digital technology, new materials, advanced automation, and reskilling the workforce.

So today will be basically talking about mostly how applying digital technology, and then reskilling the workforce, how it should be actually used in the company. And if we want to improve the productivity based on these three factors which I mentioned earlier-- external forces, inadequate dynamics, and the firm-level based problems, we have to rethink of the design and engineering processes, improve on site execution, and then infuse technology to get better results.

But how and what do we want to exactly manage? We want to manage innovation. We want to manage quality. We want to manage the cost. We want to manage the risk management, and at the same time bring the time in which when it comes to the market. These will be only managed when the whole together building information modeling factor comes into place and which basically is based on three different parameters-- design, build, and operate; where analysis, documentation, fabrication, construction, construction logistics, operation, and maintenance, renovation, programming, conceptual design, and detailed design all comes into place altogether.

The components which basically BIM constitutes of is based on four parameters basically-- people, technology, policy, and processes. While technology we can directly think about in order to produce the task more efficient, and accurate, and on time; we need BIM modeling. We need simulation. We need integration. And then we need interoperability.

For policy, we need to focus on standards, project guidelines, legal and contractual documents, procurement, and then have a delivery plan about it. In process, we have to talk about information management, integration project, design management, processes, standards. But for all these bringing it together what we would need is the leadership, which is the most important-- collaboration with different members, and the owners engagement, skills, upskilling the current and the future employees, plus the customers. And this is a big responsibility.

The data, as you all know, is actually the new oil, and how and what do we want to exactly manage when we don't know how to manage it. So for this, we would need to address people's need. We have to think about enabling effective and efficient ways to solve the problem. But how can we make this life better? We can only make the life better when there is clarity which would create simplicity, and simple designs are really hard to forget.

Already construction industry is too complex. But to make this life easier, the changes which will come about the whole collaboration method is needed. So that people, process, and technology comes hand-in-hand together to create a digital solution.

In order to go from 2D to 3D visualization, we know that at first our brain always sees things visually. So 50% of our brain is basically involved in the visual processing, while it's 70% in the sensory receptor. AutoCAD and Revit are like oil and water. It doesn't go hand-in-hand together. Although the pointers which AutoCAD is dependent is based on it, it has to have a proper performance prior so that it prevents poor planning.

But with Revit, we can already achieve this before. In AutoCAD it has to be done much before so that we don't have mistakes. In Revit, mistakes and future planning goes together. But that's why we need to communicate properly. We need to coordinate properly which is an iceberg. What you see outside is much less coordination. And within the team, it has to be much better coordinated. And obviously we need to apply common sense.

But why do we want to do 2D and 3D? First to obtain uniform and high quality results, to address to BIM standards which will basically promote increased efficiency and project delivery, and to have happy customers and the team. The traditional workflow which you see here started from planning, then manufacturer, to construction work, operation and maintain, and then in the end the data was told in the database.

However, when we work in BIM, database is the central idea. Whereas planning, manufacturer, construction work, and operations all report to this database, which is basically the coordination model space in 3D, 4D, 5D, 6d, 7D, how many it is.

So at the moment in the market, the AC tools available for the planning are different like Word, Excel, Power BI, Outlook, whatever. For authoring we have Vectorworks, Tekla, Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, BIMobject. For analysis, there are also a lot of software-- Navisworks, IConstruct, BIM Assure, BIMcollab, Solibri, BIM 360.

And for use case, we have-- Daqri, YouBim, Ecodomus, Microsoft HoloLens. The market is huge. But we have to choose if we are working in already in openBIM, we need to think about which combinations of planning, authoring, analysis, and use cases goes well together to achieve the better results.

To achieve consistency, accuracy, and efficiency, from my experience, a company changed from 2D to 3D in construction, what a company must focus on is content. Content creation for Revit where basically content is created for project template, view template, detail components, annotation style, schedules and legends, parametric constraints, phases and design options, rendering assets, shared parameters, worksets, standard families, materials, and finishes.

Then to have the BIM going in a company, they have to create early stage drawings and then local task of schematics. For example, before in my company we used to have lot of repetitive tasks where in AutoCAD we have lot of schedules and one-line drawings. Then it was already imported in Revit. And with a parametric view we could use whichever one was needed. Health and safety information of how good a Revit model is, consistently there should also be consistent naming convention of families, files, materials. Clash detection should be done properly. A model questionnaire question-and-answer should be done.

Construction, operation, building information exchange can be done. Integration of 4D, 5D, and 6D is possible when a workflow is planned. And then for the tools, to achieve the task on time and on purpose, just third-party tools are not enough. We need to also invest in the company to have custom script, plug-ins, add-ins, so that the automated tasks and the repetitive tasks which consumes a lot of time, for example-- printing PDFs, exporting NWDs or exporting DBKs, and changing the file, creating a container model. That can be done using these custom scripts and other tools.

The strategy to create content, workflow, and tools were based on basically to get uniform and high-quality results so that it's user friendly, it increased efficiency, and then this adheres to BIM standards which was basically our target before. Autodesk Model Check for Revit is really important and a really useful tool which is basically is handy for BIM interoperability when we are working with different planners, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, sprinkler, and whatever. And then making one model, a coordination model where we have to check where are the miscommunications.

In order to achieve a good model, the Revit or the populated Revit model, has to be checked on time to time. How is the model exactly, to check the quality of the model? How is the model performing? What are the project settings? What are the external files which are linked? If everything is set into place or there are families which are 2 GBs or something, so that has to be checked which can be done very quickly.

And then in order to check the performance of the team, after weekly doing model check-ups, a dashboard can be created every monthly, so that we can check how was the team's performance overall, different teams' performance, so that this can be traced back easily.

Clash detection can be done beforehand rather than on the site. This is an example from Navisworks. But it can also be done in other softwares. So that this saves the time, the cost, and get better results more quickly.

In order to do 3D, from until now we have already achieved 3D. But in order to go further for 4D, 5D, and 6D simulations so that after the model is built, after the building is built, then these calculations are not done, this can already be done before. So that the heating load, the cost and if the model would be sustainable or not, this can be checked much before.

Health checkup can be done for the model. How good is the model? How many groups are there in the model? How many CAD imports are in the model? If there are more images, how many total views are there, so that we know if the model is a good model or a bad model.

Naming conventions are very important in a model. If the project is very complex, then everything has to follow a structure. There has to be a structural naming convention for the parameters, for the families, for the files, and for the materials.

After achieving until here, the BIM process which we followed in the company, at the end of the project every project after it's done, it's very important to grow with every BIM project. That's why a BIM level maturity test has to be done based on 10 parameters, which is employee information requirement, BEP if it's in place, what kind of CDE platform was used, if the digital site data that was captured, if the 3D models were in place, if the 3D coordination was done properly, how was the drawing incorporated into 3D, how was the 4D planning done, if there is model based QTO, and is what is the structure of basically data to handover to the customer.

So the step one would be to define and review each of these performance indicators so that in the beginning of the project we already know what has to be done for the next step. Step two would be setting the targets for basically the project.

Step three would be submitting a questionnaire during each phase of the project and after every stage of the project. So the same reason, data, so that it can be tracked. Then to visualize and track the progress, if the dashboard is created using Power BI or similar platform, we can track back how actually the project performed every month, every week. And then after the finish of the project applying the learnings from the mistakes for the next project.

For the asset lifecycle manager information, knowledge is the most important to plan content, specifications, documents, and drawings. Then comes the assets, for example, what kind of MEP models are placed, what kind of MEP functions are in place. Then the location of the structure is important. Then actually achieving the physical items of the structure, for example, from the manufacturer in order to have the complete asset of the building information model in the end.

Until now, if you see the development from the 1990s to 2025, we have already come across from 2D CAD to BIM, and now it's already BIM and digital twin. But if you see in future, we are already going beyond digital twin and smart building platform.

Different technologies are coming into place in BIM and digital twin. Where 2D CAD is placed at the really low bottom of the graph. And BIM is already in the middle, so we really need to brush up and push ourselves so that we are not at the moment just stay to the 2D world and go towards 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D. And talk before in the model, so that everything before is already built, and you know exactly how the model or how the whole building will performed when it's constructed. So we don't have to wait for two years, three years.

My takeaway from this presentation would be to establish a clear strategy and set of standards, provide targeted trainings for optimal results, emphasize functionality in complex systems, incremental content template, and development which is very effective, and learn from both the success and mistakes of others, and don't worry about making errors. Thank you.