1 min readROI on BIM: Where is the Evidence and Will it be Kept Secret?

Quantifying BIM

For projects, the missing piece to this puzzle has always been that you cannot build the same project twice in order to quantify what the savings would be in direct comparison to having it built traditionally.

Technology vendors say that BIM tools are the enabler to improved production of a project through a return to best practice project management. They are tools for companies to create efficiencies within their workflows and business operations. They allow project teams to economise and leverage their resources through upskilling and have more immediate access to information in a way that has never been possible before on a project.

By way of example, the Dutch company, Vabi, has just released the Vabi Financial Simulator™ which is a plugin for Autodesk Revit®. It has been specifically designed to bring together and display financial performance data across BIM design teams to demonstrate P&L, Balance Sheet, Discounted Cash Flow and ROI impacts of design decisions. We are likely to see more of this type of technology as we focus as an industry on how to determine savings during early stages of design seek greater assurance on the longer term viability of a project.

The Stanford University Centre for Integrated Facility Engineering is well referenced in relation to its 2007 report on a study of 32 projects from across the US, Europe and Asia. The study is reported to have shown that…