factory production through the modern assembly line at Oldsmobile and the use of magnetic conveyor belts by Ford Motor Company. The automotive industry is now acclaimed as a key innovator of digital information modeling. The 3D model is used to refine the design through the product lifecycle. For example, Suzuki recently aimed to remove 1 gram from every component in its next car: a win-win for company and customer, because weight reduction would result in huge cumulative material cost savings and lead to increased fuel efficiency in the car.
The model no longer exists just in the design phases; it’s used as a fabrication model too, and the use will only increase with the evolution of 3D printing and intelligent materials. Automotive manufacturing has benefited from imposed international standards for design and safety, and the utilization of standardized computer-aided design (CAD) platforms across the industry. One of the key lessons you can adopt from car companies is the importance of the client being committed to the adoption of new technologies that support the supply chain to ensure interoperable information.
The concept that expands an evolving information model into project management has been used for decades and is more accurately called product lifecycle management (PLM). Chapter 6 goes into more detail about integrated project delivery (IPD), a term you’ll often hear in the same sentence as BIM, and IPD provides an analogy that’s closer to PLM. BIM and IPD processes working together can be powerful.
Aeronautical and aerospace engineering
Aeronautical manufacturing has advanced to the point where every commercial plane is designed and built using a comprehensive information model. More than 20,000 global component suppliers and manufacturers can be involved in the supply chain for one aircraft, so the only way to manage and coordinate that amount of data is via a central hub utilizing live data. In the examples that we’ve encountered, the plane only ever exists in the virtual environment, and no prototypes or mock-ups are built for testing; the manufacturer does everything in a digital form until the final build, such is the trust in the data management.
Aerospace information models are also embedded into PLM systems, which completely integrate teams and information. This results in high levels of manufacturing quality and efficiency. Airplane manufacturers even embed checking approvals with qualification data, so that managers can track every decision back to an individual. If a component fails, airplane companies can see not only the use of that part in other aircraft and who manufactured the part, but also who installed it and what else they installed. You can see an overview of aeronautical PLM in Figure 3-1.
© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Figure 3-1: Product lifecycle management in the aeronautical industry.
The industry needs to respond quickly to market demand and performance requirements such as fuel efficiency or new emissions legislation, and it does so on a global scale. One has to be able to zip large amounts of data around the world to allow the kind of international team-working required in aircraft production. As a result of this precise quality-assurance process, the concept-to-delivery time for the latest single-aisle passenger jet design is less than 18 months, and in 2013, Airbus delivered 41 identical aircraft every month.
NASCAR and Formula 1 racing
You may know that in the mid-1990s a NASCAR pit crew became synonymous with continuous improvement when Ray Evernham’s Rainbow Warriors went through seasons of strength and agility training, video replay, and rehearsal to choreograph driver Jeff Gordon’s tire changes like a ballet. Emblazoned with “Refuse to Lose” across their chests, they took lessons from professional football and gave specific roles to each person based on his individual skills.
Since then, the crews have gradually tried to shave seconds off the pit times through these same low-tech methods. Now, though, teams are using real-time location systems (RTLS) such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to assess and train pit crews in practice, tracking the location and movements of the car, all the equipment, and the engineers themselves. The data instantly generates an information model to allow NASCAR crews to completely optimize performance and motion.
In Formula 1, where the cars don’t refuel and only have a single wheel nut, in the 2013 season Red Bull Racing changed all four tires in 1.9 seconds. During the race, the Formula 1 constructor teams use real-time information models of the cars to understand every element of car performance, from tire pressure and engine temperature to aerodynamic effects in different weather conditions. Interestingly, in order to maximize analysis, teams often feed this information back to their factory headquarters and then back to the racetrack. Think about the speed of your home Internet connection and consider how fast the communications need to be to relay data transmissions back and forth during a race.
You can take another great lesson from NASCAR and Formula 1. In selecting pit crews, the racing teams evaluate the applicants, and through the right assessment can work out where their skills and weaknesses are. The teams then provide training tools particular to that situation, rather than putting everyone through the same training or making everyone learn to do every task.
Also, some of the crew are former athletes, working in this new industry for the first time but using skills from their previous sports. In the same way, which of your colleagues can you see adapting to BIM and data management roles who can bring a different kind of expertise to the table? Where can someone add value to your organization’s BIM implementation?
The main advantage of information modeling is quite simple: no one owns information. You may be familiar with the traditional view of the concept of ownership: “This is my steelwork design! Why should you have access to my drawings?” or, “If you really want, I can tell you the height of that door, but I don’t see why you need it.”
Every single person on a team has a responsibility to make his information open and accessible in shared locations. BIM is more than just an innovative tool that helps some of the design team and an integrated central data platform that the client requires you (and everyone else on the project) to use in an open and intelligent way. Eventually, at handover, the client or the eventual building owner can take ownership of all the native model and exported data. BIM is a lot better than receiving hundreds of boxes filled with paper.
For example, consider the construction industry, which has traditionally worked in silos, usually reflecting the job titles or qualifications of each team or office, such as architects, structural engineers, quantity surveyors, mechanical engineers, and landscape architects. Everyone has his or her own set of data, probably using different software programs and managing information coordination in-house, releasing just what the client requested
