In my last post BIM Manager Superstar I talked about my presentation for Ideate Software. My presentation touched on the creation of my BIM Manual. As I mentioned in my last post I will begin to explore the creation of my BIM Manual for Infrastructure Engineering, Complex Buildings.
Although it may not cover every situation, your BIM manual should outline what happens at each step of your project. It should also include standard contractual deliverables from your firm. For example, your office may decide that every project created will deliver 4 rendered elevations, or all projects must be capable of O&M handoff.
Putting this part of the BIM Manual together is a team effort. The contract language for BIM should be discussed and understood by those doing proposals and reviewed and discussed with BIM Manager.
Your manual should start with BIM Use deliverables in contracts. Next, you will need a section that covers non-standard BIM Uses. In my BIM Manual I have two sections for each.
Being flexible with your BIM Manual will allow your firm to be adaptable during new BIM requirements from clients and government entities.
One of the best ways to achieve this flexibility is to list deliverables without specifying software. Don’t tie your Manual to a single tool. Make your tools work towards the deliverables and come up with processes and workflows to use them effectively.
For example I used Revit server setup by my IT department. Each Revit Server has to be on a separate Windows Server in order to maintain project security. There are specific security settings the IT department setup and maintain in order to secure the projects. Once BIM360 became our preferred resource we removed the Revit Server workflow in our BIM Manual and replaced it with a BIM360 workflow. I did not have to change any of the information in the BIM Manual; I only had to replace the Revit Server worksheet with the BIM360 worksheet.
The key to every BIM Manual is keep your manual flexible enough to be universally applicable to all the types of project in which your office is involved.
BIMFreak 