BIM and Integrated Design - a new book by Randy Deutsch

Friend of KnowledgeSmart, Randy Deutsch, has written a fantastic new book, called, 'BIM and Integrated Design: Strategies for Architectural Practice'.

Unlike many of the recent books and manuals on BIM, this book is devoted to the subject of how BIM affects individuals and organizations working within the construction industry.

As one of the most popular speakers and presenters on the AEC circuit, Randy is well placed to comment on the journey that many firms are currently making towards BIM adoption.  In his book, Randy discusses the implementation of building information modeling software as a cultural process with a focus on the technology’s impact and transformative effect—both potentially disruptive and liberating—on the social, psychological, and practical aspects of the workplace.

BIM and Integrated Design answers the questions that BIM poses to the firm that adopts it. Through thorough research and a series of case study interviews with industry leaders, this book helps us learn:

•  Effective learning strategies for fully understanding BIM software and its use
•  Key points about integrated design to help you promote the process to owners and your team
•  How BIM changes not only the technology, process, and delivery but also the leadership playing field
•  How to become a more effective leader no matter where you find yourself in the organization or on the project team
•  How the introduction of BIM into the workforce has significant education, recruitment, and training implications

Covering all of the human issues brought about by the advent of BIM into the architecture workplace, profession, and industry, BIM and Integrated Design shows how to overcome real and perceived barriers to its use.

Click here for a link to Wiley's website, for more information and to order a copy of Randy's book.

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White Frog - Modular Courseware for Revit

As part of our 'Links to Learning' development, we have been working closely with the team at White Frog Publishing, to write new assessment content for Revit, across the 3 core disciplines (Architecture, Structure & MEP).

The Principals of WF have exceptional industry pedigree.  Peter Routledge was MD of Tekla UK and has a huge amount of experience in the AEC sector.  Paul Woddy is one of the UK’s leading independent Revit authors and trainers, having been involved with the product since the very early days, before it was acquired by Autodesk.

The WF training materials cover 13 core modules, plus a further 6 discipline-specific topics.  Similarly, the KS assessments present 95 new questions, across these 19 modular areas.  The first new module, Revit Architecture 2012, goes live next week.  The questions are written to comply with the AEC (UK) BIM Standard.

The idea, very simply, is to dovetail the KS results and highlighted skills gaps, into the appropriate modular courseware developed by WF.  Unlike other Revit training resources, or video tutorials, the WF content is intended for instructor-led training and designed with the trainer in mind, whether a full-time professional trainer or a part-time internal trainer, it includes all the tools to deliver high quality consistent training for AEC firms. In addition to delegate notes, the trainer gets access to trainer notes, slideshows and datasets to support the lectures, as well as more datasets, drawings and AVI videos to support the practical exercises.

For more details, go to http://www.whitefrog.co and register for a web demo.

By the close of the year, our intention is to create assessments for RAC 2012 (metric & Imperial), RST 2012 (metric & Imperial) and RMEP 2012 (metric & Imperial).  More information and live product demonstrations of the combined assessment & training solution from KS & WF will be on display at Autodesk University.

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Revit Standards

There has been much discussion in recent months, surrounding the topic of common methods of 'good' working practices, in particular for firms using Revit.  Earlier this week, I attended the Leeds RUG and enjoyed listening to visiting speaker, Neil Munro, from Opus NZ, talking about Revit Standards & Protocols.

Just a few weeks ago, whilst attending RTC AU, I sat in on an interesting presentation from the committee responsible for the Australia & New Zealand Revit Standards document.  Here is a link to the ANZRS site, which is definitely worth a look:  http://www.anzrs.org/blog.

And of course we have our own home-grown initiative, the AEC (UK) BIM Standard for Revit, which has been making impressive progress over the past couple of years, with a strong committee-led approach:  http://aecuk.wordpress.com.

There is a useful discussion thread on standards to be found over on Revit Forum.org.

And this month, the Twittersphere has been ablaze with postings about the new Open Revit Standard, led by industry stalwarts, Sean Burke and David Fano, among others.  For those Twitterers among you, search for the hash-tag #OpenRevStds, to follow the ongoing dialogue.  And check out the new wiki-style site: http://openrevitstandards.com.  This promises to be a fascinating initiative.

So I got to thinking.. as Revit is already a hugely popular topic for skills assessment material, how useful/feasible would it be, to create a series of KS modules which cover 'good' practices for Revit standards?   

I'm thinking of modules covering the following core areas:  Creating a Revit template file, Installation & setup of Revit, Project start-up process, Work sharing, Creating & managing Revit Families, Collaborative working, Draughting standards, Model management.  Anything else?

And whilst I appreciate that such modules would naturally vary from firm to firm, is there sufficient common ground, to enable the creation of a 'generic' set of Revit standards questions, which could then be edited by individual firms, to wrap around their own in-house standards & protocols?  Would it be too much to suggest that anyone starting a new Revit project, must first demonstrate to the team Principal or Job Captain, that they have taken (and aced) the project start-up module?  That they do, in fact, understand key 'do's and don'ts' before being allowed to start work on a live Revit project.

Further, what if, instead of one individual author doing all the heavy lifting on this one, we employ the concept of 'crowdsourcing' the content, one module at a time?  For example, if we start with Revit project start-up process and deliver a module of 20 questions on this subject.  This makes more sense than 200+ firms all reinventing their own version of essentially the same wheel! In my experience, it is far easier to start with an existing set of data, than to write everything from scratch, each time.

So, to start the ball rolling - and to see if the concept has potential - what if we invite 10 KS-friendly firms, to write two questions each, on general Revit standards for project start-up?

My thinking is that this could be a 'free' resource, for any firms using Revit, who want to assess their users' understanding of in-house standards.  The 'cost' of entry to the club, however, could be to submit two (or more) questions to the overall Revit Standards 'pool'.

We have a number of Revit specialists whom we can call on, to sanity check the content and generally ensure that it is fit for purpose, prior to release into the Revit Standards library.

We'll be speaking to the team behind the Open Revit Standard, in more detail over the coming weeks.  It will be interesting to see if we can align any assessment content for Revit Standards, with the community-led initiatives currently taking place.

More to follow on this topic..

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