Are you caught up in the Silo?

Silos are organisational units where there is a breakdown in communication, co-operation and co-ordination with external parties or project teams.

Without doubt, the building and construction industry has been operating in silos for years; it is high time we performed differently if we need to meet societal goals and expectations. Some of the problems with working in silos include delay of useful information, uncertainty during construction, no common understanding and mistrust, dependency on other teams to solve problems, difficult to cope and manage a high-level complex project due to unclear objective and target goals.

The UK Government has already set a milestone in its strategy to mandate BIM on every central government project back in April 2016.

But wait a moment! It’s 2019 already. Where is your organisation now?

I am surprised that there are still misconceptions about BIM being for big companies only which many SMEs use as an excuse to continue working in silos. Perhaps thinking that being a mouse that gets the cheese is better than the early bird that gets the worm!

A small company, even a solo architect, for example, can still operate at the lowest form of BIM known as “Lonely BIM”. I believe BIM Execution Plan (BEP) can be set up in any organisation regardless of size. This involves ensuring your management, planning and documentation, SMPs (Standard, Methods and Procedures) and IT solutions meet the BIM levels requirements.

BIM is not scary; it’s only asking us to think differently and more importantly to work SMART.

Compared to working in silos, collaboration through BIM has proven its potential benefits in many areas of our industry including; health and safety on site, rapid off-site fabrication for a large percentage of building components, speed in decision making, reduction of on-site and process wastes and rapid iteration of simulations of building performance and construction sequencing.

If your organisation is caught up in working in silos, and you are thinking how to break the barriers, the good news is that help has always been around and I believe will always be.

Technical BIM Studio has invested and been involved in many projects using laser scanning technology and BIM. If your organisation is looking at ways to benefit from using 3D survey model and BIM, talk to us and we would welcome the opportunity to dicsuss your requirements and situation.