When it comes to smart cities, BIM is no longer just an option but a necessity. It is common for several teams to have to work together for infrastructure projects. There is a team that will look after the planning process, another one will be responsible for designing, another will be tasked to do construction, and there will be another to do the maintenance. It is in these scenarios that the use of BIM has increased. Tech entrepreneur Hassan Sadiq Himex enumerates the reasons why it is a necessity in the creation of smart cities.

One of the most crucial advantages of BIM is its ability to facilitate management and collaboration of communication and information among the teams that are involved in the project. In traditional functioning processes, some part of the asset knowledge tends to get lost the moment a team will hand the project over to another. This can lead to wastage revenue-wise.

The use of BIM allows for these shortcomings to be addressed through the mobility of information and making sure that everyone will be using the same set of processes and standards. As result, instead of decreasing, knowledge will increase as more information is added to it over the course of the project’s lifetime. The implementation of BIM also makes it possible for the architects to come up with design choices that are informed. In addition, wastage is minimised by contractors and complete their projects in a more timely manner. As a result, there will be considerable savings that can be experienced since delays are essentially avoided and prevented. 

The use of BIM, cities will never be isolated. Buildings will always be integrated with many other infrastructures such as utilities and transport system among others. This can be quite a challenging task to accomplish. However, this is where BIM really is above the rest. When projects chose to implement BIM, it helps open up opportunities for collaboration. With this, there is going to be free flow of data and information that is standardised across all the disciplines that are involved.

3D modelling and BIM technologies are both boons for the creation of smart cities. It is easier for contractors to get infrastructures modelled even when they have to be built underground. When working on the construction of a city, workers will now know how they can dig deep without worrying that they will end up crashing on a sewage line, gas pipe, or a fibre optic cable.
Designers for bridges, pavements, and drainage can also work with a model that is more immersive. Considering that everything is geo-referenced, there is also the bonus of true geographic representation.

The UK is now mandating the use of Level 2 BIM for every single government project. In addition, many governments all over the world are also considering BIM in a much more serious note. This is the reason why in an age where Big Data and Internet of Things are the norms, using BIM not only for planning cities but for managing them as well is very much a logical move. After all, the opportunities that it offers are quite limitless. To find out more about Hassan Sadiq Himex, follow him on Twitter. Find out more about Hassan Sadiq Himex by visiting his VB Profiles page here