The industry’s faith that the government’s 2016 BIM mandate will be achieved is declining, according to the results of a survey by law firm Pinsent Masons.
In answer to the question “Do you believe the industry will achieve Level 2 BIM capability for all centrally procured projects in 2016?”, 71.3% of respondents this year said the target would be unachievable. Last year, the figure was 64%.
In addition, only 50% of the respondents had heard of the “Digital Built Britain” strategy.
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But asked more generally about the impact of new technology on construction processes and procedures, 58% expected a “high” impact, and 29% thought it would be “medium”, while 3% said “low”.
Asked about the specific technologies they expected to take hold in the industry. 67% expected to see 3D printed components arrive on site in the next five years, 59% were expecting to see drones, 58% expected to see “Big Data” make an impact, and 49% thought that Google Glass technology or similar would be in use.
The survey was completed by a range of contractors, clients, consultants and institutions across the industry, including the CIOB, WSP Parsons Bricnkerhoff, Mace, Vinci and UBS.
Importance of BIM in selection of trade contractors
Source: Dodge Data & Analytics
Meanwhile, a survey into BIM adoption in China by Dodge Data & Analytics (formerly McGraw Hill) with Autodesk has found that Chinese contractors are embracing BIM more quickly than architects – a reversal of the usual trend found in the company’s analyses of national BIM adoption.
The DDA survey found that 25% of the contractors are already using BIM on at least 30% of the workload, while 52% thought they would be at that stage by 2016. For architects, the comparable figures were 19% and 36%.
Just 14% of contractors in China rate themselves as BIM “beginners”, meaning a level of competence lower than other firms, while Dodge draws on previous research to suggest that the figure in the UK is 37%. Canada has the lowest number of “beginners” at 10%.
The DDA survey also compared how contractors in different countries viewed BIM adoption in their supply chains. It found that German contractors were most likely to demand BIM competence from supply chain members, at 39%, while only 21% of UK contractors expected their subcontractors to be experienced in BIM. In China, the figure is 33%.
