The UK BIM Alliance has changed its name to nima and put the emphasis on information management – rather than BIM – and its importance to as wide an audience as possible.
Nima is the Greek for thread, alluding to Dame Judith Hackitt’s golden thread of information. The name is not an abbreviation. According to nima, the name was selected “to help give the volunteer-led organisation an identity, sense of purpose and a set of behaviours that are better aligned with current and anticipated future UK thinking about digital working in the built and managed environment”.
Nima chair, Dr Anne Kemp OBE, is due to speak at UK Construction Week tomorrow (Tuesday 4 October). She will say: “The UK has been hugely influential in the international adoption of BIM since the launch of the government’s drive for change in 2011. Setting a BIM mandate in April 2016 did much to stimulate people, process and technology change and to help build a standards-driven movement. And since 2016, the Alliance has also helped maintain momentum, by, for example, supporting development of the UK BIM Framework.
“However, the debate has started to shift. It is no longer just about BIM – often seen as a technological change – but about wider industry information management challenges, including building safety, climate change, and delivering value across the life cycle of our built and managed assets.”
Clearing confusion
The move to a new name (that doesn’t contain BIM but does contain the ‘I’ and ‘M’ of information management) recognises how digital adoption in the built environment has been hindered by misunderstandings about BIM.
For example, various surveys recently have highlighted how construction professionals have misconstrued BIM as 3D design technology “rather than a process supporting purposeful use of information across the whole landscape of the built environment, from the inception stages of projects, through construction, and – most importantly – then to support efficient operation, maintenance and use of assets through to their end of life”, according to nima.
Dr Kemp will tell UK Construction Week attendees: “Our new name reflects the evolution of our industry and our organisation. We are keeping an international perspective, continuing to support digital transformation across the sector, and aiming in our behaviours to be as inclusive as possible. We are not the ‘BIM police’: we are a self-help community that anyone can tap into if they want to improve their information management.”
To find out more about the evolution of BIM to information management, register for our webinar on 1 November.
