Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a new approach to building project delivery that uses data to create an information-rich model of a facility to improve the design, construction, and operation of the facility. Successfully implemented projects show significant benefits, including improved design quality, improved field productivity, cost predictability, reduced conflicts and associated changes, and reduced construction costs and duration.
By creating a digital representation of a building BIM increases our ability to impact costs and functional capabilities of a building and the processes used to design, construct and operate them. BIM software allows projects to be built inside a computer, when costs are low and changes easy to implement, before they are built physically and changes are difficult and costly.
A true BIM model consists of the virtual equivalents of the actual building parts and pieces used to build a building. These elements have all the characteristics - both physical and logical - of their real counterparts. These intelligent elements are the digital prototype of the physical building elements such as walls, columns, windows, doors, stairs etc. that allow us to simulate the building and understand
its behavior in a computer environment way before the actual construction starts. Nevertheless, with the advent of mobile technologies utilization of BIM has broken out from the close circle of professionals. Clients, building owners and operators are getting more and more access to BIM models through their mobile devices even without the need to installing a BIM application first.
Ultimately, however, BIM is not about technology or processes, it is about people and how the knowledge and wisdom of people can be brought together into a collaborative process to deliver a fully integrated project that meets all goals and objectives aspired to in from the beginning.
