Dive Brief:

• There is fervent and widespread belief that building information modeling – BIM – makes the process of design and construction more efficient and less expensive, but a BIM advocate says there is very little data to back up that belief for the client.
• Nathan Taffard leads BIM efforts in Australia for the international Meinhardt Group consulting engineers "That’s not to say it is not there but we have no framework at present for measuring BIM. It is more an assumed saving than money in the bank," he said of the cost benefits of using BIM for projects.​
• The way out of the problem, Taffard believes, is to have BIM consultants working for the client and taking the client's point of view, setting measurable savings goals from using BIM and checking whether they are achieved.

Dive Insight:

In Taffard's solution to the problem, integrated project delivery is an essential framework for delivering and measuring BIM benefits. He also advocates starting small with BIM-driven goals that are measurable and produce savings that the client can see.