by Michael Tardif, Assoc. AIA
Contributing Editor

Summary: The common though often unspoken theme of the AIA Future of Professional Practice conference in December was workflow—the study of how information moves through an organization and the relationships among individual tasks in a sequence of activities. While building information modeling (BIM) has been the primary catalyst for an industry-wide conversation about streamlining the building design and construction process, a broader movement is under way to examine and streamline business processes that lie beyond the scope of individual projects.

It’s all about the structure
The core attribute of BIM that distinguishes it from the technologies that preceded it is not geometric modeling, but structured information—information that is organized, defined, and exchangeable. Unstructured information, by comparison, is difficult to identify, manage, or exchange. If you have to search for a needle in a haystack before you can sell the needle to a customer, the needle becomes a cost center instead of a profit center; it may be cheaper to go out and buy another needle.

A database of structured information is an asset that can be used to create value, either within an organization or for the marketplace

A database of structured information is an asset that can be used to create value, either within an organization or for the marketplace. Firms can now use BIM audit and analysis tools—for clash detection, energy analysis, sustainable design analysis, code compliance, or construction cost estimating, to name a few—to perform professional tasks that would have been prohibitively expensive for most firms in the past. These tools exist only because the building information they analyze is available in a structured database. Many more such applications will emerge as the volume of structured building information grows and more people recognize the latent value of that structured information.

Creating value for the client and the firm
Moving from an unstructured to a structured information environment is neither cheap nor easy. BIM authoring tools—the large, robust applications that are used to create and compile most of the information contained in a building information model—are costly to purchase and implement in a firm. But deploying a BIM authoring application in a firm is only a first step. The real value of BIM to any firm lies in leveraging the structured information contained in a building information model to create value, not just for the client, but for the firm. The key is a critical evaluation of the firm’s core competencies and strategic deployment of appropriate software tools to shift the firm’s output of work from routine, low-value-added tasks toward high-value professional services.

The real value of BIM to any firm lies in leveraging the structured information contained in a building information model to create value, not just for the client, but for the firm.

Audit and analysis tools typically are far less expensive than authoring tools and have a far greater direct payback. They are easier to learn than authoring tools because they typically are designed do one thing very well. They enable experienced and knowledgeable design professionals to leverage a vast database of statistical or technical information for a particular project at a marginal cost.

For the early stages of a project, pre-design BIM tools can be exploited to accelerate, automate, or streamline tedious and expensive information-gathering processes. A firm specializing in historic preservation, for example, can deploy laser-scanning technology to document existing conditions, dramatically reducing the time and cost while significantly improving the quality and detail of the information gathered. Other tools are available that are specifically designed for the master planning and programming stages of projects.

Cost down, quality up
Design firm leaders often ask how they can pass on the added cost of developing robust BIM models to their clients. Clients, however, will only pay more for something if they perceive that it has greater value, and the value of BIM models to clients—for now—is difficult to demonstrate. The reality is that the financial impact of BIM on design firms will be somewhat perverse. Improvements in efficiency and productivity resulting from BIM will cause the unit cost of professional design services to go down while the quality and value of those services will go up. This is an axiom of economics that is taken for granted in other industries such as automotive or computers, but is more difficult for design professionals to embrace.

The key to leveraging any technology to increase profitability is not higher fees but reduced cycle time

The key to leveraging any technology to increase profitability is not higher fees but reduced cycle time. Whenever the amount of time—or unit of labor—needed to complete a task can be reduced, the efficiency and profitability for completing that task increases. Whether the additional profit accrues to the firm or is passed on to clients is a business decision. To be sure, improvements in efficiency and productivity will exert downward pressure on professional service fees—both computers and cars are better and cheaper, relatively speaking, than they were 20 years ago. You may not be able to control the market forces that determine compensation rates for professional design services, but you are fully in control of how well you maximize the value of your firm’s core competencies and how efficiently you deliver those services. That’s why Toyota makes record profits while U.S. automakers lose money in the same market.

Some increased efficiency can be achieved through incremental improvements in workflow, but the greater gains will come from transformational changes in business processes. If you’re a wholesaler of sewing needles, you might increase your profit by 10 percent by finding a cheaper supplier, but you could increase your profit 400 percent by not storing your inventory in haystacks—and the building industry is full of haystacks.

With the right tools . . .
Perhaps because of BIM, as an industry we are increasingly casting a critical eye on other types of information and business processes and asking how these can be reorganized in a structured way, whether the process is design, construction, marketing, communication, project management, professional development, or financial management. How much time does your highly paid staff spend managing e-mail? Processing submittals and RFIs? How frequently does your accounting department deliver project financial information to your project managers? Are your project managers able to act on the information provided? How effectively are you able to assess staff performance? How much do these non-chargeable tasks cost your firm?

We are increasingly casting a critical eye on other types of information and business processes and asking how these can be reorganized in a structured way

These are questions that are directly related to the availability of structured transactional information that is beyond the realm of any individual project and, for the most part, beyond the reach of BIM technology—enterprise-wide issues that can only be addressed by applying a strategic approach to enterprise workflow. Firms that focus solely on BIM may realize gains in project delivery only to be undermined by a rising operating costs. Substantial gains can be achieved from a new generation of powerful business enterprise productivity tools. Critical analysis and deployment of these tools will be part of successful business strategies for 2008.

Copyright 2008 Michael Tardif