Which BIM Adoption Option is suitable for your company?

We all know every company has it's own unique culture and way of doing things. This includes the adoption method chosen while implementing BIM as well. In general we can categorize the BIM Adoption Methods into 4:

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1- TOP DOWN: The decision is made by the management and dictated to the team. Sound horrifying, right? But not at all. One of the most successful methods. It requires a very strong and charismatic Manager to take the decision and make sure that it is executed. The team should be supported heavily in terms of technical issues during the implementation. I have seen 2 examples of this type and one of them is BIMES:) Our CEO decided to switch to BIM over night. We had an implementation period of 1 month and then all the 2D softwares were removed from the computers. It was a very stressful period for the team and even some members resigned as they did not like the change. Actually it wasn't a totally bad thing as we ended up with a team of fully dedicated team to BIM:) Within 1 year we reached to a level that the training guides and custom components prepared by our team were acquired by vendors.

 Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2- BOTTOM UP: The employees discover BIM and they self-study the tools. BIM is promoted by these employees within the company. To be honest, I haven't seen this in the Middle East.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

3- PARALLEL: This is the most common method in the Middle East. BIM is tested on a Pilot Project by outsourcing. If the test is successful the company starts a BIM Unit (usually 10 engineers). This initial team gets training from professional BIM Implementation Companies. They act as the pioneers and once they are experienced enough, they start spreading the knowledge within the company. This method is a bit slow. It takes 1-2 years for the BIM Unit reach the expected level.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

4- ORGANIC: This is the combination of all above. Employees are enthusiastic about BIM and even some of them have experience. The management is also familiar with the process and support the team to develop their skills and give them opportunity to use BIM in the projects. It requires the lowest initial investment. I haven't seen this happening in the Middle East yet. I think it's again due the large organizations and also not having experienced engineers in the region. Maybe in 5-6 years time, mid-scale companies can apply this method.


Well, now it's your turn to decide which one is the right method for your company!

Let me give you one more tip! Almost all our clients prefer "3-Parallel" but if you are brave enough and you company size is max 50 I would recommend "1- Top Down" for the fastest results:))

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

2 Projects from Middle East in ArchiCAD 16 Installer Images

Hello!

Today is the first working day after the Eid Holiday. 4 nice days...

I had a bit of difficulty to come to the office this morning. It was like a "Monday Stress on Steroids":)

Anyway, I am here with good news...

We have been awarded as BIM Service Provider for a "prestigious" project in the Middle East. Amazing design, amazing location and wow names... I am dying to give the details but we have not signed a marketing agreement yet so I do not want to get into trouble. I am sorry but we need to wait some time.

Talking about "prestigious" projects, have you seen the projects from our clients in the ArchiCAD 16 installer? Al Mohanna Tower, Qatar and Emirates German Hospital, UAE.

In my meetings, many times I heard the sentence below:

"I know ArchiCAD is very popular in Europe and Australia but it's fairly unknown in the Middle East."

Well, now I can easily say
"Not really! Just try installing ArchiCAD 16, you will see it yourself:)"

Have a great day!
Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Why large contractors are switching from other BIM Tools to ArchiCAD?

Recently there is a new trend which is quite interesting.

Large contractors are switching from other BIM Tools to ArchiCAD.

Common things with these contractors are:

• Invested large amount of time and resources on the implementation of other BIM Tools.
• Developed  significant materials on the BIM Tool they implemented initially. These materials include templates, modeling guides and standards
• Have not investigated ArchiCAD before making the decision of implementing other BIM Tools.
• They all have very professional teams who are perfectionists and they check the outputs very carefully. Making dummy models for clash detection is not what they want. They want real BIM. With "I" in the middle.

What I see is after a couple of projects with other BIM Tools, they start searching for other options and start establishing an ArchiCAD team. They run some projects in parallel and finally decide to continue with ArchiCAD.

Here the important question is "Why? Why do they change to ArchiCAD after investing so much in another BIM Tool?"

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It's not because ArchiCAD has a beautifully designed interface!
It's not because BIM Server makes life so easy!
It's not because ArchiCAd is a much more mature solution!
(I mean all of above are true but they usually do not justify burning up all the investment done)

The main reason is ACCURATE QUANTITIES in ARCHICAD!

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Quantities are the "Deal Maker" or "Deal Breaker" for contractors. If your BIM Tool does not give you accurate quantities, it will cost you profitability and sometimes even the project. (I wrote a post earlier about getting accurate quantities with minimum efforts actually. You can read it from here.)

This means switching to a ArchiCAD and getting accurate quantities will payoff within the first project even. I am pretty sure the savings on the first project will cover up both the implementation cost of ArchiCAD and the money and time invested on the previous tool.

As you see, it makes sense:)) Wise decision...

Actually they also mention the way ArchiCAD handles large models was also an important criteria! But I don't think it's the main reason. (This is my personal, humble opinion:)))

As my boss always says "Contractor is Contractor" :)))

PS: I haven't seen this trend with architects and consultants. They usually stick with the first tool they implement. Interesting, right?

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

ArchiCAD Tip! Empty opening with X Symbol both on Floor Plan and Elevation

Good Morning Everyone!

Today we have an ArchiCAD Tip!

How to create an empty opening with an X symbol both on floor plan and elevations. This is a request that we received from our Service Team and Jothi find a handy solution.

Guess what! We used Morph Tool for this:)) Jothi will explain you the reasons in the video.

However there is a small problem. It does not adjust to the width of the walls. We were not sure if we should share or not at the beginning. Actually we uploaded to object to BIMComponents.com last week and also prepared the video but when Jothi noticed the problem we removed everything.

This week, I saw that the Service guys are using the object happily. Yes, it has some problems but solves the more important issues. So I thought it might be a helpful tip for some of you too.

If you want to check the object you can download it from here.

Enjoy!

Diyane Koseoglu
Jothi Shanmugam
www.bimes.com

TOP 5 REASONS TO LOVE BIM SERVER

TOP 5 REASONS TO LOVE BIM SERVER

From the very beginning I am in love with BIM Server. Let me explain why?

1- Remote access is a game changer! You know we have 3 offices and from time to time, our Dubai Team should support the project that Cairo Team is working on, or vice versa. We used to pay a lot for travel and accommodation of the team to go to the other branch and support them a couple of weeks. Now it's hassle free. They just connect tot he server and work on the project without traveling. The other point is our relationship with the clients. We give the client Viewer Access to the project so that they can regularly check our progress. This is such a relief and trust builder for the client. Actually I heard the same comment from many other ArchiCAD users. 

2- Easy to Setup! Even a 10 year old can make the setup. (I am not exaggerating. I have experience with small kids learning & using ArchiCAD as you remember from BIM for Kids post.:)  

3- Does not require super expensive hardware. I think this one is self explanatory:)

4- Flexible: You can access remotely....

you can create a travel pack....

you can set different access rights for different users...

you can assign project specific roles to the users....

you can represent users with any color you want...

 you can see only the objects reserved by you, 

you can can can can and can.... 

5-Internal Messaging System is  great tool for arranging lunch! Apart from it's functionality it brings fun to the office. As you remember during one of our implementations we were deciding on  lunch with the help of BIM Server's internal messaging:))) 

Enjoy your Monday Syndrome :)

Diyane Koseoglu

www.bimes.com

Manicure and BIM Services

I was extremely impressed when I had my first manicure in Dubai.

The manicure artists gave me maybe 254 facts about nails, cuticles, fingers and even how to polish the rings:)) End result was also amazing... Nails were perfectly smooth, the fingers looked longer and thinner then they are!

Image from Sera Beauty Lounge

Of course I asked her how come she knows so much about nails and gives the same shape and smoothness to each nail. Her reply was quite simple.

She has been  doing this for 5 years and she has been getting weekly trainings on the new products, trends and massage etc.

Experience and Continious Training! Key to the success!

It sounded very similar to my reply when our clients ask how come BIMES is so productive?

1- We have a very experienced team!
2- We have 2 full time engineers dedicated to develop workflows, modeling guides and best practices.

What do these 2 do during the day? They basically try find answers to the questions below:

• At what stage should we add concrete grade to the model? 
• Which team should add such info? 
• How much would it slow that specific process? 
• How much would it speed up the next process?
• What more can we add to the template to speed up the modelers?

Is this all? No!  They also:

• Create internal training videos on company standards so that our experienced team members do not spend much time on training/replying the new members.
• Update company templates
• Create custom components (we even sold some of our developments to the vendors:))
• and many more

(Some of these were shared with you as well.)

As you see, success is no coincidence:))

Have a great day!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

BIMx Model Transfer - Cloud Service for Sharing BIM Models

BIMx! Exploring BIM Models on iPad or iPhone and now on Android!

This is the star of our meetings lately.

We are also doing it "Steve Jobs" style. Going through the technical details during the meeting and and just before closing the meeting we say:

"By the way, here comes your project on iPad! Would you like to explore it?"

You know top manager loves iPad adn when they see their project on iPad they fall in love with it once more. They start playing with it like a kid. While they are enjoying their experience we turn the stereo on and give them 3D Glasses! Pheww!

Another successful meeting concluded!

It really help us a lot in getting projects.

And it is the same for our clients. They do the same trick.

Today I have good news for BIMx users with SSA (Software Service Agreement).

Graphisoft offers a new service called "The BIMx Model Transfer Service". This is basically a "Cloud-service" which offers 1GB cloud storage space for each commercial BIMx license they own. It is similiar to the good-old share on Facebook features but now you can set different levels of access. Three levels of model access are available to Premium Users:

• Public Sharing : Models automatically appear on the Facebook community site.
• Private Sharing/ Hidden: Models will not appear publicly, but are accessible without restriction via the direct URL associated with the model.
• Private Sharing/ Protected: Models will not appear publicly and are not accessible without the direct model URL and password set during the upload process – each model can have its own password.

Registration process is quite simple. The instructions are available here.

Enjoy sharing your BIM Models and getting more business:))

TGI Thursday! Weekends start here:)) Have a fabulous weekend!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

500 Likes Lucky Draw!

Good Afternoon Everyone!

As you know we promised to give away a Lacoste T-Shirt to the winner of our 500 Likes Lucky Draw. 

We hit 500 likes on BIMES Facebook Page and the winner is Ahmed Al Janabi. He picked up his gift today and we had a chance to meet with him.

He is a student at Canadian University of Dubai and he has been using ArchiCAD for 4 years and of course it's his favorite software:)))

It's cool to see students enthusiastic about BIM are about to graduate soon!

PS: Continue sharing and liking BIMES FB Page:)) We will make another lucky draw when we hit 1000. We have not decided on the gift yet.  I am open for suggestions:)

Have a great day!

Diyane Koseoglu

www.bimes.com