Join the revolution of BIM communication at warp speed.
BIMStorm
Featured in April 2008 CADAlyst Magazine
Kenneth Wong of CADAlyst wrote: "What if one summer
— or in this
case, winter — a bunch of idealistic architects, designers,
building
owners, contractors, and consultants decided to do away with the
professional hierarchies, business protocols, and legal constraints
that have long prevented them from working together? " .... read on in:
BIMStorm Featured as Cover Article on JBIM Magazine
The Spring 2008 Journal of Building Information Modeling
from The
Building Smart Alliance, National Institute of Building Science
features BIMStorm LA.
Here is an excerpt from that article:
Integration Today Using Open Standards
BIMstorm: Rotterdam to Los Angeles and Beyond
I often get asked: “What BIM platform
should we use?” We all like
simple decisions. Vanilla or chocolate? PC or Mac? Revit, ArchiCAD,
VectorWorks, or other BIM? We like sticking to a brand. For BIM,
“Open
Standards” is the “New Brand” we need to
stick to. Information stored
in proprietary formats will become irrelevant in this information
centric age. Organizations that understand this will flourish like the
internet and those that do not will fade like a Betamax.
BIMStorm was proof that a stunning amount of
collaboration and
change is possible today with many tools. Yet, tools do not matter. BIM
does not matter. Data and knowledge is valuable and BIM is just a
container for data. What does matter is how data is exchanged and the
process. The “New Brand” gives us broader choices
on how data is used
which will liberate the industry to get down to business. Technology is
not the barrier to change, the cultural shift in how we collaborate is
the challenge.
....
BIMStorm was not perfect. Standards are still evolving. There
were
surprises, problems and chaos. What was clear is that even today a
stunning amount of collaboration is possible in a BIG way, one only
needs to accept the new process. Just like the Internet that is never
complete, if you wait for standards to be
“finished” you will watch the
train leave the station. All are welcome aboard, the train is moving
fast.
We all learned that as a group we can start to tip
the culture of
the industry in 2008. BIMStorm demonstrated the potential of
collaboration with open standards. The future of the “New
Brand” is up
to us as an industry to define. The horizon is wide open for all that
are willing to embrace this change.
Comments from BIMStormsIt is almost unbelievable what your whole team has
orchestrated.
Your BIMstorm exceeds anything one person can even imagine....With
heart-felt appreciation for the historic efforts you have made
Mike Bordenaro - NF Publishing
Co.
Kimon and his team have opened my eyes to the
possibilities of true
collaboration, outside of the desktop BIM tools that we have grown so
comfortable with and into the world of information sharing. They have
illuminated a path to interoperability with a much broader group of
participants and disciplines than I ever could have imagined - by
starting with simple, yet powerful pieces of shared structured data. I
can now understand clearly the power of archiving projects and client
standards in this way for future use in our architecture practice.
Thanks Onuma Inc. for keeping the juices flowing!
Russ Sanders, AIA - Orcutt
Winslow Architecture
My BIM world intersected with Kimon's and many
others who were
working on NBIMS back in December 2006. My mind was opened to a new
realization, and Kimon was leading the way as a practioner with OPS. He
was getting it done. What I learned then was BIM isn't a tool, it's a
process. It was great fun to have been given the opportunity to
participate in the process and become "Experienced". Team K (DeStefano
and Partners Chicago/LA) thanks Kimon and Yong and everyone at Onuma
Inc. It was an honor to take part in this historic event.
Timothy Blatner, AIA - DeStefano
and Partners, Ltd.
Special thanks again for this awesome experience.
You are to be highly commended!
Karen L. Weber - Earth Our Only
Home, Inc.
On behalf of familia Corazón, I want to
thank you for including us
in this historic project. Your team has accomplished more than you
could ever imagine.
Terry Mackprang - TEMAK
Construction
The BIMstorm was an amazing experience of the
wealth of opportunity that is possible today.
Paul Adams - Earth and Sky
Architecture
This charrette has been a historic moment! Master
Planning will never be the same.
Ulises Araujo - IRWIN-PANCAKE
ARCHITECTS
"Most spectacular, I think, was the introduction of Onuma OPS;
some
people said it should have been used right at the start on Monday! Of
course they are right, but the reality is, no one was interested before
the communication problems showed up. As usual, it takes a crisis to
start a revolution."
Joost Wijnen - CADVisual, NL
The origins of the BIMstorm™ go back to the mid 90s when
ONUMA was
using BIM in ways that focused on the "i" or information of BIM. This
process allowed ONUMA to collaborate worldwide with teams on projects.
Throughout the 90s the process and tools continued to evolve within
ONUMA. For the most part, the deliverables to clients at the time were
traditional CAD and other documents generated by OPS, but not the data
itself. Forward looking clients started to recognize the value of OPS
and ONUMA gradually started to integrate it closer with projects and
engage the project teams in more advanced use of the "i" of BIM.
Although many clients saw the benefits of the output
capability of
OPS, there was one client that stood out among the rest that
immediately understood the full potential. The United States Coast
Guard in 2003, saw and developed a larger vision called "The Framework
for Integrated Decision-Making" at the core of the Shore Facilities
Capital Asset Management Road (SFCAM) Map lead by David Hammond in
Washington DC. Others in the USCG such as CDR Jack Dempsey, Paul
Herold, LCDR Jeff Brockus, William Scherer, CAPT Jay Manik (Ret.), and
many more actively participated in the vision of the SFCAM Road Map and
supported OPS and BIM being used on projects. The big and early vision
of the Coast Guard has been instrumental in helping to change the
entire industry. We would like to thank David Hammond and the USCG for
this.
BIMstorm™ has been a vision of ONUMA since the mid
90s but
until the industry embraces the change required, and follow the forward
looking organizations such as the USCG, GSA, DHS, Smithsonian and
others, nothing will be possible. This is a challenge to the rest of
the industry. Help us raise the bar.
Other leading firms are now using OPS on projects in ways that
exponentially increase the value provided to the industry.
Why are we doing this?
We feel we are on to something that has a direct impact on the
environment today, but we need all the help of everyone in the
industry. The built environment consumes a majority of the fossil fuels
and has a direct impact on global warming.
Placing your hand on a hot surface and you recoil immediately
to avoid
severe burns. Make this mistake a few times and our brain gets wired to
avoid hot surfaces. The communication network in our body transmits the
signal in an instant to our brain. We register it in our brain, learn
and evolve. If it took even a minute for this message to travel from
our fingers to our brain, we would be covered with a lot more burns.
The building industry on the other hand moves in slow motion.
We
typically take much longer than minutes, hours or days to get a message
back to the brain and change course. The limitation has been a
combination of technology and embedded processes. As messages are
delayed we cannot truly predict the future impact of decisions we make
today. As an industry we are not only burning our own hand, we are
burning the planet.
BIMstorm™ links buidlings to locations on
the earth to be able to
more accurately simulate and make decisions that will drive down the
impact of buildings on the environment
Before any construction starts, it is proven that up to 30% of
time and
effort is wasted. This is a waste of resources and has a trickle
effect, when a building that should have never been built breaks
ground. What are the larger implications of these compounded mistakes
of communication?
Real Time
A BIMstorm™ proves that communication and decision making can
happen much closer to real time. We want to make a lot of mistakes very
early on in the process to reduce the chance of severe burns. Being
able to simulate and predict the future allows greater confidence in
making the proper decisions. Granted this is a complex process that
involves much more than a decision to “build.”
These complexities
require proper communication and a network of integrated systems that
can talk to--and listen to each other. In many cases the answer would
be “not to build.” Not being able to visualize the
implications of
building, is the biggest mistake we can make. The technology now exists
to start making more intelligent decisions about our environment and
heading toward an early implementation of carbon neutrality.
Testimonials “BIMstorm enables us to work with real-time
scenarios and "the
scenario accountant" makes sure we do not get carried away and forget
about utilization and cost.”
Lars C. Christensen
Senior Vice President Technology Outlook and Competence, Selvaag
Gruppen | Oslo, Norway
"Onuma demonstrated that software based on open
standards can
provide an amazing amount of collaborative assistance for complex
design problems – today."
Mike Bordenaro, NF Publishing Company
“We were not aware these type of solutions
even existed. Best of
all, we are now able to keep the relationship between our financial
estimates and the design, since both drive us in our decision making.
OPS involves us, as a client, within the BIM process, where we didn't
have this relationship before.”
Wim Scheele, Director of Project Development, City of Rotterdam,
Netherlands
What is a BIMstorm™?
A BIMstorm can be used for many scenarios for example:
Real time cost and area / program calculation linked to 2D
and 3D models.
Web enabled tools to allow for multiple users to
collaborate in real time.
Massive Real-Time Collaboration
A series of rapid-fire live charrettes or a
BIMStorm™ to design projects at warp speed.
When decisions happen in real-time, and are linked
together
through open standards based exchanges, potential errors are spotted
faster, and a proper trajectory is created
Sustainable decision making
Open standards based exchanges
Watch the on-line presentation or participate
Useful Tools: Archicad, City GML, DDS, Elite CAD, Google
Docs, Google Earth, Go To Meeting, IFC, Knowledge, MS Excel, MS Word,
Navis Works, ONUMA Planning System, ONUMA BIMXML Converter, paper, PDA,
pencil, Revit, Skype, Webex, OGC WFS, 3G cell phone (listed here, but
not all are necessary to have a full working knowledge of)
In a traditional design and construction process, a developer
must
find an appropriate property and program for a project. Let's say for a
hotel and office building in Los Angeles. They must then run through
multiple scenarios of what to build to support the changing market and
their bottom line. At the same time they may need to negotiate with
city agencies and a broker for the various properties they are
reviewing. They may bring on an architect at an early stage of
development to study several scenarios and create an early plan. All of
the above activities and many more are dependent of each other. In a
traditional process much of the early planning and design and is very
linear and disconnected. The architect prepares early plans and
documents and submits to the developer in a few weeks. By that time the
requirements may have changed. There is a constant back and forth
between experts, engineers, cost estimators, city agencies to review
and approve the next step or in many cases to backtrack and redo work.
This is just for the early design process.
The ONUMA BIMstorm™ allows all the experts to
collaborate in
decision making in real time. This real time collaboration allows you
to spot problems and identify patterns and trends as the project
progresses and make corrections on the spot. You can bring in other
experts to view the project data while the design evolves. There is no
need to be an expert at any software in order to participate. For
example cost estimates and area calculations can be viewed in real time
on the web or exported out to Excel. The numbers in the reports and
Excel file are directly linked to the graphics and 3D. There is no need
to manually confirm that everything in sync because it is in sync by
design.
Imagine if the airline industry published a paper catalogue of
airfares every month and mailed this out to us. Or if the published a
CD with the same data. Then we would have to call the airline or have
an agent manage the reservation. Today with Expedia or Obitz, you can
do this in real time. The construction industry is in many ways
functioning like the first scenario of passing static project
information around. There are better and more efficient ways to do
this. Welcome to the ONUMA BIMstorm™.
An ONUMA BIMstorm™ is:
Strategic
Tactical
Organized
Real-Time
Management
Linking knowledge to process and tools using BIM and
data hasresulted in a process referred to ONUMA as a
BIMStorm™.
Connect Teams and Consolidate Work
An organization that works with consultants and multiple
disciplines on global, domestic or local scales, knows that managing
project information and content is not an easy task. Efficiently and
effectively organizing, documenting and communicating is the backbone
of business. Developed and used by our own team to collaborate within
and with other disciplines on real architectural projects, ONUMA wanted
a way to collaborate globally. The answer: a web-enabled management
solution. Being web-enabled allows users to maximize existing hardware
for collaborating and eliminate the concern for team members and
consultants to all be using the latest agreed software and version.
With an Internet connection, teams can quickly and securely work
together on development processes and exchange information at one
central point.
Web-Enabled Project Sites Promote
Uniformity regardless of hardware platforms
Real-time information collaboration
Central project information and content location
Error reduction
File attachment management
Integrated practice
Creative and Powerful Employment of Open Source
Tools
An ONUMA BIMStorm™ is not bound to using only ONUMA
developed
tools. The strength of the BIMStorm™ lies with a team that
can be
mobilized to utilize a wide range of tools that directly address the
specific needs of the project. For example, if a particular project
deals with larger master planning issues, then the focus of the tools
used might gravitate towards leveraging project data in GIS or CityGML.
Design Process at Warp Speed
Using traditional methods, current design processes are
inefficient.
ONUMA BIMStorm™ creates a framework for putting the process
into warp
speed and maximizing the value of a design charrette. ONUMA trains and
provides on-site support or we can support your team virtually from our
BIMStorm™ command center. Bring your projects into the 21st
century.
Tools Used
Building Information Modeling
ArchiCAD, Revit, VectorWorks or other IFC Tools
ONUMA Planning System™
Internet Browser
Internet connection
Computer
Benefits
Your knowledge-experts are actively engaged
Data and knowledge are instantly retrived and translated
into an understanding format
