2 Establish Project Modeling Goals

The first step in developing a BIM Project Execution Plan is for the project team to identify the core reasons ‘why’ BIM can improve the overall delivery process and operations of the project.

Set the BIM Goals for the Project

The project team should outline project goals along with their potential relationship to BIM implementation. These project goals should be specific to the project at hand, measurable, and strive to improve success in the planning, design, construction, and operations of the facility. One category of goals may relate to general project performance including reducing the project schedule duration, reducing the project cost, or increasing the overall quality of the project. Examples of quality goals include the development of a more energy-efficient design through the rapid iteration of energy modeling, creating higher quality installed designs through detailed 3D coordination of systems, or developing more accurate record models to improve the quality of performance modeling and commissioning.
Other goals may target the efficiency of specific tasks to allow for overall time or cost savings by the project participants. These goals include the use of modeling applications to create design documentation more efficiently, to develop estimates through automated takeoffs, or to reduce the time to enter data into the maintenance system. These items are only suggestions of potential goals that the project team may have when beginning to decide how to implement BIM on a project. It is by no means a comprehensive list, and it is essential to identify the specific goals that will provide an incentive for implementing BIM on the project.
A hypothetical new Laboratory Building constructed on a university campus will be used throughout the following three chapters to illustrate the steps in this guide. Sample project goals from this example project are shown in Table 2-1. Additionally, a blank Project Goals Worksheet is provided in Appendix A.

Table 2.1 – Sample Project Goals for a Laboratory Building Project with Potential BIM Uses

It is important to understand that some goals may relate to specific uses, while others may not. For example, if there is a project goal to increase field labor productivity and quality through large amounts of prefabrication, then the team can consider the ‘3D Design Coordination’ Model Use which will allow the team to identify and correct potential geometric conflicts before construction. On the other hand, if the team’s goal was to increase the sustainability of the building project, several uses may assist in accomplishing that goal.