Based on the overall BIM strategy including the Mission, Vision, Goals and Objectives for a project or organization, the planning team should identify the appropriate BIM Uses. A challenge and opportunity faced by the early project planning team is identifying the most appropriate uses for BIM on a project given the project characteristics. There are many different traditional tasks that can benefit by being replaced by the implementation of BIM. The goal of this section is to provide a method for identifying appropriate BIM Uses for project implementation. These steps, as shown in Figure 4-1, include defining the purpose and additional characteristics for each BIM Use.

Figure 4-1: BIM Use Selection Procedure

4.1 DETERMINE THE PURPOSE FOR IMPLEMENTING BIM

Based on the overall strategy, the planning team should begin to determine how they will be implementing BIM on the project. The planning team should consider how they will be using information during the course of the project including how they will:

• Gathering
• Generating
• Analyzing
• Communicating, and
• Realizing

Often, these tasks or purposes have been implemented using “traditional” processes. It is up to the project team to determine if they will be implementing these using BIM. (More detailed descriptions can be found in the next section of this guide.) It is important that the team consider each of potential uses (as shown in Table 4-1 and consider their relationship with the project goals.

Table 4-1: BIM Use Purposes and Objectives

When determining whether or not they will be implementing BIM for these BIM Use purposes, the project team needs to consider the BIM resources, competency, and experience of the team. The resources include software, hardware, and IT support. When determine competency and experience, the planning team should consider past performance and overall ability. It is important to understand that if the team does not have the necessary skills to successfully implement BIM it may actually hinder the adoption of BIM. At the end of this effort the team should be able to make a “go / no go” decision on each of the BIM Use purposes prior to more elaboration on each BIM Use.

4.2 ELABORATE ON WHO, WHAT, WHEN, AND TO WHAT LEVEL

After the planning teams determines for which purposes the project will be implementing BIM, they need to determine, as shown in Table 4-2, which discipline, which phase, which facility elements, and to what level of development these BIM Use purposes will be implemented.

Table 4-2: BIM Use Elaboration Characteristics

Adding this detail, elaborates on the BIM Uses above only a purpose. It is possible to have multiples of each characteristic for each BIM Use purpose. For example, multiple disciplines can implement multiple BIM Use purposes during multiple phases on multiple facility elements. Therefore it is possible at the conclusion of the effort, that the project team may have as few as five elaborated BIM Uses or as many as 50 or more elaborated BIM Uses depending on the level of implementation of the project. At the conclusion of the effort, the team will now be able to describe all the Uses in terms of discipline, phase, elements, level of development and purpose. Often after elaborating on the characteristics of the BIM use, a planning team often determines that they have more BIM Uses.

[9] Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic, Rev. ed. (New York: Free Press, 2004).