Clearbox and Kier – Award-winning Collaboration for UEA Project

The University of East Anglia, a £10.1m project to build a seven-storey halls of residence, incorporating 22 flats on the Central Campus, was the first on the UEA’s estate to implement BIM Level 2 with a specific focus on delivering a complete 6D Asset Information Model (AIM) and final COBie Data Drop 4 for use in  facilities management (CAFM) software.

The project was PAS-1192 compliant, according to the government definition of Level 2 BIM, focusing on design collaboration via BIM software solutions. 

The BIM Solution

“Consultants and subcontractors were all given training to access BIMXtra software, which let them share BIM models, all subject to change control so everyone could see who had updated what and when,” says Andy Boutle, BIM Manager at Kier Construction.“ BIMXtra can provide solutions for the entire BIM lifecycle, and features software collaboration plug-ins for  many BIM modelling platforms.’’

”We wanted to go a step further and deliver exactly what the client wanted, tailored to their needs”

Later, when construction was getting underway, Boutle and his team went about the time-consuming process of gathering and uploading the defined BIM data.

Data collected included: design asset data on components; modelling references and part numbers; maintenance description and intervals of maintenance, the replacement costs of selected components; commissioning information and BIMXtra software access requirements. The completed AIM features more than 1,000 O&M documents associated with modelled/scheduled components.

“The government’s COBie standard allows for a certain amount of this information but we wanted to go a step further and deliver exactly what the client wanted, tailored to their needs,” says Boutle. “However, the sheer amount of O&M and FM data made things time consuming, and even though we had two extra guys working on it we hadn’t fully appreciated the amount of time it takes to get all the information in the right format. On future jobs we would give the component suppliers access to the BIMXtra software to input the data to make process much more efficient.”

Clearbox and Kier

(Image courtesy of Kier Eastern)

Another lesson learnt was the need for collaboration with the client’s FM team to identify exact data requirements, and get the BIM models at the earliest opportunity.
 

Following project handover at the end of 2014, UEA will also be able to view all O&M and FM documents, certificates and manuals via the BIMXtra online hub.

The project won the “Collaboration Project 2014” category at the Construction Computing Awards and was runner up in the “BIM Project 2014” category
 

 

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