The design of a building involves a lot of moving parts, an architect to develop the overall design of the building, a structural engineer to ensure that the designs are robust and the building will remain upright, and then the design needs to be handed over to a contractor to build. From a client perspective, one of the biggest drawbacks is the constant back-and-forth between companies.

A multi-disciplinary consultancy is one that consists of multiple departments, each one specialising in a particular aspect of the design process. Recently we worked with a multi consultancy in the South West. Lead by an architect, the team included a drainage engineer, landscape architects and an M&E engineer. Usually, multi discipline practices are seen in large companies, in this case however, the business only employs nine people.

BIM helps the interaction between disciplines, both co-operating with colleagues in the same office and collaborating with practices all over the world. For a small practice, BIM makes the multi-disciplinary approach straight forward and pragmatic. Pulling together the strands of a project with a long time frame would certainly involve external planners and contractors. However, using BIM processes in your practice workflow will speed up the delivery of the project as it will avoid delays caused by errors and miscalculations, allowing you to deliver the project on time and on budget.

In a small consultancy, the projects are often exclusively managed by only one-person, single dwellings for instance. With BIM even if a key team member is absent on holiday, sick leave or leaves the business, the risk of loss of information is mitigated. If a critical component of the project is in someone’s head rather than on paper or stored digitally, the work would need to be overseen by somebody else and could have to redone. A contractor told us about a negative experience he had when the engineer recalculating a retaining structure went on paternity leave early, thus delaying a major housing scheme at considerable expense and loss of reputation for the consultancy involved. The BIM process makes it easy for all participants in a project to maintain proper records of the work undertaken and mitigates the risk of information loss.

Working within the public sector, BIM is mandatory. The Social Value Act specifies that local small multi-disciplinary consultancy are ideally placed to work on schools, health centres and social housing projects

It is recognised within the industry that a multi-disciplinary consultancy is more likely to deliver a project on time and within budget, as all elements of the design stage take place in-house, multi-disciplinary consultancies are able to offer cost savings as an incentive, providing the scope of the project or the level resource available remains constant throughout.

The Driving Vision BIM process supports multi discipline practices, helping them to identify the project goals, facilitate data exchanges while coordinating the management of their projects internal & external.

Get in touch to learn more about our process and to book a demonstration.

Implementing BIM can be daunting, but Driving Vision is here to help you at the pace you are comfortable with. Get started by getting in touch now