July/August 2018

Communities: Construction
Water Projects See Increased Use Of Modeling Technology

Engineers, contractors, and owners in the water sector appear to have upped their use of building information modeling over the last five years, according to a Dodge Data & Analytics report. And although BIM use can benefit construction teams, they are not often required to have BIM expertise.

In 2012, the water sector had one of the lowest rates of BIM use of the seven sectors examined in a study. Only 30% of respondents said they used BIM on more than half of their projects. Now, according to recently released data from a 2017 study, the water sector’s use of BIM is comparable to other sectors.

The study determined that BIM use is most common in water/wastewater and mining/industrial projects. Linear infrastructure, tunneling, and hydroelectric projects don’t use it as much, but its use in these areas is expected to dramatically grow over the next two years.

The top BIM activities on water projects are the creation of bid/construction drawings, clash detection/avoidance, and quantities and cost estimating integration. On the construction side of water projects, the most common BIM activity is automated tracking of equipment lists using smart piping and instrumentation diagrams.

BIM’s ability to help companies work collaboratively with other members of the project team was, according to the study, the top business benefit. Other benefits noted by the survey participants were increased client satisfaction and the bolstering of a firm’s reputation as an industry leader. Construction teams found the top benefit was reduced rework during the construction phase.