BIM

BIM is a term often used but more often misunderstood. 

Our starting point is always to listen to what our Clients want from BIM and then develop a service that matches this. 

It is all about collaboration with end users, maintainers, designers and constructers to provide a unified and sensible approach that all parties are fully in agreement with. 

We understand all of the standards to be applied and how these are put into practice from the development of a BIM Execution plan through to soft landings and ongoing FM.   

We can guide you through all of this by providing short BIM awareness sessions. Please contact Partner Mark Bateman if this is of interest.

Our BIM credentials

BIM is embedded in everything we do.

Our IMS system is fully updated to support BIM level 2 aligned with PAS1192, the industry BI standard.

We use Revit MEP as our software platform to deliver BIM projects and all engineers are trained to using a three tier system.

Tier 1 - fundamentals
Tier 2 - production
Tier 3 - management

Our training is continually ongoing with our full time in house trainer with the target of matching the PAS192 skills matrix by the end of 2017.

IT Systems

All of our staff have access to the entire TB+A BIM software stack. This is done via high performance desktops located in each office which are regularly updated to maintain above industry standard performance for applications such as AutoCAD and Revit. These machines run the latest stable operating systems and software packages to get the best out of the hardware wherever possible. We have a regular hardware refresh / upgrade process to maintain this leading edge performance and capability.

In addition, we have invested heavily in a virtual desktop infrastructure utilising an advanced hyper-visor with the latest in Cisco server hardware and NVIDIA Grid graphics processing units to deliver intense graphical performance. This is available to all staff from both within the office and externally allowing them to work at the same level whether in their normal office or out on client sites. As well as supporting an agile working culture, Citrix allows staff to access BIM applications with high performance from any device including iPads etc.

Away from the end point compute, we also leverage best of bread server virtualisation as well as private cloud and ‘as a service’ implementations to maintain not only high availability but also flexibility to adjust to business and industry demands quickly and smoothly with minimal downtime.

Continuity and availability of service is paramount to TB+A and we regularly maintain 99.99% uptime across the entire IT estate which equates to less than an hour of unscheduled downtime over the course of entire year. To deliver this we maintain high levels of cross-office replication over dedicated high speed internet connections throughout our multiple offices as well as relying on industry leading service providers for specific services / roles. Based on this we have a highly developed Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan that is in line with ISO 27031 and 22301 which is tested and audited annually with a view to improving further.

We are committed to the long term storage, archiving and retrieval of project data and as such has invested heavily in enterprise level solutions. These solutions allow guaranteed recovery of project materials up to thirty years from generation to comply with our most stringent project requirements.

Security of data and services is paramount to TB+A and as such we follow a defence in depth methodology using best of breed perimeter firewalls, anti-virus, spam filtering and intrusion prevention / detection systems. Regular audits are carried out of security related processes and procedures with the view to remaining aligned with industry leading standards such as ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditations, the latter of which we are in the process of achieving.

Our BIM Portfolio

We have an extensive and ever growing portfolio where we have delivered projects in BIM and would be happy to send you a resume of these if this is of interest.

We use BIM as a true tool for realising the client and architects vision, as illustrated by the images below which developed the Architects visualisation, through a federated BIM model to a completed installation.

Slice through design model

Architects Visualisation

Photo taken on completion

Forums

As part of the lessons learnt process and to strive to enhance all of our projects we are members of the following forums: –

  • BIM4Real 
  • LRUG – London Revit User Group
  • CIC BIM regional hubs

We attend monthly meetings to discuss problems encountered, new and emerging processes, and this is then fed back into the government task force.