KEY BENEFITS OF BIM FOR PLANT DESIGN

For many years, the architecture, engineering, and construction industries have relied on Building Information Modeling (BIM) to design and engineer buildings and infrastructure projects. Because of the benefits, BIM adoption is growing rapidly for plant projects.

BIM starts with the creation of intelligent 3D models using various tools that integrate with plans and designs from many AEC and plant design disciplines and software. These models act as the focal point around which design collaboration, document management, and coordination come together in a single place throughout the project’s life cycle.

From urbanization to increased regulatory pressures, plant designers are being challenged to deliver better and safer facilities on time and on budget.

Top five reasons to adopt BIM for Plants:

BIM helps to create better design and collaboration which results in fewer errors and omissions and reduces clashes during construction. That’s why companies today across the plant design and construction business are moving to adopt BIM.

Minimize errors and omissions

BIM not only helps keep designs coordinated and up-to-date with capabilities like data validation, and checking to ensure designs are consistent and adhering to project-specific requirements, but also actively assists in clash detection and remediation. BIM also allows discovering omissions during construction by using up-to-date models that can be checked and cross-checked by everyone involved.

Better design through visualization

With the help of BIM tools, one can yield more well-reasoned designs, informed by analysis and simulation that can more effectively achieve project goals. This encourages more innovation on projects as well as saves time and costs.

Improved Collaboration

In-plant modeling, the main reasons designers, architects, and builders adopt BIM is due to improved collaboration. This is because BIM acts as a focal point and clearinghouse for all plans, designs, builds sheets, specification data, costs, and schedules.

Using BIM collaboration, we can take a step further by allowing multidisciplinary teams of plant designers, architects, and building engineers to co-create in near real-time. This saves time and effort by reducing the number of friction points in the process.

Improved Cost Management

As errors and omissions, BIM can help reduce requests for information (RFIs) by improving the ability of all stakeholders to see and work with 3D models way before construction begins. This results in better cost controls and even cost reductions, and it also plays a big role in improving constructability.

Faster project startup

Using reality capture technologies, designers and engineers can image the plant inside and out and then feed the BIM model with accurate 3D images to create a digital twin. Then, the model can be populated with up-to-date information about elevations, pipe runs, instrumentation, etc.

With BIM, all of these tools coordinate with each other. It’s an integrated design that brings structural engineers and architects under one roof to work on the outside of the plant and connects them to what plant designers are doing on the inside.