As India has embarked on massive infrastructure development to cater to the growing number of people striving for better living, there was a need to adopt Building information Modelling (BIM) process for efficient and faster execution of projects in the lines of several developed countries.
India is expected to have a population of 1.4 billion by 2025, surpassing China. This will call for more food, housing and public transport. Apart from building new infrastructure, the existing ones need to be refurbished and buildings, bridges, railways need to be constructed to last long.
At a time when many advanced countries like U.S., U.K., UAE, China, France, Italy and Singapore have already started using such technology, India should do the same to benefits in terms of reduced cost, time and increasing efficiency for construction of infrastructure projects said Autodesk, a leader in BIM.
BIM is a process of building digital data and it offers 3D data which helps in proper and accurate planning.
Though India is slowly increasing its focus on BIM adoption in mission critical projects, much more needs to be done said Sunil M.K., head of architecture, engineering and construction, Autodesk, India & SAARC.
He said BIM helps in simulating conditions and with this one can fix problems before hand. “The basic objective is to make life better. Today there is no predictability. When people don’t collaborate while working they create problems and disrupt life,” he said.
When the government has plans to build 100 airports, modernise 8,000 railway stations and build 20 million affordable homes a policy needs to be put in place that can help deliver the projects efficiently and in a better way, the Autodesk executive said.
“Today there is lot of chaos in every thing related to city infrastructure. It is imperative that people who design services and facilities, use digital tools, automation,” he said.
System has to be in place to help one manage after something is designed and built. One needs to know where the pipes are going, where the drainage is going and how are the buildings connected to the services like the road, drainage.
“One has to know how does that neighbourhood perform. One has to think in terms of holistically to prevent traffic jams. If the conditions are simulated then it would prevent chaos. With simulation one can design better and take alternatives,” he added.
“If I have digital data, I can spend judiciously. Data will allow one to make intelligent decisions, spend wisely. People should design in 3D that will give them ability to visualise and solve problems by eliminating issues, cost issues, understanding delivery process. Because you have a digital model, you can plan. BIM gets this capability to the table,” he said.
Stating that today different project implementing agencies lack collaboration among themselves causing repetition of work, he said BIM can prevent this trough collaborative thinking and planning.
“We need to change. We need to deliver things faster as more people are moving to cities faster than yesterday. In 2030 seven billion people will stay in cities alone which means the existing cities will be double in size. So we need better tools, better automation process and better robotics to plan things,” he said.
“Today we have shortage of every thing. Unlike China where cities have been built and people moved there, we are very much a reverse process. Because so many people have come, there is a demand for infrastructure. So we need to ensure that all the infrastructure must connect efficiently,” he added.
He said agencies need to adopt technology to be on the same page and need to use cloud technology to use the same document. “We need a technology policy mandate. It should be driven by the centre and all have to adopt this,” he added.
“We must simulate conditions for the future and build infrastructure accordingly. Today technology is allowing this. We can do sustainability simulations,” he said.
In India today every project has seen cost overrun by 20% on an average and including time overrun, it is huge money. This can not go for long.
“We must respect tax payers’ money and deliver projects on time. We can use technology to deliver better. Today technology, robotics and machine learning is available. We can leap flog. If we have the building technology and we can deliver all the grand vision much better and faster,” he added.
