Washington – The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) recently met with an exclusive list of leaders from public and private organizations to discuss the need for a coordinated program to advance collaboration and innovation in the building industry.
The Building Information Management (BIM) Executive Roundtable included partners from the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. General Services Administration and U.S. Federal Highway Administration, along with private sector partners from Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Autodesk, Bentley, Epic, ESRI, HDR, Kieran-Timberlake and WSP.
“Let’s start working on our common challenges and opportunities,” said Lakisha A. Woods, CAE, president and CEO of NIBS. “We seek your time and your talent to help us develop shared standards and processes to improve the built environment and help Build Back Better.”
While NIBS has created a U.S. national BIM standard, it primarily has been developed through volunteer efforts with valuable content, but little coordination toward a comprehensive standard. To address this, NIBS is leading the creation of a national BIM program. The goal is a solution at a national scale to enable digital process standards that will streamline business, accelerate the effectiveness of the supply chain, provide predictable processes, improve project outcomes, drive efficiency and foster innovation.
Construction comprises 13% of the global economy, and while the U.S. already plays a tremendous leadership role in delivering innovative technology and design and construction services to a global marketplace, increased leadership is needed to tackle industry productivity and efficiency problems to benefit asset owners.
“The first step is getting the right people to the table,” said Van Woods, BIM program manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and chair of the NIBS BIM Council. “We already have an all-star team. I think we need to expand that. We must convene the stakeholders who will benefit from digital transformation.”
