Membership recruitment by the Canada BIM Council has received a shot in the arm with the addition to the organization’s ranks of the PCL family of companies.
Firm ‘routinely’ using virtual construction
Membership recruitment by the Canada BIM Council has received a shot in the arm with the addition to the organization’s ranks of the PCL family of companies.
“We now have two of the largest Canadian contractors on board,” said Derek Smith, executive director of the London and District Construction Association and the council’s interim administrator. “We’re pretty happy about that.”
Also on board is EllisDon.
The council was federally incorporated in mid-December and officially launched last month. Its goal is to provide building information modeling advocacy and support services. It now has 20 members.
In a statement, PCL said it joined the council “because we recognize the important role that BIM can play in the development of the construction market and project delivery methods.
“The CBC is an opportunity to get involved as a BIM advocate for the entire construction industry.”
BIM is defined as a process that delivers construction projects using parametric modeling of the building in virtual space prior to construction.
Edmonton-headquartered PCL uses virtual construction (VC) techniques, including building information modeling tools, as a construction simulation process by creating digital representations of construction projects in the virtual world.
It offers modeling services throughout its Canadian and United States operations.
The company said it “routinely” uses VC techniques on select projects “that benefit economically” from use of the process.
Projects that are particularly large or high-risk present the greatest potential for VC to add value, PCL said.
Consequently, these projects are “typically” selected for the application of BIM-enabled virtual construction.
“We have found virtual construction adds value to our projects in a number of ways, things like constructability analysis and clash detection routines,” said Drew Teal, virtual construction co-ordinator, PCL Constructors Inc.
“For example, we are able to check drawings and make sure things are fitting together properly. This way, we can anticipate any problems that might occur and fix them before they arise in the field.”
In some cases, Teal said, PCL has collaborated with architects on projects using BIM models created by the design team.
The company said it believes interest in, and demand for, use of virtual construction and tools like BIM throughout the lifecycle of construction projects is growing.
“As more and more of PCL’s project partners become BIM-capable, PCL forecasts that the potential value it can add will grow as well.”
The BIM council’s mission is to provide a non-proprietary advocacy, resource and standards council dedicated to supporting business, professionals, educators, purchasers of construction and related services in navigating and applying best practices when deploying BIM.
The management team consists of architects Allan Partridge and Paul Loreto, Tom Strong of EllisDon, Albert Celli of Halsall Associates and Mark Casaletto of Reed Construction Data in addition to Smith.
Since its launch, the council has signed up more than a dozen new members.
“A significant portion” are architectural and engineering firms based in Ontario and Alberta. A couple of firms from British Columbia have joined as well, Smith noted.
The council will be funded wholly by membership revenues.
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