A problem with BIM
Following on the BIM theme from Rich, I thought I’d share a new concern that has arisen in my office.
I work for the Ports and Martine Division at CH2M, one of two global specialist in large container terminals and large port infrastructure. The benefit of being a huge fish in a small client pool is you pretty much win the jobs you want, over price the jobs you don’t want to make big profit or, if you’re busy developers (sometimes) wait until you have capacity. It also means that you’re able to constantly refine what you’re doing and when a new player appears, you can price them out of the game!
There is a weakness in this armor however…….BIM!!!!
The tender team have received a job brief to prepare a bid for a new container port on the Panama Canal. The tender pack contained some BIM images and design of concepts ideas used to win planning authority for the job. The client (a global shipping company) used a US consultant to support planning approval and to help prepare the tender brief. The problem is that the tender brief contains 3D designs and models produced by my office for another job, for the same client, in the Middle East.
So…anyone that has received that tender brief has CH2Ms design, 3D CAD protocols and material information attributed to the model. Luckily in this case the design assumptions weren’t included as it was an early BIM’d project but who knows what will appear next time. Realistically, it’s now just a matter of time until other companies learn enough from the established players to challenge the market.
We (the military) talk about the security concerns associated with BIM but commercially, money is security. At the moment no one quite knows how to address it but the initial thoughts include strengthen contracts to constrain a design to a project (incredibly hard to implement) or limiting the info that goes into data base and how it is linked to the model (counter intuitive and counterproductive). The reality is that no one here quite knows how to tackle this ever growing problem.
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I trust you have a strong contrary position to the concept of pricing anyone out of the game. Firms pricing predatorily being contrary to the Anti Trust Laws of CH2Ms nation of ownership. As Robert Bork would tell you it is clearly not in the interests of the client or the public and is morally, ethically and legally wrong! Perhaps the weakness you perceive is a potential blessing…
IP rights on designs produced for one purpose being re-used without permission or payment however is another issue again. I’m sure Gregg will write further.
I have many contrary views on many LEGAL commercial practices that I’ve witnessed, however, most of those views relate to Ph2. I don’t believe anything is wrong with what’s going here. Knowing which jobs to make money on and which to accept a lower profit margin because you want to maintain a collaboration with a contractor of client is just good business. Their are a limited number of global shipping clients and therefore a finite number of big projects. If someone new turns up then clearly you’re going to work hard to protect your piece of the pie. I would argue that ‘buying jobs’ is far worse as no ‘profit making company’ can compete and it set’s a false precedent for the pricing of future jobs.
I agree, on one side completion is good. It controls the market and prevents dominance however, the free transfer of all your hard work cannot be. Most other industries use patents to protect them and their ideas but design and construction don’t have that luxury. My gut feeling is that in the short term this limit the openness to explore BIM to its full and will make companies very defensive.
I’ve just had a look on the googleweb, an MIT university forum highlight three points:-
1. Using 3rd party information without full knowledge of the design background presents unknown design failure risk (why was it design like that?).
2. In most other industries, this is protected. The one comparison used was fine dining and anyone can openly copy a meal or menu, but said that chef’s go to great lengths to protect the specifics of their recipes.
3. The idea of a collaborative, industry wide working environment is flawed whilst ever a capitalist approach is adopted. In an all loving world, everyone shares everything and the rate of technical advances increases but this simply wont translate in to reality.
I’m sure a similar discussion was had when photocopiers became common.
The moral component…look no further than Qatar! If this industry was underpinned by a strong moral grounding then all major contractors, consultants and delivery partners would have demanded change and or downed tools. The reality is they’ve all said ‘we’re want to work with authorities to improve conditions’ because money is king! Oh, I have a very strong view on that!
There should be ways of locking down the data using permissions so that parties can only see the stuff they really need, but you would need a BIM Ninja to confirm that this can be done and how to do it. I seem to remember something similar to this when projects first started to use shared document storage.
Jim, you’re correct, data can be locked down but I think the industry is still learning how best to do it. On my current job, we build the model and attribute information, the contractors technically owns the product (D&B contract) but has no idea or interest in how it works. At completion, DIO will own the product which gives them the rights to unlock, copy, paste, share any aspect they wish. Whilst the designer could omit some info, much of it is integral to the database and model and cannot be separated or protected. Working with DIO has presented another issue in that all companies have to gain access to the same database which made DIO/MOD technically venerable to digital attack.
Oli,
Is there any way to quantify why the client has done this? How much money have they saved by copying and pasting versus how much money might they have to spend to undo flawed assumptions. Or was it a case that time is more of an issue for the client and doing this has advanced their programme? I’d like to think they were doing this from an informed (technical, commercial and legal) point of view, but I continue to be impressed by how short sighted clients can appear.
I’m not sure if I agree that BIM presents a new risk to CH2M. Models and design assumptions are all very well and good, but it’s people that are key. If a company wants to break into any new market and needs expertise surely it’s just a case of going out to the market and bringing in the right people. This is certainly something BWL do; most of their directors have been brought across with AECOM along with their contacts. Guess who BWL’s new clients used to employ as M&E consultants…
Rich, I agree, I don’t think this is a new problem, just the latest challenge in protecting a companies IP. I also agree that people are key and as they move, so will methods and contacts, etc. However, I think there is a difference between the slow move of design approaches and contact sharing through personnel movement and sharing full copies of detailed designs at a click.
With regards to the scale and impact, I/we don’t know yet. This is a recent development and the contract and tender team are looking into it. Apparently the client is pretty uncomfortable but hasn’t denied that this is an isolated case. It’s not going to go away and CH2M are not isolated with this problem.
The other side of the coin is the opportunity it presents. BWL create assemblies within Revit which we call CHIPS when working with GlaxoSmithKline. These CHIPS relate to a specific function e.g a packing conveyor or a wax melting room. They hold spatial definitions and information regarding M&E loads. By knowing the processes required to make a new drug the appropriate CHIPS can be selected which allows a new facility to be designed to concept phase incredibly quickly. The CHIPS are fairly useless for more detailed design, but save money and time up to concept stage. I’m pretty sure GSK own the intellectual property regarding the CHIPS and could in theory take them to another consultant, but the relationship with BWL is working so the status quo will continue.
The security and information sharing piece is a very real challenge to be overcome with regard to BIM models and data. This will be especially so for the Corps when they look to adopt BIM.
There are information sharing and security protocols and standards to abide by, the PAS 1192 series.
There will also be ways, as mentioned, to set permissions. The problem with allowing subcontractors to only see certain parts or information of a model will often create lots of RFIs which will slow productivity.
Even if this is an accepted norm for operational projects there still needs to be careful consideration of previous projects that may have been thought of as low security risk. This might be projects back in the UK or on a trg exercise overseas where they might happen to use a new modular design for constructing an accommodation block for example, which if also being used on operations could benefit ‘an enemy’ to cyber attack the assumed low threat UK or trg exercise projects and its BIM model detail could be exploited.
It’s something that needs a lot more investigating in order to resolve a way through and may lead to more and more trusted contractors, with less host nation local ones being used on operations. However, i think this will only mitigate the issue to a degree and is not foolproof. There are also other implications of not utilising LECs, increased costs being a major one.
On the one hand manufacturers make objects available for inclusion in models as a means of achieving specification. This content is de facto open source; On the other hand the full model is anything put. Each is a unique prototype. I find BS 1192 and PD 12911 are so generic in statements on IP as to be useless. The CIC have a set of conditions as have the joint Association of Consulting Architects and Association of Consulting Engineers which apparently deal wit the issues of IP ownership in BIM models. In the end the ownership of the model rests with the Client ( for lifecycle reasons). The problem is that having the client project the IPR of the consultants doesn’t really work, whereas the client seldom wishes to pay full whack for the IPR embedded in a design