Bim & supply chain

1. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
: BIM (the Social aspect)
There are many who quote from Scott Simpson, the director of the American Institute of
Architecture (AIA), his saying: "BIM is a 10% technology and 90% sociology". This
saying spread like wildfire and was used in many related and non-related occasions until
it became mannered and some began to misbelieve it. The aim of this chapter is
explaining this part, simplifying its concept and focusing on the social aspect and its
largest share _90% _ of Building Information Modeling. BIM needs the community which
believes in the exchange of information between all internal and external parties involved
in the project.
Most of whom working in engineering and planning fields are aware of the seriousness
of their position and their decisions which may cost the company much more or much
less, so they are in a tense and highly competitive environment and despite of the
development in CAD system, it had many cooperation loopholes such as using External
References, x-ref.for linking between two disciplines in one work space to boost
coordination, or to split big projects into smaller parts to be easier to be handled, but it all
turned out to be uncompleted concept and worked on contrary in case of losing the
project file, editing, or duplicating it by mistake.
Per contra, the BIM technology contains many virtual interaction ways among the team
members and it is based on avoiding clashes using linking principle. The external
reference files in CAD system were replaced with more effective tools which are based
on the principle of linking and work sharing. They allow the model manager to determine
authorities of who works on it: reading only, reading and writing, modifying .... and other
processes which correspond to responsibility of the person in charge, in addition to the
possibility of leaving written , printed , attached notes or even direct conversation and

2. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
they are all great options but they will not achieve better communication unless the team
members choose to use them effectively to increase their collaboration and productivity.
There have been many statistics and surveys about BIM and its benefits since 2007,
noticing improvements in construction costs, saving time, evaluating budget and general
performance among contractors, consultants and owners. From all aspects there was a
noticeable positive improvement and great benefits, then another question appeared and
it is “Why? What are the elements which make BIM useful? How can this benefit be
increased?” What distinguishes BIM is its flexibility to import a lot of improvements from
other scientific branches such as Sociology and statistics of work groups (their
intersections, work groups similarities and differences, etc).
But what is a work group? Is it just another name for work team? And which names
achieve collective action?!
To answer these questions, we must first realize that no single individual can carry out
all tasks of his specialization in the same project so a specific work (such as construction
or civil works) must be assigned to a group of individuals. Here the need for the idea of
teamwork and applying the social aspect in work arose.
Work group: is a group of individuals for one or several specializations who
communicate to exchange information and visions to make decisions according to each
of their own interest and some individuals may assume the responsibilities of others, but
at the end each individual has a goal and a way of work. Representing this relationship
in environment of CAD system differs from its representation in environment of the BIM
system as shown in the illustrations below: (Note that the individual is represented by a
point and a connection between them by a line).

3. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
Figure 1: The model represents communication in a work group environment in the CAD
system
Figure 2: The model represents communication in a work group environment in the BIM
system

4. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
Work team: is a specific number of individuals who have the same title. They
communicate and collaborate with each other and they may belong to one or more
contracting parties of the project. The responsibilities of each individual are determined
to achieve specific goals according to a unified method of work and these goals are
brought them together.
Figure 3: The model represents the communication in a work team environment in the
CAD system
Figure 4: The model represents the communication in a work team environment in the
BIM system

5. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
complex systems:)
Because the goal or benefit is the main factor distinguishing between the two types, we
should clarify the idea of the two theories talking about the factors that govern chance
and decision-making inside complex systems.
The first theory of the mathematician Adam Smith (1723-1790): individual competition
and ambition serve the public good: that means everyone has to seek for his own
interest and the public good is achieved by competition among individuals seeking to
achieve their ambitions. This pattern is clearly found in the work style of the Work group.
The Second Theory of the scientist John Vorbis Nash (1928 - 2015): The public good is
achieved when everyone works for his own interests without conflict with the public good
of the group, which is clearly seen in the work team method.
To understand the difference between the two concepts (the work group and the work
team), groups begin to form a meeting of individuals and maintain their strength and
stability as their number increase in response to the workload by increasing the means
of communicating with common goals and this is exactly what happened in BIM, where it
used network communication, taking advantages of the social media revolution. But
communication remains an individual choice based on the level of organizing and
unifying of interests. The members of the team must have an internal willingness to
cooperate because there won’t be a successful application of BIM without treating the
team members as a family and vital component of the system, no matter how modern
devices and programs are, even with an implementation plan.
We can now summarize the factors influencing decision making within a complex group
when we start information modeling for a project as follows:


6. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
 Complex group type: work team or work group
 Decision making method: Is there participation in management (as in the work
team) or is it a single and explicit manager (as in the work group)?
 Communication: The volume of communication represents the level of
information exchange and updating within the team or group, it is enormous and
organized in the work team and it is intermittent and uneven in the work group.
 How they work: Do team members work together and discuss and decide
together (work team), or do they meet and discuss issues and then postpone
decisions to the next meeting because of the lack of sufficient information to
make a decision (work group)?
 Correction and accountability: the method of correction and changing the course
of work in the team and conduct this process by holding meeting with all
members and repair of mistakes (work team), or it is just an error detection and
rely only error reports (workgroup).
Experience has shown that all the above factors are important, but for achieving
significant progress and great benefit, the first and fifth factors must be achieved and by
focusing on them with the third factor, you will get amazing results.
There is a big difference if each team member returns to the team and discusses the
problems and they are immediately resolved (as in one work team), instead of exposing
the mistake and waiting for someone to solve the problem (as in the work group). We
also note that the work team can manage larger projects and accomplish a better
teamwork because of their ability to control the increasing randomness by increasing the
number of members of the group by documenting the address and status of each
individual and thus linking him with the rest of the team members through
communication between them, where they share the public and private interest at the
same time. On the other side, the random grows in the work group with the lack of
documentation of the person’s responsibility address to communicate. This randomness

7. BIMarabia – omar selim& AhmedLutfi
increases because of difference of interests and the communication means are
interrupted with the increasing ambitions until it becomes a real management problem.
After clarifying the social aspect effect on BIM, we can now recognize that despite the
importance of applying BIM to projects, obtaining the required information, completing
the bill of quantities quickly, multiplying design options and reducing the time and cost,
the prior understanding of the quality of teamwork in the project is the main reason for its
success. It will not work without the cooperation of the members of the work team and
not the work groups. In spite of the availability of hardware, programs, training and
implementation plan, this will only achieve 10% of the BIM system implementation. In
order to achieve the expected success of this technology, we must fully take into
account the implementation of the remainder, which is the 90% sociology