A simple review of a complex BIM activities.

1. Large Scale Solutions Explored with BIMStorm® BIG BIM Bang
Learn-by-doing workshops and webinars show dramatic business process improvements
Participants in BIMStorm® BIG BIM Bang workshops on December 7th and 8th 2011 were only
interested in large-scale improvements in building industry business processes. While some of the
processes were applied to small parts of real project data sets supplied by Kaiser Permanente
and California Community Colleges, they are business activities that have large implications for
companies of all sizes.
Among the business processes explored were;
- Large-scale portfolio facility management assisted by BIM;
- Real-time building data exchanges that enable web-based collaboration on Google Earth;
- Cross-platform software and hardware data management;
- Planning-to-Design-to-Construction-to-Facility Management data harmonization;
- Real time collaboration among many participants using multiple, interoperable BIM Servers;
- BIM-to-GIS visual “mash ups” using, IFCs, BIMxml and other open standards proven methods
for improving productivity and profitability.
Participants at the Ecobuild Conference in Washington, D.C.
and on the web learned and demonstrated live data sharing
with Building Information Model (BIM) and Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) software.
Proven technology was explored and tested to find solutions
for consistent data sharing and reporting using a network of
interoperable hardware and software. Even BIM Server
interoperability was demonstrated between BIMStorm®
backbone ONUMA System and GTX Sync from Gehry
Technologies.
When so much is technically possible, the question is, “Can teams work together with technology
available today to solve large-scale problems?” Hundreds of participants and observers explored
the question together in a manner that showed the answer is “Yes.”
“It is good to use data from non-clients to explore new business approaches without worrying
about making mistakes on an actual project,” said Jason Reese, a project manager with Balfour
Beatty, which was a platinum sponsor and had more than 50 staff and colleagues sign up to learn
about these proven business processes.
This BIMStorm® was subtitled “Less talk and more action” to focus on demonstration of web-
based building industry business processes in front building owners looking for building industry
professionals able to provide repeatable services.
The learn-by-doing workshop used real project data from real projects to allow teams to
demonstrate the efficient, dramatically productive building industry business processes being
sought by leading owners. Kaiser Permanente and California Community Colleges provided real
data from seven projects for use in the BIMStorm® BIG BIM Bang. It is continuing online until
January and February 2012 when final presentations will highlight the lessons learned during this
web-based form of building industry business interaction.

2. Projects at many phases from Kaiser Permanente and California Community Colleges are being used to show
the value of available, real-time data sharing for the building industry.
The event was held in conjunction with many co-located building industry events at Ecobuild
2011. Architect and software architect, ONUMA, Inc. managed web-based and in-person learn-by-
doing sessions that featured planning, design, cost estimating, construction scheduling, web-
based Construction Operation Building information exchange, facility management data
organization and other building industry business processes. BIM to FM was a significant focus as
institutional owners can design for long-term maintenance savings and energy reduction.
John Messner, associate professor of architecture at Penn State University, was at the
Washington, D.C. Convention Center addressing professionals in person, as he broadcast back to
his students and other building industry professionals on three continents (see participant map at
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S332111jWIl ).
Hyde Griffith, Vice President at Broaddus & Associates, used the the BIMStorm® to manage data
between the ONUMA System web server, Gehry Technology's GTX Server and COBie formats to
demonstrate building industry business processes available today. Griffith noted that technology is
not the issue – good business processes are the key. “Work flows and business rules are harder
to address than software coding,” says Griffith, whose colleague Matt Moore, Broaddus' BIM
Manager also participated in the event for Broaddus, also a sponsor. “BIMStorm® activities allow
building industry professionals to use real project data before they have to work on real projects,”
Moore stated.
Griffith concluded, “BIMStorm® allows us to find ways to piece together and refine the value
proposition to the project and the owner.”
Kaiser Permanente made data available from it's Gwinnett Comprehensive Medical Center under
construction in Duluth, Georgia and its Glenlake Comprehensive Medical Center & Ambulatory in
Sandy Springs, Georgia.

3. Real Kaiser Permanente project information Building Information Model data is being used in the BIMStorm®
BIG BIM Bang.
Gwinnett Comprehensive Medical Center
Alexander Herr, Kaiser Permanente
Senior Project Manager for the
Gwinnett Comprehensive
Medical Center, Atlanta, says, “The
project consists of two phases of
construction. A new building will add
66,000 square feet to the existing
campus. Renovations in the existing
building of about 19,000 square feet
will start after the new building is
open. Construction value is
approximately $21 million and the
total budget is approximately $52
million.”
Kimon Onuma, FAIA, president of
ONUMA, Inc., Pasadena, Calif.,
indicates that since this project is in
construction the interest is in “what
can we do with this data as we go into operations and maintenance. This is a great opportunity for
teams that want to look at this live model of a building that is already under construction and see
what else can be done with it.”
Multiple models can be observed on the project. There is a Revit model, SketchUp model, as well
as NavisWorks models which will be made available to the teams that want to participate.
The Gwinnett team is using Vela Field Manager for commissioning activities and for the transition
of data into a NavisWorks model.

4. Herr says, “We are scheduled to receive the Certificate of Occupancy and issue Substantial
Completion on January 13, 2012. Right now we are wrapping up the exterior cladding work and
we have been working on the interiors of the building with prime paint, casework, ceiling grid tile,
overhead inspections and in the next couple of weeks we should be getting into the flooring and
completing the finishes.”
He adds, “The big thing that we are hoping to get out of this event is to gain insight into how the
GC and A/E coordinated models can be updated with commissioning and Operation &
Maintenance data efficiently. Once the model is loaded with that information, it is believed that the
Facilities Department and our Engineering staff will be able to utilize the data to minimize
operation and maintenance costs for the entire building life cycle.”
The actual project’s general contractor, Skanska, is providing real project data for BIMStorm®
teams to explore in their virtual demonstration projects.
Glenlake Comprehensive Medical Center & Ambulatory
Stephen Cox, Kaiser Permanente Manager of Facilities Design & Construction works in the
Georgia region and has been involved with Glenlake Comprehensive Medical Center &
Ambulatory, Duluth, Georgia. The project is a high end, high acuity specialty Medical Office
Building (MOB) along with a ambulatory surgery center and procedure area on a site that is just
under 18 acres.
“This project is very early in the design process. The project is very similar to the Gwinnett project.
It is an addition to an existing building. The existing building is about 120,000 square feet. The
proposed addition is about 120,000 square feet.” The addition of a 750-car parking structure is
also part of the project.
Cox says there is a very aggressive schedule with completion at the end of 2013 or very early part
of 2014. The Smith Group out of Washington DC is designing the project and the general
contractor is St-Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies.
“We hope to break ground sometime early next year year,” Cox says. In the meantime,
participants are invited to use web-services to watch and participate in the design using the same
data as the live project. (None of the BIMStorm® activities are to be used on the project,
BIMStorm® participants can practice web-based processes using real-life data being shared in
real time without the fear of their activities impacting the actual project. BIMStorm® participants
can have experience the legally contracted project team data sharing processes without legal
obligation to the project team.
Kaiser Permanente requested that business partners be ready to use productivity improving BIM
processes. “They hadn't really seen that many owners specifying what they wanted to see in
BIM,” Cox says.
Building team members are all working out of Atlanta offices and include, architect of record HKS,
Perry Crab & Associates for MEP services and the General Contractor is Skanska.

5. California Community Colleges
John Roach, Executive Director, Technology Services, Foundation for California Community
Colleges supports the institution's 72 districts and 112 campus throughout the state. “All of those
districts and campuses are using our facility maintenance program Fusion to collaborate with the
Chancellors office on annual reporting,” Roach says.
Fusion is an internally created, online database that assists with space utilization and facility
management for 71 million square feet of facilities. The need for integrating information and to
streamline and standardize the exchange of information dealing with the facilities was the reason
for establishing the Fusion, according to Roach. Because the college system has already had
organized the data, it was well prepared to benefit from web-based BIM processes.
“I am very excited about college district projects being involved in the BIMStorm® . It is great
opportunity for contractors working with the colleges or potential new contractors to get a sense of
what the California Community
College work scope is,” says
Roach. “And it gives our districts
new and fresh ideas and to see
how this collaborative approach
and data sharing can help them
save money and get more done
with the limited budget we have to
maintain our facilities.”
“The districts have obligations to
annually submit space inventory
information explaining what space
has been added, what space has
been removed and how those
spaces are being used down to the
room level,” Roach says. “We have
a team of assessors that travel the
state full time and visit each
campus, walking each building
approximately once every three
years.” The FUSION database is linked through ONUMA to other programs.
Information about the condition of building systems combined with the chancellor's office annual
updates for enrollment forecasts allow districts to allocate spaces at individual campuses and add
additional forecasts.
“With those three basic building blocks: 1) space inventory telling us what spaces we have and
how they are being used, 2) the condition of the space and 3) the enrollment forecasts the
districts then develop their capital construction plans,” Roach says.
As capital plans are approved by the chancellor's office and then funded, active projects move
into the project module of Fusion. “As projects are built out and the last of the financial
reimbursement claims are processed, the project moves back into the space inventory and the
cycle continues,” Roach says.

6. He added, “Each district maintains its own sets of data and then collaborate by sharing it through
web services. Ideally we do it as we are doing it in the ONUMA System. We found that because of
the standards approach of the ONUMA Systems and it's light weight web-based approach, that it
is the ideal tool for being able to link into these tools.”
The Foundation for California Community Colleges is working with individual districts on larger
focused projects dealing on a range of projects from master planning through to maintenance,
ticketing, sensor and energy reading, according to Roach.
For this BIMStorm® the California Community College will for the first time, generate project
program requirements in BIM from FUSION which will then be made accessible to the design
teams to work with and submit the completed BIM back to FUSION for compliance checking and
updating of the FUSION data.
Onuma says, “We are actively looking for other tools that can connect to the FUSION system and
add more value to the colleges.” For example, at Glendale Community College, IRIS Greenbuild
is using the ONUMA System and Energle software to link BIM with building automation systems
and sensors to FUSION data.
Sensors provide real-time data through Energle's dashboards. Also, web-based BIM lighting
controls that provides the ability to turn lights on and off remotely are being tested and were
demonstrated at the BIMStorm® BIG BIM Bang. Onuma used a connection through a web based
BIM to turn off a light in a California building from the Washington, D.C. Convention center floor.
A Light was turned off remotely through a BIM at the BIMStorm.
At MiraCosta College, there were two
program requirements defined for two
real buildings being developed at the
college. Using a master plan created by
HMC Architects entered into a web
server, 56 GIS layers from an ArcGIS
Server were able to be seen accurately,
in real time in relation to planned and
actual buildings. According to John
Roach, making many GIS data sets
available in relation to buildings
provides a significant benefit for cost
effective campus planning.
Roach says, “We achieved the
connection between facility data,
geographic information systems and
BIM and created immediate. . . This has
allowed us to achieve rapid, accurate results at a modest cost. The smart, adaptable design of the
ONUMA System, has allowed FUSION to make great progress in a short time. . . This allows me,
despite frozen budgets, to offer new features to my college districts at a time when they need it
most.”

7. Among the BIMStorm® participants were others from the California Community College system
and their contractors wanting to learn about the processes proven to provide value by giving
access to data that can be easily used as needed by each campus.
“BIMStorm® BIG BIM BANG is allowing access to several energy studies, audits for demand
response and how to reduce energy use for an entire campus,” Onuma says.
Onuma adds, “We are had a connection between the ONUMA System and GTX Sync, a master
model management web server. In the ONUMA System we keep models light weight, but if we
have a full blown Revit model that we want to see in 3D in a web browser - for example a mashup
of the mechanical model with the architectural model - GTX Sync is going to have the ability to
import that Revit or IFC model and visualize it in 3D on the web.”
Another focus of BIMStorm® BIG BIM BANG is data transfer using the Construction Operation
Building Information Exchange (COBie) format, according to Tina Macica, MPM Consultancy,
supporting the Build LACCD program. “We are developing a COBie specification to figure out how
to take the information that we receive during construction – the operations manuals, the
maintenance manuals, the warranty information and put it into a data format that you can you can
transfer it automatically into SAP,” Macica says. “The goal is to take information that is already
required to be delivered in the written format and move it into an electronic format.”
Multiple California Community Colleges use web-based BIM.
The test project is a lab building, so there is
a significant amount of equipment in it and it
is a common example of the different types
of items will need to be maintained. “We will
need to know how do we take some of that
information and hook it back into FUSION
so the client can manage the assets down
the line in a logical manner,” Macica says.
“We will be uploading the maintenance
information into their maintenance
management system which is SAP.”
“We released some of this information
during the BIMStorm® so the different
project teams utilized what we have done,”
Macica says. Results will be displayed in
the final BIMStorm® BIG BIM Bangs
presentations.
While FUSION does not maintain equipment data, it does maintain room data, according to
Onuma. “The opportunity is to have multiple systems talk about the same room. For example,
LACCD uses their own FM CMMS Systems and also uses FUSION so that all the data from
different systems can be related to the same room with accuracy,” he says. “We don't need every
single element in this model that you see on the screen during facility management. What we
worked on with the LACCD and Tina was to identify specifically what is needed from the model.
Some of it could be very simple data about a piece of equipment. We might not need all the ducts,
but we need all the air handling units, for example.”

8. Many models being delivered to owners are great for construction but they don't support facility
management, according to Onuma. “So how do you break this data back down into a different
format? It is not necessarily that the more data you have the better. It is really the appropriate
level of detail for what you are trying to do throughout the whole project life-cycle,” he says.
Onuma adds, “One very important theme for all of the BIMStorm®s and a lot of the owners – is
how to consistently get data from all of our facilities that can be rolled up to a portfolio level. This
is not possible unless you have consistent naming and numbering. It is as simple as that actually.
We have to have consistent naming and numbering at a very basic level. If we can't name
buildings and number buildings and name spaces and number spaces in a consistent way, it is
impossible to say what's inside. That is the lowest level of BIM detail in this BIMStorm® . Let's
keep data consistent. This seems simplistic, but this is absolutely the biggest challenge most
owners have is naming and numbering of spaces.”
These challenges and many other related to improved productivity with web-based Building
Information Models are still being addressed in BIMStorm® BIG BIM BANG –
www.BIMStorm®.com/WAS
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9. Healthcare BIM Consortium
In addition to promoting the activities of the American Institute of Architect’s Technology in
Architectural Practice www.aia.org//tap, which Mr. Onuma will be chairing in 2013, BIMStorm®
time was spent promoting the Healthcare BIM Consortium group of the buildingSMART alliance.
Xiajun Lin, AIA, LEED AP, with Kaiser Permanente National Facilities Services - Facilities
Planning division is supporting the collaborative efforts on behalf of her company and the
Healthcare BIM Consortium.
“The Healthcare BIM Consortium was created by healthcare owners in collaboration with software
vendors, designers and builders seeking solutions for interoperability for facility life-cycle
management. Currently, the owners group includes Kaiser Permanente, Department of Defense
Military Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Sutter Health and recently we had the
University of Texas join the group.”
According to Ms. Lin the Healthcare BIM Consortium is collaboratively addressing five core focus
areas:
1. Automate space PFD (Program for Design) validation in design submittal. Input Data Flow
2.Automate Room Equipment (Project Room Contents) Validation. Input Data Flow
3.Optimize the benefits of BIM during the execution of design to ensure successful project
construction.
4.Automate the data population of computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) /
CAFM. Output Data Flow
5.Automate the data population – Medical Equipment & Furniture Inventory and Maintenance
System. Output Data Flow
“We are very excited to be a part of this BIMStorm® and look forward to very interesting results,”
says Lin. Details regarding the next HBC meeting will be posted on a site hosted by the
buildingSMART Alliance
http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/projects/activeprojects/162
Onuma, a buildingSMART alliance board member has been involved with the HBC since early
2010 and says, “Healthcare BIM Consortium is really looking at how data flows from different
parts of the building process.”
For healthcare owners to be openly sharing project data with colleagues and competitors through
the BIMStorm® activities is a clear sign of the common agreement on the importance of improving
building industry processes to reduces costs and eliminate waste.
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