Professional Development for BIM

Are you laying firm foundations?

In today’s economic climate, organisations are under constant pressure to evaluate every facet of their business in order to save money and improve output, whilst maintaining efficiency and driving innovation. Many people have now taken the leap toward BIM integration, but have they put in the right foundations for BIM to thrive in their organisation?

Training is often one of the first things removed from the annual budget and often forgotten about when new procedures, software or plans are put in place. A recent study found that 72% of manufacturers and engineers believe there is a labour shortage of adequately trained professionals and two thirds found difficulty recruiting production and design engineers in the past two years.

In 2012 a survey done by the National Federation of Builders indicated a widespread awareness of BIM and a recognition of its importance to their business and clients, but a low level of understanding of BIM impact and plans to deliver training. This has improved since 2012 but recent figures indicate that there are still many companies seeing training as a lower priority and not utilising the full capacity of their software. More than half of the sample is either waiting for free training, or has no intention at all to train. According to the survey only 10% of SMEs are planning to invest in training next year, more than a quarter of contractors will be relying on free training or seminars and 27% of SMEs were not planning to train at all.

Training helps maximise return on software investment by ensuring all the tools and features are embraced. Training can also reduce staff turnover and improve motivation and morale, increase productivity and provide staff with the knowledge to be able to work cross-functionally in times of absences or demands. A Gartner Group study shows that “wasted end-user time, due to a lack of training, accounted for the biggest piece of the software spending pie” and often when people purchase BIM-related software the allocated budget for training, is a fraction of the cost of what has been spent overall. But training the user is as critical, if not more so, than the software that has been purchased.

The International Data Corporation found that without training users were only actually using 13% of the features in their software tools meaning that the remaining 87% of the software investment is not utilised to its fullest. A commitment to professional development, especially when implementing new software and BIM protocols can contribute to an increase in profitability, better and more efficient procedures and improved communication before, during and after a project.

Insufficient training can have often have a detrimental effect on the output delivered by your design or project team and although your staff may have received training at some point in their career, it is advisable to update their knowledge as new releases of software become available and as improved methods become common-place. Productivity-enhancing features and functionality are continually being added to software packages to streamline your procedures and help produce better quality products in less time.

Structured training not only ensures teams have the required knowledge and confidence to best use the software to enhance performance, but also ensures a clear return on investment from the software purchase. Often upgrading software can be daunting for a number of reasons; familiarity, confidence, time and cost. Training can increase confidence and decreases anxiety, provides a point of contact for any future struggles, add ease to a job function and enhance the level of job satisfaction.

But where to start?

It is often advised if companies are not sure if they are getting the most from their staff and from their software packages that the best place to start is with a training needs analysis. This helps establish exactly what training is required and create a bespoke development programmes to meet your training needs and company objectives. Companies are often able to offer CAD Mentoring, where an experienced Technical Expert can support your CAD team with a specific project or get them to review the way you are working.

 

Submitted by Quadrasol.co.uk

The post Professional Development for BIM appeared first on UK Construction Online.