Exclusive interview: Paul Marsden at Keepmoat talks about BIM – part 2

Last week, UK Construction Media published the first of a two-part interview with Paul Marsden, Group Systems Manager at Keepmoat and former MP, who spoke in depth about his experience of the highly successful fifth edition of BIM Show Live. 

In the final part of the interview, Paul talks about what he learned at BIM Show Live and also gave an insight into how he wants Keepmoat to progress in the BIM environment. 

What was the most valuable thing you learned over the two days of BIM Show Live that you feel can be implemented at Keepmoat? Was this something you expected or did you gather information you hadn’t necessarily set out to?

Getting the collaborative processes agreed between the design team, contractor and other consultants is a key lesson. That means creating a Common Data Environment but also building trust and confidence between people through good communications.

Where do you think you are as a company in terms of where you want to be with BIM in the short to medium term?

Keepmoat is a £1Bn group. That’s 22 offices, 400 construction sites. We have 26 pathfinder projects to develop and devolve the processes we need to meet Level 2 and beyond. And what we’re doing is having innovation on the ground.

So one project might be heavily innovating on the cost side, another on the quality assurance snagging defect side, another on the planning side. What we’re aiming for is by the end of this calendar year, as a group we will have collective knowledge, skills-set, processes, technology so we can meet the demands and expectations of those clients when we get into 2016 but we are still at the beginning of that journey.

My view is to look at it long term because with the industry changing, we need to invest in our graduates and operatives and the younger generation because soon they will be operating robotics and 3D printers on site and they will be expecting to build highly complicated digital models way and above what we would be doing at the moment, and work out ways collaboratively with the client how to get to zero carbon and so on.

We have to be understanding that this is one of the goals on the horizon and where we should head to, so we’re not just saying Level 2, tick the box, therefore we can make do and get through this. We’re looking at the long term and where this is heading in the industry because we want to be a leader.

So even though we’re starting our journey later than many other contractors, for the marketplace we’re in – which is new homes, regeneration on brownfield sites, and property services – we want to be a leader over the next year or so in those particular markets where we operate.

Do you feel that technology is available to the level that those finishing studies want to work at and also, those who have been in the industry for a long time, how do you bring them to the same level on the tech side?

That’s where we’re giving the toolkits. So for Keepmoat, what we’re doing is making sure we have high spec laptops, Autodesk Revit product suites in order for a graduate to be able to walk straight in and engage and interact with the client and representatives. So the technology will be there for those who are eager.

But also to raise awareness across the whole group and make sure that everyone in the company understands what is BIM, and to keep it simple.

One of the things I was told: What is BIM? It’s building two identical buildings, say schools and asking which is going to be the better one? It should be the second one because you’re making all the mistakes on the first one – that’s BIM. We build the first one on a computer and the second one we build on a construction site.

We should have been able to get it to a high and accurate standard when on the computer so we are making less mistakes and having far fewer problems when we hit the site.

It’s about keeping that language simple and plain, when taking your second point – and it’s not necessarily a generational thing. It could be an educational issue. But for whoever doesn’t understand the technology or the ever increasing pace of change within the technology we would keep it simple.

So for example, on site we would have an iPad and can say: “There’s the model, play with it. You may crash through the walls but it doesn’t matter and we’ll get there.”

Keep it simple and keep it visual so everybody can understand it and the potential of this because when this happens, in straightforward terms, they can all contribute and come up with ideas.

That’s what we want – everybody to feel they can take part in it, add to it, enrich it and it isn’t just the technology people who are the experts in playing around with the programming and digital models.

That’s where we’ve got to head. It’ll be up and down but hopefully we’ll get there.

Is there anything else you would like to mention?

Construction is changing and yet the wider industry still seems in many ways stuck in the adversarial past. We can add value and make a profit but we need to recognise that times are changing and BIM can be used to embrace a competitive future that uses technology to lower costs and time and improve quality.

 

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