Home  /  BIM and ARCHICAD   /  Why BIM is Still Bankrupting Your Firm

Why BIM is Still Bankrupting Your Firm

Back in 2012 I updated a classic BIM graphic to show how BIM can bankrupt your firm. You can argue about the specific curves, but the essence is true. Here’s the original image showing how BIM shifts when the bulk of an architect’s time is spent:

My updated graphic describes firms that panic, reverting to a CAD mindset after starting with BIM methodologies. As is obvious from the image below, this is a bad idea:

While these two graphics make a clear case for sticking with BIM, and for describing the differences between CAD and BIM workflows, they are misleading. As such people view these images and notice that it doesn’t align with their experience. BIM doesn’t save that much time. CAD isn’t that bad. There’s a reason for that. We are looking at idealized curves. The BIM curve hides the truth that BIM never actually looks like that. It’s simplified for marketing. It’s devised to tell a simple truth: with BIM you spend more time on design and less on documentation. But of course selling the idea and living the idea are two different things. There are actually two variants of this graph we need to look at: BIM without templates and BIM with templates. Here’s what BIM looks like without a good template:BIM without templatesBIM without a template feels very familiar. Just like CAD, there is still a mountain of work to do during the documentation phase. This is actually one of the reasons why panic sets in. People implicitly understand the work shift represented by the original idealized BIM graph and start freaking out when they see the mountain of time ahead of them in real life. The bump is scary as it reminds them of CAD and how much work that involves. Instead of trusting the work flow, they panic and everything falls apart. If you actually do the math (or use Archicad’s ability to display the area of a fill) and compare the area under each curve (which is a proxy for total time spent on a project), BIM without a template is still more efficient than 2D CAD, though of course more time consuming than the idealized BIM that the marketers are selling us on. Even if we just work this way, as long as we accept the shift of work isn’t as great as we were sold, BIM is still better and more efficient-and this is discounting all the other benefits of BIM.

Working with BIM in this manner of course is stupid. It’s something we all have to deal with when we start using Archicad or REVIT or another competitor, but we must quickly move beyond this phase. To effectively work in BIM, the secret to success is a strong template. And templates take time. What do I mean by a template? I mean anything and everything that is standard across projects: title blocks, page layouts, standard details, organization methods, graphics, generic data, typical construction elements, IFC schemes… As architects we reuse a lot of data from project to project. If we don’t, we’re either foolish or working for amazingly specialized clients. And let me comment on the thought that just popped into your head: no, your clients aren’t the ones I’m talking about. They aren’t that unique.

Templates are the starting point for a project. The better your template it is, whether because it has a ton of information embedded in it or because it allows you to work quickly in a clean environment, the more time you’ll save on a project. Here’s what BIM looks like with a good template:

BIM with templatesBIM with a template is faster than how BIM is marketed to us. But there’s a catch of course. It’s faster during the life of the project, but I had to extend the graph to talk about time before the project. That time is significant and scary. As mentioned earlier, if you calculate the area under each curve, you’ll get the total time for each method. Of course this is all conceptual, but if you agree that the graphs feel right, then the numbers behind them are of just as much value. Let’s assume CAD = 100% time. How do the other curves compare?

  • CAD = 100% baseline time
  • BIM without templates = 90% of baseline time
  • Idealized BIM = 70% of baseline time
  • BIM with templates = 50% of baseline time
  • Template creation = 33% of baseline time
  • Our old panic curve = 150% of baseline time

What does this tell us? Unless you are dedicated to BIM, you’re never going to see the benefit from a time standpoint. And if BIM isn’t saving you time, you aren’t freeing up hours to either provide more services or do more projects. The numbers are interesting: BIM without templates (90%) and BIM with templates but only used on one project (83%) are very similar. And both numbers are above the idealized BIM (70%). So both feel like the marketers have been lying to us. Do you really want to upend your entire business model for a ten or twenty percent speed improvement? Not if it takes you a year of lost time to reach that (because of course all these numbers are worse when you are also brand new to a workflow). Each is an improvement on the old ways, but it’s not significant enough to feel it. All are traps. Add in the panic curve and BIM starts to feel like a conspiracy.

However if you take templates seriously, if you support all the prep work (training, software upgrades, research, templates…) then amazing things happen. As we BIM people like to think in multiple dimensions, it’s important to look at this graph as part of a continuum. It is not one project, but many. And templating is not a do once exercise. It is something that needs cultivation and maintenance. For all the graphs without templates, a series of projects look just like the same curve over and over and over again. But templates are different. If you look at a series of projects adhering to the same template, the results change over time:

Templates over TimeTemplates need continual work. In the timeline above, I’m showing a small, but constant amount of time dedicated to improving the template between each project. The goal of this continual work is to constantly move work from the project to the template. Each time you do a project, return to and improve your template. The result is that the next project takes less time. If for every hour you spend on your template you can cut an hour out of a project, you are winning. Big time. Each time you shave off a little time from the previous project and reinvest that time into the template, you are reaping exponential benefits. The time you spend on improving the template is beneficial to ALL SUBSEQUENT PROJECTS.

BIM diagrams lie to youI’m estimating that a good template takes about one third of the time of a real project to develop. It could be more or less. It doesn’t matter. All the math still works. But there’s also a way to make that time vanish. I have made my Archicad template available for everyone. It’s geared towards the residential market in the USA, but it’s easily adaptable and usable anywhere by anyone for any type of project. Whether you take mine for free, toss a few dollars my way, or buy another template, there are resources available to you to shrink that 33% number to near zero. The argument isn’t should or shouldn’t you use a template with BIM. It’s whose are you going to use? Yours or one provided to you by an expert template developer? If you don’t want to make your own template, you should be using one developed by someone else.  I of course only use Archicad, but these numbers work for any software. If you use REVIT, find a template. Or make one. And if you have one, share it. It is the hidden costs of templates (either making them or working without them) that limits the value proposition of BIM. It’s almost 2016. No more BIM without templates.

My Life with BIM

All these graphs describe how our lives have changed since the AEC industry truly became computer based. As the time it takes to complete a project changes, you need to think about how your fee structure adapts. Do you charge more an hour? Do you make less per project? Do you offer more services? Do you do more projects a year? Or do you spend more time relaxing with your family? And how do you pay for template time? Is that semi-frequent templating work built into the front end of your projects? Do you do project initiation work that actually benefits all other projects? Or do you raise your rates by a certain percentage to cover that unbillable time?

If you find yourself doing the same work over and over again, move it to the template. If you find parts of your job dull, move it to the template. If you find some aspect of your work is slowing you down, move it to the template.

Move your work to the templateIf your life with BIM doesn’t look like any of these graphs, why? What are you seeing? My experience correlates with the BIM + Template curve. And I’ve talked with so many people in all the curves. So whether or not the exact slopes and peaks are correct, I’m very confident of the underlying truth. If you use Archicad, you need to download my template. You have no excuse not to. Subscribe to my blog to read more about the tricky world of being an Architect in the 21st century: Shoegnome on FacebookTwitter, and RSS feed.

Comments

  • December 9, 2015
    reply

    Templates and office procedures save hours of repetition no doubt. Getting everyone in an office to use the templates along with tried and proven efficient procedures rather than reverting to a previous example is also part of the battle.

    At the same time, the BIM manager has to be flexible and open minded enough to agree that they can’t know everything and so must regularly review the templates based on what the practice is actually doing.

  • December 9, 2015
    reply

    Ahmed Gad

    Thank you for that great report.

  • December 10, 2015
    reply

    How sad we are still at the point where each office has to develop their own templates, what a waste of time across the entire industry. Add to that the fact that most design templates are not used as you transition to construction or FM. When will we start working as a team? Unique designs do not come from templates uniquely designed. Good design still comes from good designers. Good designers understand the entire process including how their designs get built, maintained and operated.

  • December 10, 2015
    reply

    Rachel Levy

    Thank you Jared, for this perfectly convincing article! We cannot emphasize enough the importance of templates in BIM workflows and their critical role in the BIM ROI.
    However, they did exist before, in CAD, but were much less complex.
    It would be great to obtain, one day, some common (and adaptable) templates, which would have built-in industry standards, especially for the BIM objects. – To avoid “re-inventing the wheel” in every office, save thousands of man-years and facilitate collaboration and communication…
    @LeJournalDuBIM

  • December 13, 2015
    reply

    T.Terpstra

    Very good article.
    Time saving with templates and parts is the same as work with 2d CAD only.

  • December 13, 2015
    reply

    Perfect article !. I have worked on BIM implementation in different projects since 2012 and according to my experiences I am exactly agree with your article.

  • December 13, 2015
    reply

    Hi again Jared…you are right on. Believe it or not, we skipped the CAD stage…went straight to ArchiCAD from the drawing board. I logged the hours on my first model: 1/3 learning, 1/3 building favorites (our template), and 1/3 building the model. My subsequent models are down to about 40% if that first one, and FAR better. My real question is: Does anybody out there find that they can charge more for the 3D visualization, BIMx, etc. that
    ArchiCAD provides?

  • December 14, 2015
    reply

    Ash

    Nice report. One thing I’m wondering is do you set up your templates for level 2 BIM (UK)? In the UK, and presumably the US the layers, pen sets etc. have to be universal. Are you following these rules or using your own and sticking to level 1 BIM?

      • July 3, 2019
        reply

        Miguel Sánchez León

        I might be 3 1/2 years late to the conversation, but this is comment is so accurate that it could be a whole post or even a conference just by itself haha. I appreciate not only your amazing job, creating an already classic article in terms of BIM adoption, that stands valid today from A to Z. But also for your commitment to BIM, and your insights and replies to every time possible.

  • December 15, 2015
    reply

    It is interesting that the process of getting 2D info out for build really hasn’t changed that much in 40 years in that all repetition work has generally always been done. I was brought up on a staple of ‘Poly negatives’ and standard note sheets. Little has changed, except the complexity. I do agree that in the residential market of one off houses and extensions it is hard to make Level 2 BIM applicable and easy, YET. I’m sure it will change. As a sole practitioner I am endlessly frustrated that what comes out of the box or the upgrades one gets appears to apply to larger organisations and for large practices. When the bulk of Architects are in small practices dealing with relatively small work is it not time to address this issue? Updating your template each time a new release comes out, erasing numerous layout sheets etc makes for a tedious time. It has taken me years to get pen sets and building materials and colours to look correct on a drawing. Setting complex profiles etc only to find some things need modification or duplicated. There still is a mass of standard materials missing from standard supplied stuff. e.g plain tiles in the UK are regularly a component used yet getting the colour in the pallet remains a bespoke thing. There is also a misconnection between the modelling and how to draw/output simple and standard details like eaves detailing , stairs. etc. Until the ‘2D’ info is easier to output I believe there will always be a ‘lag ‘ in the graphs and a reluctance to embrace the BIM opportunities. We yet need to have specification and notes and drawing info seamlessly linked. Part of the difficulty remains that the developers are fantastic at making the CAD and BIM programs but largely don’t know how buildings go together so the process is disjointed and the designer has to then think how can I use this BIM/CAD to make my component and represent the detail I need.

  • December 20, 2015
    reply
  • December 24, 2015
    reply

    Michelle Marques

    Hi Jared, greetings from Brasil!
    I figured out your site thursday (looking for ifc configurations) and I’m reading it until now (and I’ll keep doing it for all my “vacations”). I just loved it. Will be very useful to me, I’m learning about “hard” Archicad, and you lessons about the tools and template are great, cause it’s more than just an explanation, another users use to come here and comment, and ask… (and you always answer them) that’s amazing.
    I didn’t download your template yet (cause I’m finalizing my own, and it needs to be metric and I use brazilian archicad, that has some differents objects, so I would need to translate everything… =/) so I didn’t analysed it: which LOD – Level of Development – is it? Do you know?
    Which state from USA are you? It’s very interesting to see an american using archicad, cause I thought the most part of USA uses Revit, but California and northeast of country.
    Do you know the BCF tool? Is an plugin that shares the issues between users, for a compatibilization of model (including between programs, you can share an image from Solibri, for example and see it on Archicad, or Revit or any other modeler). I know what it is and how it works, but I never used it. If you did, show us something… =)

      • July 8, 2021
        reply

        John Tolhurst

        I converted your template, Jared, to metric. I found it was easiest to delete all the feet/inch scales, then make one new scale in mm, label it ‘M’, then select when needed.

  • December 24, 2015
    reply

    Jakub

    Thank you for your article. BIM is slowly flowing to our country and I expect similar “PANIC” situations as our managers want to buy finished solution without any further development.

    BIM is a powerful tool, but needs to be mastered and used correctly, otherwise you would spend more time on it. I guess it is the same situation as skilled hand drawers vs the first CAD software users.

  • January 6, 2016
    reply

    Very interesting article. I have had many discussions about this with various other architects and I chose to do a little of BIM and mostly 3D with a few of the tools offered by my soft, I use Vectorworks and Used Revit for a new house, they are similar and I use them in similar ways, I count spaces and report on that, tried the appliances and windows/doors list, OK… I never completely trust the computer because if I rely too much on the calculations I may miss something. This is really BIM, counting beans, no pawn intended. BIM does not help you with details and that;s where I think this article is interesting for mentioning the usefulness of templates.
    Overall I feel like Jared but to me the question is more should we draw in 3D vs. 2D, sorry for highjacking the conversation here. I think so but that also takes a long time and is not reusable right? Or you work like this architect who does all in ketchup with a variety of details in 3D. What do you think about that?
    Thanks for a great article. Best of Year 2016

  • January 10, 2016
    reply

    Hello Jared,
    A verry good artikle which fits in our strategie of doing the BIM business with our customers. Do you have experiance with parts off CRH in the USA?
    It is my goal and challenge to share more off this experiance in the building (CRH) industry

  • January 10, 2016
    reply

    In reaction off the input off Michelle Marques: as CRH Structural we use IFC, Solibri, BCF, etc. On http://www.crhstructural.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CRH-Structural-Memo-gebruik-BCF_v2.01.pdf you can find de link to Building Smart.
    Nice to see that BIM is going to be a worldwide subject!

  • January 22, 2016
    reply

    Natalia Locke

    Great article – right on point. thank you

  • January 25, 2016
    reply

    What the essence of your article say: stop working and thinking CAD, start adopting BIM.

  • January 25, 2016
    reply

    Joseba González

    Good analisys. Thoughtful and based on solid grounds. I totally agree that good templates will push BIM greatly. Same as they did with 2D CAD but with a bigger impact in time saving..
    I would justs like to suggest a correction to the graphics.
    In the coordination tab both workflows, 2D CAD and BIM, end up at the same point suggesting that the level of coordination obtained at the end of the project is the same.
    From my experience, the level of coordination obtained through BIM is considerably higher that the one you get following a 2D CAD traditional method. Therefore, to be able to compare both methods, we should look into the time needed to reach the same level of coordination. With this constriction in time, the 2D CAD finish point should show a much more vertical finish, adding a considerable amount of time at the end.
    Another element to consider for the “templating” tab analisys is the different BIM software to manage. I have the feeling that Autodesk is becoming the preferred tool but on the same hand I keep on reading “ARCHICAD” in many comments. Right now, IFC is good for a making compatible a final product but during desing stage many clients require the use of an specific software. What do you think would be the impact in the graphic if two or three different softwares must live together in your office?

  • January 26, 2016
    reply

    I’m an ‘out of the box person’… Is anyone looking at why the template state of BIM is so difficult?

    Someone about said, “the process hasn’t changed in 40 years.” Is an indication that something is wrong with or without a building model.

  • January 27, 2016
    reply

    cfrevizo

    Not to be picky, but your graph parameters on the horizontal lines should read, IMO for BIM as; Templating, Design, “Coordination”, then Documentation. For me as you show it is more true in a CAD workflow.

  • February 19, 2016
    reply

    Thiago Mundim

    Really good article Jared! Congratulations 😉

  • December 27, 2016
    reply

    Jared, greetings from Dubai, I have visited this article 4-5 times, great piece of information, briefs the BIM adoption process, I would stress on the value of a good template(s) and having the right team on this job, in addition to the right R&D budget given to a competent team who is involved in the production, thanks!

  • January 17, 2017
    reply

    Michael Gustavson

    The time when templates are the most frustrating is when a new version comes out, because there are new bells and whistles in the software and its hard to know if your old template is jiving with the new bells and whistles of the software upgrade.

  • March 14, 2017
    reply

    Lana

    We see the architect spending more time in coordination then indicated in the graphics. Maybe move coordination prior to documentation?

      • March 14, 2017
        reply

        Lana

        That is good news, in our case, with our architects. It then brings up the question – Why are more firms not problem solving digitally? Isn’t that they point of BIM? Are we not digitally prototyping? Ok, it brings up a lot more then just one question. If we work smart and like you mentioned, don’t run duel 2D / 3D paths, BIM should be a money maker.

  • February 15, 2018
    reply

    Chiara C. Rizzarda

    Hi Jared, you know I’m a big fan of this article of yours: I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be using your “move work this way” principle as one of the conclusions for my speech at the European BIM Summit of Barcelona, on the 9th of March. Of course I’ll fully credit you.

    • March 23, 2018
      reply

      Hotchif Arq develop.

      Hi Chiara,
      We’ll be in Barcelona’s BIM Summit, hope to meet you there.
      I’m sure that you will mention Jared Banks in yout speech as the author of this brilliant approach to the BIM process.

      BR
      Hotchif Arq develp.

  • March 13, 2018
    reply

    Michel Wuyts

    Amazing how this article from 2015 is still topical, more than ever. Also from general contractors’ side, we fully support this BIM experience and are working at using standard details and materials, even standard lay-out parts to re-use our solutions. A big challenge we have is to find preferred subcontractors who agree to work this way. W’ll try to convince them with these graphs!

  • April 8, 2018
    reply

    Hung Pham

    When do you think this issue will resolve?

Post a Comment