As the result of decrease in building projects, builders and designers are reluctant to spend more money. Do you think BIM will continue to grow?

Rex Miller, author of The Millennium Matrix : BIM has reached an adoption point where it will now expand rapidly and become mainstream within the next 5 years. When a technology reaches 16% use then it will take on a life of its own. We heard that it has reached 50% although that number is very misleading. There are at least 14 different levels of BIM use and outside of visualization and clash detection most of the other levels have not been adopted. We also have large firms that promote their use of BIM when it may only be a few offices who have any extensive knowledge of the platform.

That said, the value that BIM provides in reducing errors, improving logistics, providing performance simulation, reducing material requirements…the savings far outweigh any cost associated with its use. Firms have to develop the skills for converting that added value into fees.

Architects in general have not been good at communicating and billing for value. They adopted a professional hourly fee structure and are having difficulty breaking out of that mindset.

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