Andrew Bagnall cheerfully admits mistakes happen in construction projects.
Tunnels and bridges that don't align are not uncommon. "That's not unusual - that's the norm. Misalignment usually gets picked up mid-way through the design phase," said Mr Bagnall, senior mechanical engineer at GHD Woodhead.
Mistakes occurred when designers and builders worked in a two-dimensional environment. "With three dimensions (3D), that's far less likely to happen – but it's not impossible," he said.
This involves Building Information Modelling (BIM), where a project or building is digitally designed from the ground up in 3D. However the benefits of BIM, particularly the potential savings, were not being achieved, Mr Bagnall said, because there was a lack of co-ordination during the process.
"What's missing is a more well-defined procurement process, where clients are educated up front and want to use BIM, not just for architecture and design, but the concept, master plan, design and documentation, through construction, and continue this process through to facilities management for life span." .
Mr Bagnall said adversity in the construction industry between different parties was stifling innovation. Some success had come in the past five years on larger mining and infrastructure projects where major contractors worked closely together.
"The fundamental principle of BIM is, there is a lot of information there and it makes it easier to share, but if people do not share, that disappears – that's the missing link."
Mr Bagnall said more detailed design gave better information to contractors to price things. "They can de-risk their project, instead of having a large risk margin for contingencies."
What's called 4D scheduling gave more accurate information on timing and could be used for safety inductions, while with 5D, the cost element, "you can spit out the bill quickly from the model", which knows how much concrete and steel is stipulated.
Mr Bagnall said the next frontier was 6D - facilities management. "This takes the fully up-to-date built model, reflecting changes in construction, and links that into a data base that controls the operation and maintenance of the building."
This could show who manufactured the equipment, its size, when it needed to be serviced, who the contractor to service it was, and the spare parts required.
In a typical project, about 80 per cent of the life cycle cost was in maintenance, whereas 20 per cent was in actual construction. "The real prize at the end of all this, is you get a building that maintains data and integrity all through to construction and maintenance."
The integrity of the data can be lost. "If the designers don't pass on that information to the contractors, then if the contractors don't maintain it or pass on to the owners. Again it's very hard for the owners to create a fully trustworthy model without that previous history."
Mr Bagnall said there was a lot of waste in construction, which could learn a lot from the automotive industry. "They went through a big shift post-World War II doing things smarter – lean construction techniques, minimising waste, whereas construction basically does things as they have done forever."
Prefabrication was starting to change this, Mr Bagnall said.
