PSU BIM Project Execution Planning Guide

The Computer Integrated Construction Research Program at Pennsylvania State University (phew!) have produced a comprehensive guide to implementing any scale BIM project. I found it last week, thanks to James Vandezande, and showed it at the last Revit User Group Auckland meeting.

The “total lifecycle” aspect of the guide interests to me as many BIM resources focus on the design stage even though it represents a small part of the process. Buildings are occupied for far longer than they are designed/constructed. The potential payback for operation, maintenance and renovation is greater than initial design & construction. The guide (itself 99 pages) is also supported with comprehensive templates for process diagrams and forms.

In addition to design projects the principles and process are applicable to BIM (or other information project) implementation within an organisation. I was going to write a more detailed description but this post on the BIMForum Discussion Group (reproduced below) says it all:

We recently released the BIM Project Execution Planning Guide. This guide provides a practical manual that can be used by project teams for designing their BIM strategy and developing a BIM Project Execution Plan at the early stages of a project. The Guide includes a four step structured procedure for creating a BIM Project Execution Plan:

The core process modeling and information exchange concepts are developed to complement the long term goals of the buildingSMART Alliance in the development of the National Building Information Modeling Standards.
We have also developed template documents which allow a project team to complete each step defined within the guide. The guide and the corresponding template documents are currently available for download at the following location:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/cic/BIMEx/download.aspx

Please note that these products are still in draft format, and at this time we are continuing with the implementation and testing of the procedure on case study projects. If you have a case study project that you would like us to consider for assisting with the development of a BIM Project Execution Plan, please complete the form at:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/cic/BIMEx/callforcasestudy.aspx

We would like to thank the Charles Pankow Foundation, the Construction Industry Institute (CII), the Penn State Office of Physical Plant, and the Penn State PACE organization for their generous support of this project.
We hope that you find the guide valuable, and we would appreciate any and all feedback that you may have related to the document and implementation templates.

Sincerely,
John I. Messner, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Architectural Engineering Director, Computer Integrated Construction Research Program The Pennsylvania State University