The wonderful business trip to the UK

According to the collaboration programme in BIM approaching schedule between Vietnam and UK, at the beginning of April, Vietnammese BIM steering committee had visited and worked with UK BIM academic research organisations and progrmames, universities and some well-known UK construction and design firms in 2 weeks, from 1st to 15th April. It is really a meaningful trip with so many excellent BIM sharing sessions in London, Cambridge, Manchester and Newcastle. Vietnam BIM Steering Committee delegations were honored to be met and learned from experimented speakers, who are the BIM/ digital information experts of digital construction and design field.


Visit agenda includes::
(1)Crossrail visit
Crossrail is building the Elizabeth line - a new railway for London and the South East.
In the meeting, Mr Malcom Taylor, Head of Technical Information, shared a Case Study in BIM and Project Controls within Liverpool Street Station. The term case study refers to both Key BIM processes and Crossrail programme Controls; how to create Common Data Environmentuse data of Asset Information and hand-over data into Ops & Maintenance; the method for turning data into infformation to support decisions, Earned Value (EV management), defining detailed KPIs and risk management.
In conclusion, BIM Lesson learned here including:
Key principles to control a BIM project efficiently are:
Treat data as a valuable resource! (owned by the Client)
Establish your requirements (at business and project level)
Structure data with the end-use in mind
Good asset breakdown structure & classification
Use relational databases
Become data-centric (the CDE)
And BIM team or other project stakeholders have to mindful of:
Data interoperability (be prescriptive!)
Being led by IT and software!
People don’t like change!

(2)Allford Hall Monaghan Morris visit
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) is an Architecture and Planning firm based in London. The Vietnam delegations had a talk with Aaron Perry, Leader of Digital Design globally
For AHMM, He speaked to the journey of business change and revolution to digital design and Delivery BIM.

(3).Seminar at University of Cambridge
In the visit day at University of Cambridge, Vietnam BIM delegations had opportunities to discuss with the frontier academic organization related research and build BIM standard in the UK,
Set up in August 2017 by Government at the University of Cambridge to support the digital transformation of the built environment, Centre Digital Britain Built identified the objtects of digital built Britian in Design, Build, Operate and Interate. Technical drivers towards a digital built Britian, including:
Smart contractor
Digital construction
Digital retrofit of Existing Assets
Exploitation of Emerging Technology (AI, Machine Learning)
Smart Asset Management & Operations
Digital Twins (Component, Assets, Geospatial)
Ditital Twin Cities
Beside that, technology alone is not enough to deliver change. We need to:
-develop people by education and training and international exports of skills, standards and technology
-create policy, including: develop policy, certifications, regulation adn standards, and improve industry, policty maker and academic engagement.
-Inform decisions through improved data governance and ethics and case studies and demonstrators from research and industry
-Change behaviour by improved contract and procurement law and management and organisation change

Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction CSIC talked about transforming infrastructure through smarter information.
The University of Cambride and The BIM steering committee also discuss the collaboration programme in education and digitalise data development for smart city/ country.

(4)Mott Mc Donald Visit
Mott Mc Donald is a global engineering and construction consultant with over 20 offices across the world and in Great Britian. MMD was one of the major hosts that help contact and organize visiting schedule for Vietnamese BIM steering commitee.
-Discussion about Legal BIM considerations with May Winfield
Mr Winfield speaked about The UK standard, standard BIM contract documents, BIM protocol, how to warrant/promise to comply with BIM laws/standards. It was really interesting topic and attract a lot of attention from our policy makers
-Sharing a case study of how can cutting-edge data delivery of Thames Tideway project
-The meeting with Mott McDonald happened in Machester office. The Vietnam BIM delegations were very impressed by fantastic work MMD Manchester have been involved and shared experiences.

(5)RICs and Education Fund Agency meeting
In the meeting, the topics were mentioned including:
-Current – Future offsite frameworks – Mott Mc Donald
-Introduction about RICs
-Data and Information Management Implementation – Environment Agency
(6)Meeting with University of Salford Manchester
Dr Mark shelbourn discuss with Vietnam BIM delegation how to build capacity to drive digital transformation in the built environment.
Really appreciated for the hardwork for organizing this wonderful trip to Mr Richard Lane, Programme Manager of the EU BIM Task Group and Mr Sean Kearney, Senior Information consultant at Mott McDonald, a global engineering, management and development consultancy,

UK is considered to be the leader in BIM implementation in the world, therefore the trip bring to Vietnammese BIM steering committee with a wealth of advanced BIM knowledge.

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Tác giả: Quynh Pham