The architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector is increasingly being disrupted by building information modelling (BIM).

Organizations may investigate design choices and give stakeholders thorough visuals while also cutting costs and boosting productivity with a robust BIM software solution. According to a Forbes article, employing a BIM platform may increase construction companies' efficiency by 50 to 60 per cent.

What do you mean by Open BIM?

Open BIM is a forward-thinking strategy that enables you to link AEC staff with stakeholders to develop better buildings. With this strategy, companies may share project information with their stakeholders independently of the BIM tools by using open-source file formats. Complex AEC projects need continual coordination and communication, yet there is sometimes a chasm between teams, particularly those based in the field and the office.

Using open BIM standards, stakeholders can communicate and collaborate on projects quickly, resulting in faster completion. Furthermore, it provides consistent project information throughout the asset lifecycle and develops a single language for standard processes. In this way, you can ensure data quality and prevent issues associated with multiple inputs of the same data.

What do you mean by closed BIM?

In a closed BIM environment, everyone who is important to the project must utilise the same software platform at all times. To assure the interoperability and avoid incompatibility problems, it entails many exchanges using the BIM tools of the same vendor.

By eliminating file conversions, this approach reduces model reviews and improves efficiency compared to open BIM software solutions. As part of its cloud-based capabilities, users are able to access their models and information from anywhere at any time.

What are the advantages of Open BIM?

Although closed BIM does not need lengthy file conversions, it might nevertheless be relatively constrictive for planners to deploy BIM because of these limitations. Since participants can only exchange data and work together using specific tools, it limits the number of participants.

The open BIM guidelines, on the other hand, facilitate collaboration between all stakeholders within a project to ensure data quality. In the AEC industry, open BIM is set to be the future of all BIM-related technology.

The benefits of Open BIM are as follows:

Better and efficient collaboration

The majority of AEC professionals do not want their clients to make several upstream changes as part of the project. It is important to realize that numerous changes result in continuous reworking, which, at the very least, would entail spending extra financial resources.

Open BIM standards, however, allow users to easily access goods and data for improved cooperation. Furthermore, it enables users to link any application to the project, retrieve data, and complete the development of the relevant component before uploading it in IFC file format.

Better Compatibility

In business projects, one of the main challenges is that not all of the project's stakeholders use the same BIM software platforms, making the exchange of data nearly impossible. With the boom in software products that improve the AEC processes, professionals will find that they need to find the right solutions to all their problems in order to remain competitive and keep their clients.

The advantage of using an open BIM platform is that you can have quicker access to importing and exporting data between disparate software solutions by using an open BIM platform.

Large global projects which require a greater level of collaboration between collaborative partners in order to overcome national borders and improve productivity are able to benefit greatly from this technology.

Providing more transparency

Transparency is essential to building trust, improving efficiency, and improving decision-making in the AEC industry. It is unfortunate that 45% of professionals report that their building projects are plagued by a lack of visibility. Several reasons contribute to this increase, including the organization's inability to create a participatory approach.

By giving everyone access to a process that allows project participants to engage regardless of the software they are using, an open BIM solves these problems. By doing so, AEC professionals may produce work of a better caliber and assure more responsibility among their team members.

Final Thoughts

In the end, it may be concluded that both variations have benefits and drawbacks. It would be excellent to have all-encompassing software that can support the ideal principles of the many specialized fields. The closed BIM approach would then likely already be the norm.

In practice, however, it frequently happens that a closed BIM approach is first used, which is later changed by external project partners to an Open BIM form. There is not really a winner or loser in this situation. We believe that this project is well-planned as long as BIM is utilized.