Walter AEC was one of the pioneers of implementing BIM in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For the last 10 years, Walter AEC has been indubitably successful in its BIM projects, but BIM is still not standardized within our country. Through this article, we will try to summarize the road from BIM first emerging, to being required by law, in at least some countries.
Even though BIM technologies can be traced back to the 1970s, the peak of BIM usage was noticed in the last decade. Specifically since 2014. when it became a part of the European Union Directive on Public Procurement which states that “for public works contracts and design contests, Member States may require the use of specific electronic tools, such as of building information electronic modeling tools or similar.“ source
The European Union has acknowledged BIM’s potential not just to improve value for money and boost performance, but also to foster innovation and digitalization in the AEC industry. By the recommendation of the European Commission, these practices were adopted to the great extent in Norway, Finland, the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, and Spain as they became a part of construction legislation in these countries.
Being a potential EU candidate country, Bosnia and Herzegovina is required to transfer EU Directives into its legislation. With the previously quoted EU Directive 2014/24/EU on Public Procurement, we can conclude that BIM implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a current concern as its usage is still not widespread.
In Sweden, BIM adoption is so widespread that best practices have emerged even in the lack of specific government rules. The government is also taking steps to make BIM implementation easier for government agencies; in fact, state agencies such as the Swedish Transport Administration have made BIM mandatory since 2015.
BIM in Bosnia and Herzegovina is still an unknown phenomenon even though it has already become a standard in many European countries. When you see these changes taking place, and are well aware of the benefits of using BIM, it might seem like a distant future – its implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But, the fact is that BIM implementation has been long present and evolving in the region, Croatia, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the efforts of Walter AEC.
As a result of the pandemic, many industries implemented the “work from home” concept, and the overall acceleration in the digitization of all processes happened. In the AEC industry, one of the fundamentals of work is having good communication and cooperation. With the prior usage of BIM, this transition to online work was smooth without harming efficiency at work.
It was a chance for one of the biggest perks of using BIM to come out to sight – the ability to collaborate with all project participants, instantly, which stopped being a luxury and became a requirement.
We have previously talked about the benefits of BIM, however, BIM is not just about the technology, it’s also about the willingness of the society to accept transparent work, complete digitization, as well as make decisions before and not after. This requires changing the mindset and adoption of a new way of working and thinking.
Walter AEC has successfully been implementing these practices over the past 10 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Proof of successful work, thus far, are the projects Walter AEC completed, and if you are interested in more projects Walter AEC completed, you can find them on this link.
A few basic reasons to encourage the use of BIM in Bosnia and Herzegovina are:
Having accurate and early calculations enables a quick response and good decision-making with joined efforts. A good BIM model and tools for analyzing it give us important knowledge of the project ahead of time, allowing us to make quality decisions while making adjustments to the project quickly and inexpensively. These choices can have a significant impact on the end result – the facility itself, both in terms of construction and use.
In the traditional style of working, we usually find out about a problem later in the process when there isn’t enough time to go back and make a change, or it is too expensive at that point in the process.
As one of the main goals remains upgrading performance and the end results of our efforts, we have to ask ourselves what has been the biggest obstacle to successful project implementation so far and does BIM implementation solve this problem. With Walter AEC having 10+ years of experience in BIM projects, it is safe to say that choosing BIM was one of the first steps to success.
The industry, technology, and people have changed – but there are underlying issues when it comes to fully adapting to BIM practices within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we take this chance to shine a light on all of the potential not being harvested because of politics.