Technology to address wastage

When John Njuguna first started work on his maisonette in Thika eight years ago, he was confident the initial costing he had been given would be enough.

This was never to be. To his surprise, his construction costs more than doubled by the time he was done.

“I think I was naïve. On my initial estimation, I failed to factor in the cost of work hands who apparently consumed most of the increment,” said Mr Njuguna.

But that was not the only thing that caused his cost of construction to shoot up.

“I had to redo the staircases because the contractor missed on stair case. We pulled off the whole thing and reworked on it. Luckily it was the wooden frame. But still it cost money and time,” said Mr Njuguna of his experience when constructing his house.

Higher costs

John is not alone. Many people have gone through the same experience when construction be it a home or commercial property.

Redesigns or new inputs have to be made during the process and this can lead to higher costs, especially if not addressed early. Apart from spending more than expected, there is also the aspect of wastage of materials and time as well as stealing.

The UK’s Industrial Strategy Report 2013 shows an estimated 30 per cent of the construction process is reworked while 10 per cent loss is due to wasted materials.

Wasted labour accounts for 60 per cent whereas three to five per cent of the construction turnover is wasted due to loss of exchange and use of information.

BIM (Building Information Management) is one of the efficient processes which professionals in the industry are confident helps solve the problem of cost, wastage and lessens delivery time for projects.

Autodesk Africa, a technology firm offering building design suite is currently pushing for the adoption of BIM in the country.

BIM is defined as an integrated process of generating and maintaining an intelligent model that acts as a digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a real facility being built.

“It is actually a process that relies on information-rich models to help property owners and construction professionals to efficiently plan, design, construct and manage building and infrastructure projects,” said WorldsView Technologies team in a presentation to architects and engineers at a Nairobi hotel last week.

BIM involves building a digital prototype of the model and simulating it in a real world. It allows integrated project teams to input information on the project in a central place. From the information a digital prototype model is created and replicated in real world as a 3D model.

Making changes

The built model acts as a shared resource that provides insight in to the project and design.

“What BIM allows one to do is to work on one model comparatively. Instead of a linear process, everyone updates the model together. The reason why this is important is that in the old way, the architect goes back to the client and the client says I don’t like this door.

This impacts every one’s work and the whole process has to start over again. What this does is a lot of time is wasted and it creates opportunities for errors,” said David Haslam, managing director WorldsView Technologies.

Team members are able to make adjustments on the design accordingly. Changes made are effected and seen instantly by the people using the systems.

“I don’t have to go to site or email the contractor any more. With BIM I update information and everyone accesses and see views it,” said Architect George Arabbu.

BIM can be used in commercial and luxury buildings. Its use can be by the lead project manager or the client. It has been proven to save up to 40 per cent of waste.

“Pressure is on us to shorten the construction cycle and the cost of reworking. To do that we need to find smarter ways of working with integrated project teams. BIM is a philosophy that allows you to do that,” added Mr Haslam.