Digitising our Estate – a step closer

Plans to map our estate digitally through Building Information Modelling (BIM) took a leap forward last week. Introducing BIM is now a national government requirement for all new public buildings and to mark the start of our year 2 activities, an interactive workshop was hosted by our BIM consultants for our Estates and Major Capital Projects teams. They are now in a position to start producing and using digital plans of all our existing and new buildings. This means we will soon have accurate and up-to-date information about what lies behind the walls, floors and ceilings etc in our buildings which is captured and stored. This will be a huge help to our Estates team as they continue to improve our hospital sites. 

BIM can feel a little abstract to many, but here are some top line benefits of having digital drawings of, and data about, our buildings:

• It enables consistency, better time management and strategic decision-making
• It saves money through more accurate predictions of lifecycle cost
• It improves risk management and supports health and safety planning
• It improves productivity in daily operations; workflow is easier to manage
• It reduces delays by cutting down on wasted design effort