Automatic review of BIM models against requirements – directly in Revit

In recent decades, digitization has gone hand in hand with productivity gains in most major industries. This has not been the case in the construction and property sector where we have seen a real loss of efficiency over time, much due to a major lack of taking advantage of the gains of digitalisation.

A time-consuming, and therefore expensive, factor in Swedish construction projects today are the many manual steps required. It can be transfering information from one digital tool to another, the coordination of several parts and compliance with requirements that is now done according to the project planners' own best ability.

In a normal design process, there are different disciplines such as architect, designer, ventilation, pipes, electricity. They project for themselves, but to get an overall picture, this needs to be coordinated. Files are exported and put together, there will be a coordination meeting.

The process is reworked, more planning and more coordination. Errors are detected, errors are missed. In addition to the back-and-forward, the project planners also have to keep track of thousands of different requirements, these can be client requirements, legal requirements, certification requirements, industry requirements. Of course, the design also needs to be optimized for sustainability.

With BIMkollen, we have developed an application for more efficient BIM coordination. In the application, you can create a digital set of requirements for the various disciplines' building components and their properties. Then project planners within projects can upload IFC files for direct quality assurance against the requirements.

We now wish to further develop BIMkollen with more functionality, including the possibility of using our automatic quality review against requirements directly in Revit, a common project planning tool. During the review, errors will therefore be easily shown in the model and it will be easier for the designer to visually
perceive what has gone wrong. It will also be easier for property owners, clients to understand the value of the application. The further development is a first step towards the goal of guaranteeing an uninterrupted flow of information and a future where we see that a greater part of the planning can take place via AI.

The efficiency and many of the heavy digitization processes that are forced with the digital flow of planning meet requirements have great value for the industry, and a first step towards climate-positive construction projects.