Salford develops guide for implementation of Building Information Modelling and Lean Construction

The Maxwell Building

Five of the world’s leading academics in the development of the latest efficient and digital methods of construction have written a guide for CIRIA, the Construction Industry Research and Information Association.

Designed for practical use by clients, designers and construction companies, the guide covers the entire lifecycle of implementing and embedding these more efficient methods into a company or project – resulting in lower costs and quotes during hard economic times.

In particular, the University is working hard within the UK to make the construction industry aware of the benefits of BIM ahead of the Government’s imminent requirement for the whole industry to trial it and Lean on public sector projects.

As a result the guide not only contains advice, but successful examples sourced from the authors’ experience around the world in countries where BIM and Lean is much more firmly entrenched in the sector. These examples include facilities management at Maryland General Hospital and planning techniques for the Skanska Headquarters in Finland.

Professor Lauri Koskela from the School of the Built Environment led the writing of the guide along with colleagues Professor Arto Kiviniemi, Bhargav Dave and Dr Patricia Tzortzopoulos, alongside former Salford academic Robert Owen from the Queensland University of Technology. “This is very much a practical guide for the industry and in keeping with Salford’s objectives of helping UK construction become more efficient and sustainable,” Lauri said.

“We’re very grateful to CIRIA for taking the initiative with the guide and helping us to create it and we’d urge as many people of all levels in the sector to take advantage of a significant free resource to save money and improve their businesses.”

Dr Owen Jenkins, CIRIA, stated: “The CIRIA project steering group brought together academics, Lean consultancies, client, contracting and other organisations. The resulting guides should therefore be of interest to a wide readership and lead to a greater awareness and implementation of Lean in construction.”

CIRIA’s new suite of Lean guides covers the following areas:

Enabling lean

• Lean clients’ guide
• Appointing and working with Lean Consultants

Applying Lean

• Lean tools
• Lean benefits realisation management

Lean synergies       

• Lean and the sustainability agenda

• Lean construction and BIM

The guides can be downloaded from the CIRIA website.

Follow the latest science and technology research, courses and other news from Salford at our dedicated Twitter feed or on the College of Science and Technology Facebook page.