With the closure of the calendar year 2017, the market has seen BIM being recognized as a trendsetter. People have been able to understand and adopt the importance of BIM for their businesses and have soulfully profoundly adopted it to ensure core future.

Throughout the year we have heard a number of analysts and famous bloggers, who have pen-scripted the research in regards to BIM. Here, this year I am trying to list down some educational BIM insights and contribution by industry’s veteran BIM evangelists. Read through the list of “Top 20 Must-Read BIM Articles”, by them.

To start with, I would like to begin with an enticing writing by Lara Caldwell dated 3rd May 2017. The blog titled “What is Building Information Modeling? 7 Stories that Illustrate best of BIM” focuses on imparting the basic knowledge about Building Information Modeling with the help of 7 kindly illustrated examples to make the readers understand its importance in a better manner. She has defined BIM as a design process and a software technology which supports engineers, architects, owners and builders to connect with each other globally with the support of data infused 3D models.

Another intellectual article was given to us by @AndyButterfield dated 13th March 2017 titled “BIM Myths: Six common misconceptions surrounding Building Information Modeling.” The article tries to make the reader understand the common myths in regards to BIM with making the adopter of the design fall prey of wrong decisions as they are not able to recognize the real need of technology in their organization. Most common of these being, “considering BIM for only Government projects”, “BIM is only meant for main contractor”, “It is too complex”, “BIM won’t last forever” and “The level 2 compliance of BIM is achieved by adopting one standard.”

Then next Brett Stacks introduced articles titled “How to get started BIM”. in The article focuses on embracing the importance of BIM by contractors, due to building owners being aware of this technological advancement and its impact on their business. It also tries to make the readers realize the impact of adopting and praising BIM as their soul partner to ensure the financial stability of their business and to keep up with the industry trends.

Shrikanth Toshniwal  imparted his knowledge in regards to BIM through his article titled “Building Information Modeling and Quality Surveying.” The article tries to make us all understand the uses of BIM in terms of quality surveillance. He supports his words with the fact that, “the QS profession being a part of the 5th dimension of BIM can be helpful and facilitate take off, measurements and counts directly from the model and thus qualities can be linked to cost database directly. This can help in reducing the chances of human error and also cut down the cost and time required for estimation of the cost.”

The next major article came from Zion Market research titled, “By 2022, Global Building Information Modelling Market will Grow USD 10.36 Billion.” They have published a report which states Global demand for BIM will be growing at a CAGR of slightly above 19.45% between 2017 and 2022. This ensures the adoption rate of this individualistic technology in the coming market is quite high and future remains at the high-end graph of the projects.

Kim Slowey on 14th December 2017 released an article titled, “BIM is cutting construction costs, but there is no US standard in sight.” The market has been able to recognize the importance of BIM ever since its introduction in the 1980s. But there lies a huge room for improvement in the technology to make it last longer. According to the experts, BIM can become a major cost cutter if public agencies in the US indulge their brains on setting common BIM standards and ensure they are put to action by the designers and construction companies expecting to work with them.

“Integrating GIS in BIM” was another knowledge based article which states that if Geographic Information System is integrated into Building Information Modeling there is a huge scope of successful management of construction project activities. This can ensure clarity at all the major and minor phases of construction and thus assure the quality of work.

An article by Jim Lynch titled “To address America’s crumbling infrastructure follow Britain’s Lead”. With the huge involvement of fund and increasing need for construction and reconstruction of the infrastructure in the US, it is quite important to ensure that every penny counts. Understanding the situation Jim states that adopting BIM technology will help allow the departments, agencies and government to build a virtual figure first to validate the cost and the approaches and save time and money both.

On 30th November 2017 Cyrena Respini –Irwin gave an article which read as, “BIM connects Fragmented Collaborators on Megabridge Transportation Hub Project.” The article stated that Leighton Asia made a smart decision of relying on BIM technology in order to coordinate multi-contractor, multi-faced Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities Project.

Another major contributor was, “SWOT analysis of BIM”. The article studies about the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat in relation to BIM as the leading and one of the most popular technologies in the market at this point in time. With the increased use of BIM in construction and related fields, it is important for the adopters of the technology to study its impact on their business and its future.

Kim Hoey contributed a piece of his research in terms of an article titled, “Virtual Design Streamlines Construction Project”. He states that BIM is a tremendously powerful technology and is able to create virtual figures of the future; it helps in saving a lot of time and cost of the company. It pre-defines the phases of construction, the cost involved in each phase and the time required for completing the whole work, thus ensures quality report for the project.

“Building Information Modeling for Masonry” The particular article while explaining the meaning and importance of BIM also brought into focus impact of involving masonry into the BIM projects. For doing the same the process has been defined into different phases being, “Phase 1: Creating a Roadmap Phase 2: Development and Phase 3: Arranging for the Training Program.”

One of the most generalized yet crucial articles got published on BIM Ireland, early this year. “Building Information Modeling- What is Information Model?” The article focuses on answering the most commonly asked question about how much information is required in a model. The article has listed down all the major information that is required to support the construction, with the facts validating the requirements. Also, it explains the real meaning of COBie and COBie’s involvement in the construction projects.

Understanding the fact that BIM is not only the present but also the future maker, another article that may capture the interest of BIM Enthusiasts is the “Future Scope of BIM.” One statement in the article, explains the crux of what all you can expect to explore. “…in our digital future, every building will have a Building Information Model – a digital copy of itself…” Address by Ralph Montague, Managing partner ArcDox, the article has all you need to know about where the BIM league is heading towards.

Sasha Reed  one of the famous blogger and analyst contributed her research in terms of an article titled, “BIM vs VDC how the US and the UK differ in approaching digital project delivery.” Through this 4 part series, Sasha tries to analyze the impact of BIM on businesses of different scales and sizes operating in different areas in the US and the UK. She gathered a panel of BIM experts from both US and the UK to have a comprehensive discussion on certain major points related to BIM, VDC and data-enabled projects to get deep dive into the data workflows and data management process during the construction life cycle of a project.

On 15th June 2017, Marc Howe posted an article on “Using Cloud-Based BIM to enhance Coordination and Scheduling of Projects”. To a fact, one of the major success keys to BIM has been its ability to coordinate various parties who are working together on a complex project. It is the news now that Autodesk is planning to build upon this capability by applying BIM to cloud-connected mobile devices which will ensure the quality of coordination both off and on the field. The article brings forward the impact of cloud technology on BIM and its extreme results.

People who had been able to understand BIM are known to the fact that BIM is quite a revolution. David Hardy Preconstruction Facilities Manager, O’Neal and Brian Gallagher, Director of marketing, O’Neal Inc in their article, “Greater predictability, and fewer surprises through use of BIM for front-end planning” justifies the same. Having a glimpse of future especially in terms of construction projects makes life easier. With the help of BIM, businesses are able to draw a virtual figure to their upcoming reality which helps them stay alert. In this article, David has also inculcated other major issues that had been answered by BIM in regards to

Moving ahead there comes another controversial writing by Robert Green titled, “BIM is becoming more difficult” The article states that with the technology becoming popular, it is on the road to becoming more complex. BIM is no longer limited to buildings, the magnitudes of the projects are growing, need to staff is increasing, the network infrastructure is getting complex and above all, management is not able to understand and manage the same. By the means of this article, he tries to explain the results of such confusions and ways to overcome the same.

Ammar Azzouz on 30th October 2017 contributed an article titled, “Why measure BIM? And what should you measure?” True to the belief that the lack of information in regards to BIM, maturity leads to the increase in uncertainties which are surrounding it. By the means of this article, the writer has tried to present the initiatives in order to assess the benefits of the technology for the business.

The last but yet another important one “BIM and top-line growth: why your firm should continue to invest in BIM” by Brett Young, answers the question in regards to adoption of BIM into construction businesses and the positives of the same. BIM has been valued to be one of the most extensive assets for the business as it helps in ensuring bottom line efficiencies meant to save money and increase the profit figures, but there are quite a number of top line efficiencies as well which are supported by BIM and had been listed down in the below article.

Apart from this knowledge imparting 20 major blogs, there had been a number of other contributors to the subject as well. With the popularity in hand, we expect to see a lot more of it coming in future.