NBS Digital/BIM Report 2021

The NBS Digital Construction Report is now in its second decade. It was published last week and is available at the interactive website below:
- https://www.theNBS.com/dcr2021

This blog post looks at some of the findings. But before looking at the finals, a quick note to thank a large number of industry leading organizations that help us distribute our surveys within the industry.

Partner organizations and our chosen charity

The first section of the report looks at BIM in general. The most fascinating areas of this analysis for me are always the questions looking beneath the headline of 'have you adopted BIM?'. A lot of the industry defines BIM in different ways, so specifically asking about use of EIRs, responsibility matrices, classification, following standards always gives a better picture.

Under the headline figures

The above chart shows that the principles within the 19650 series of standards are starting to be followed in terms of revision control, naming conventions, indication of suitability and classification. Looking just at the UK, use of Uniclass 2015 is now at 50% on 'BIM projects', but lower at 39% across the wider worldwide participants.

The second part of the survey looked more at technology.

Technology advances

The above chart shows that cloud computing is now dominant. Other findings in the report showed how much the COVID crisis had accelerated digital working and new 'work anyway' working practices. In terms of wider new construction technology - half of participants had been involved in a project using offsite techniques.

The rising star at the bottom end of the scale was Digital Twins. I consider this a little similar to 'BIM' as a bit of a catch-all phrase. Technology within a building around access control, intruder detection, CCTV, wifi hotspots has had an element of 'digital twin' for many years now. How much real time digital feedback do you need before you tick the 'digital twin' box? And will we get back into the 3D visual model debate again?

The final section of the report looks at the wider industry.

Where will you be working?

Only one in five participants expect to go back to 'normal' in the next five years. We're undoubtedly in a period of change.

Thanks to everyone that took part in the survey - over 900 - and thanks to the increasing number of participants from around the world that clearly are aware and appreciate the work NBS do in this area.