Government officers and department heads that initiate new developments are increasingly being asked to incorporate BIM into contracts.

Challenges arise because there are often no templates to follow, and some organisations don’t always know how to either specify the use of BIM or how to manage BIM-based projects going forward. That’s not surprising – until now, local authorities in particular, have had less exposure than colleagues in central government who already fall under mandatory use of BIM.

However, with the benefits of BIM now becoming clear at construction industry and government savings levels, it is likely that the use of BIM will be further encouraged, and that its use will help to support successful funding applications for development of housing, schools and civil structures of all kinds.

There is also massive pressure for all public sector organisations to manage and maintain assets more efficiently.

Key to successful portfolio management are minimising risks and keeping full lifespan costs under control. Stacks of dusty O&M manuals and filing cabinets of plans make information hard to find. Information that is hard to find gets ignored – leading to expensive mistakes, increased costs and invalidated insurance.

Sitedesk allows you to extract the maximum value from your public sector BIM information. Simple for everyone to use, it helps your contractors and consultants capture every aspect of the asset during the construction process, bringing together all maintenance information and schedules, service documentation, 2D plans and information and 3D models into a comprehensive, fully linked asset database. Once the asset is handed over, Sitedesk can be used to optimise retention management and soft landings processes. It can be continually deployed to minimise your costs over the lifetime of the asset by acting as a “lite” FM system, removing the need for additional expenditure on a separate FM solution. However, if you choose to leave Sitedesk, all of your information can easily be exported in a COBie compliant format, for use in other CAFM solutions.