BIM in the Middle East is spread very unevenly across the different construction sectors.
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Tekla’s global executive vice president, Risto Raty, has warned of entire sectors being left behind in the technology revolution if BIM is not adopted more widely.
Naming the concrete industry in particular, Raty told Big Project Middle East that the sector is “very far behind” and that Tekla had deliberately positioned itself within the Middle East Concrete exhibition at this year’s Big 5 in order to target industry players.
“The big steel fabricators already use technology widely and well, but the concrete industry is the one where we really want to see advancement technology wise. They basically don’t use it at all.
“It’s a slow industry to change their way of working and their business models, but this is the latest trend and it’s not only in the Middle East. The different industry sectors don’t mesh together too well right now and the industry isn’t at the same pace. How we get those people who are just learning what BIM is about to the same level as others is the main challenge right now,” he said.
Referring to the complexity of projects and relationships within projects Raty added that a major challenge is the threat to the pace of projects when only a select number of players make use of the technology. He also called for companies who are not adopting technology to nominate a ‘champion’ to steer adoption through the company.
“I do worry right now that as BIM standards evolve and are used more in government projects they will then be picked up by private developers and contractors who are bidding on these jobs begin to use it more and more.”