Recently, at the 2013 Innovation Cup, the BIM 50 Application Awards were announced. The Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute emerged as a big winner, receiving the Best BIM Application Enterprise Award, the Best BIM Expansion Application Award, and two second prizes in the Infrastructure category—a total of four awards.
“Our approach is to integrate BIM into municipal engineering, deepen design refinement, focus on the entire process, and encourage exploration and innovative R&D. We use BIM to refine, implement, and innovate traditional design,” said Xu Minsheng, Vice President of the Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute.
High Standards and Ambitious Goals
Established in 1963, the Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute is a comprehensive design, consulting, and research organization primarily engaged in urban infrastructure survey and design. It ranks among China’s top 60 engineering design enterprises. The Institute is committed to innovation, actively adopting new concepts and technologies. Since March 2011, it has implemented projects based on design and construction general contracting, exploring BIM Technology applications and carrying out BIM training and pilot projects. In October 2012, the headquarters established a BIM Design Research Center under direct supervision.
The Institute’s BIM practice began at a high level with even higher aspirations. According to Xu Minsheng, as BIM is gradually applied in projects, the Institute has set a three-year BIM development plan. The first stage is to achieve project-level BIM application, focusing on technological breakthroughs in key projects without disrupting production tasks. The goal is to pilot key projects, achieve technological innovation, and set project standards. Subsequently, the aim is to reach enterprise-level BIM application—establishing standardized processes, implementing BIM-based workflows, and enhancing overall competitiveness through resource integration, process reengineering, and value creation.
To accelerate BIM adoption, the Institute has established a project management system and a BIM information management platform, where all departmental updates are published and kept current. The BIM Center has also set up a collaborative platform for BIM projects, promoting collaborative design and defining structured documentation and naming conventions. The Institute requires all design and construction projects to fully incorporate BIM Technology, emphasizing both depth and breadth to refine and innovate traditional design. In-depth applications include design optimization, performance analysis, collaborative design, signage design, and participation in bidding, while breadth covers the entire lifecycle of design and construction projects.
Today, through ongoing training, 20% of the headquarters personnel have mastered BIM technology. Each professional department can now independently complete BIM designs, leveraging the technology to enhance competitiveness.
Emphasis on Application and Expansion
“The design projects of Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute are mainly large-scale municipal infrastructure engineering, which require significant investment, involve multiple disciplines, and have a major impact on the environment—with complex construction organization. BIM holds great potential in these areas,” said Xu Minsheng.
Currently, the Institute has applied BIM in major projects such as the new Shanghai North Cross Island Tunnel, the Disney Core Area Comprehensive Water Treatment Plant and pipeline network, the Later Expo Underground Space Project, and the Xujiahui transport hub for the Shanghai Metro. BIM is used for current situation analysis: based on geophysical data, BIM models of pipelines and soil layers are created to analyze relationships between subway maintenance, pipelines, and soil, providing a design basis for maintenance, pipeline relocation, and station depth analysis. Visual design and multidisciplinary coordination are achieved through BIM, ensuring that reserved spaces in construction drawings are accurate and that installation and maintenance spaces around equipment and pipelines meet requirements.
While actively applying BIM, the Institute pays equal attention to expanding its use. By combining software and hardware, the robotic total station was first applied to municipal engineering, improving BIM-based 3D layout efficiency and accuracy by 2–3 times. The integration of 3D laser scanning and BIM offers a reliable foundation for design and construction, while 3D printing based on BIM models enables rapid model formation. The Institute has conducted several research projects, including BIM technology applications in underground engineering, the construction of a BIM information exchange platform, application of Revit engineering data for cost statistics, BIM modeling for road and bridge design, and BIM design processes and standards for drainage pump stations.
In recent years, the headquarters has published books such as Building Information Modeling, contributed to “Application Analysis of Municipal Engineering: Chen Xiang Road Underground Engineering Case” in the BIM series, and participated in the national vocational education textbook “BIM Theory and Application” under the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. The Institute has published eight papers in journals including “China Municipal Engineering” and “Civil Engineering Information Technology,” and has applied for six BIM-related patents.
Additionally, the headquarters actively collaborates and exchanges ideas with software companies such as Autodesk, Guanglian Da, Hongye, and Zhongzhi Software to further expand BIM applications.
Striving for Perfection through Practice and Reflection
The benefits of BIM are clear. In the design stage, BIM enables situation analysis and risk avoidance, enhances visual design quality, and allows for comprehensive coordination and improved efficiency. Statistics show that design changes have decreased by about 30% compared to similar projects. During construction, BIM ensures coordination, concrete visualization, and reduced rework. According to construction unit calculations, the rework rate has dropped by 65%, and overall progress management deviation is less than 5%.
Xu Minsheng commented, “Although BIM has demonstrated unique advantages, there are still issues that require ongoing improvement.” For instance, in operation and maintenance, model parameters can be input, but current O&M software suffers from substantial data loss and requires extensive manual entry. Existing O&M platforms are immature and need significant secondary development. Subway projects require higher model accuracy and depth compared to general civil projects, involving new and renovated stations interfacing with existing infrastructure. Inaccurate original data means that, despite using BIM, some issues remain undetected.
In Xu Minsheng’s view, there are three main constraints to deepening BIM application. First, BIM software is not mature enough to fully meet professional needs in design, such as for road, bridge, or tunnel engineering. More research is needed to guide construction processes, and substantial work remains for BIM integration with existing O&M platforms. Incomplete data transfer between software limits BIM’s application throughout the project lifecycle. Second, a BIM collaboration mechanism among all project participants is necessary. Maximizing BIM’s value requires its use across the entire lifecycle, including model handover and data transmission standards at design, construction, and operational stages. There is an urgent need to establish workflows and collaboration mechanisms for all project participants. Currently, Shanghai is piloting 3D approval of construction project plans (since March 1, 2013), but it is limited to appearance and planning, without information data. Effective review of BIM models and large data sets remains unaddressed.
“BIM is not yet widely adopted in municipal engineering, but we are willing to be pioneers in exploring and refining traditional design in this field. However, to truly apply BIM throughout its entire lifecycle, continuous software improvement and the joint efforts of all parties are essential,” Xu Minsheng concluded.
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