BIM Manager's responsibilities in your office

[matt__w]

Just curious what the responsibilities are of the "BIM Manager" in your office. Is he/she in charge of setting up projects (I.E. views, sheets, etc...) in an effort to maintain consistency from one project to another? Is he/she in charge of content creation? Attend project kick-off meetings? Anything else?

Matt

[Jimbob]

Of course no one here could possibly dictate your company policies here. That all depends on you budget, experiance, and policy determined by managers. I would say that if a person wants to take on this roll, he/she should prove himself as a worthy opponent.

Are you looking for new duties or unstaisfied in your current duties?

[matt__w]

I'm just curious how others are defining the role of "BIM Manager" and what their responsibilities are. I'm not dissatisfied with my current role as "CADD Manager" nor am I looking to create a new position, I'm just interested in what a BIM Manager is (or how it's defined) in other companies.

Matt

[Jrobker]

It's the person that (me):
*Answers all the questions.
*Creates learning material.
*In-house trainer.
*Constantly educating themselves with the software.
*On AUGI all day.
*Managing large central files.
*Creating content tags & families.
*Gets phone calls all day long from newbies.
*Autodesk BETA team member or member of some outside BIM affiliation.
*involved in project kickoff meetings.
*Constantly updating the company template.
*Dissects Architectural files for inevitable mistakes.

And takes on a normal workload on top of this with their own projects (personal experience).

I think having a full time BIM Manager that isn't billable is a must in AEC firms.

[matt__w]

*Managing large central files.
*involved in project kickoff meetings.
*Dissects Architectural files for inevitable mistakes.

These three caught my attention. Would you mind elaborating a bit on those? Thanks.

Matt

[Jrobker]

Managing large central files
Typically over the coarse of a project the warnings and errors multiply exponentially. I've seen over 12,000 Duplicate type mark errors in the Arch model alone.
I usually help (assist and show) the project manager how to "clean" up the model by eliminating errors and warnings. We have also done this for the linked models (NOT RECOMMENDED)
Involved in project kickoff meetings
I go the project kickoff meetings and discuss BIM project expectations with the clients. You need to know what all the limitations are concerning Revit in those meetings. this is now starting to be less of a duty, now that most Revit users in our office are becoming more Revit knowledgeable.
Dissect Architectural files
How many times have you heard, "I can't get my spaces to show up in some rooms"?

Most everything I do is based off a question. Users need help in the early stages of Modeling and I am the person with all the answers. So depending on the question determines on what I will have to do, whether it be dissecting the Arch model for mistakes, modeling a P&F HX or helping a user with their sluggish central file.

There really isn't a job description, it's more of... if you need help or don't know, come to me.

[daniel.morrison]

Involved in project kickoff meetings
I go the project kickoff meetings and discuss BIM project expectations with the clients. You need to know what all the limitations are concerning Revit in those meetings. this is now starting to be less of a duty, now that most Revit users in our office are becoming more Revit knowledgeable.

IMO This is probably one of the most important "new" jobs for the Bim Manager of an office, compared to traditional a Cad Manager. There still is no universally accepted definition of BIM and different "BIM Jobs" can have completely different expectations of what they need. Some clients just want a 3D model that is fully coordintated and call that BIM, and others may need a full BIM solution up to 6D (Facilities Management) including animations for construction time and costing. We even have clients now asking for the models to be linked into BMS systems (to my knowledge hasn't been done yet) or for maintenance time and cost planning for the life of the building.

As a BIM manager you need to understand more than just Revit (at the very least Navisworks as well IMO), but the whole BIM methodology as well with how jobs need to be run differently and will cost more earlier but should be cheaper in the long run, and you need to make sure the client and other members of the project team understand this as well.

This is a major part of what my presentation to the (Australian) RTC Conference is about.

[RevitNinja]

I think having a full time BIM Manager that isn't billable is a must in AEC firms.

This is 100% true.

I am a non-billable full-time BIM Manager. My company is approximately 1800 people, and what makes my position unique is that 80% of my support base is not in the same location as my home office. The two other BIM Managers and I travel heavily, but most of the duties that JRobker has outlined in his post fall into our domain.

There are two inherent problems that I see at other companies looking to implement BIM. The first is not having full-time BIM Management. Implementation is not a single task, but many tasks that fall under the same umbrella. Dividing up these tasks to different teams is usually a waste of time and money. Paying a salary to a person or small group of people to do everything is much more cost effective. We cover everything from training to troubleshooting to marketing to meeting with clients to make sure that they understand the deliverable they are asking for.

The second problem is not implementing from the top down. The push must come from the executives of the company. If it comes from the ground up, it will most likely fail. Five years ago, I was the lone draftsman who was good at Revit, and our implementation consisted of a handful of production staff in a conference room at lunchtime. Executives, owners, and PMs were not involved whatsoever, and although the company made progress after my departure, I would not consider them competitive in the local market. Companies such as these that limp though projects for 4-5 years while leaning on resellers is not what I consider an example of successful implementation.

Implementing from the top down is the way to success. Delivery pizza in the conference room with three other drafters is fun, but it is not the way.

[Valkin]

My comany is a small 20 something person firm. As such I have to wear many hats. Among those has is the BIM manager's role. So yes I attend kickoff meetings, but I don't think a BIM needs to attend project specific meetings. I feel the BIM managers role is much broader in scope then that of a cad manager or a Model manager. In many cases I tend to develop process that work for the company for the BIM process. I also work on developing content to support projects, as well as BIM training/education inside and outside the firm.

[KGC]

Managing large central files
Typically over the coarse of a project the warnings and errors multiply exponentially. I've seen over 12,000 Duplicate type mark errors in the Arch model alone.
I usually help (assist and show) the project manager how to "clean" up the model by eliminating errors and warnings. We have also done this for the linked models (NOT RECOMMENDED)
Dissect Architectural files
How many times have you heard, "I can't get my spaces to show up in some rooms"?

Most everything I do is based off a question. Users need help in the early stages of Modeling and I am the person with all the answers. So depending on the question determines on what I will have to do, whether it be dissecting the Arch model for mistakes, modeling a P&F HX or helping a user with their sluggish central file.

There really isn't a job description, it's more of... if you need help or don't know, come to me.

To add to this,:
-In addition to BIM kickoff Meetings, Schedule/Manage/Run Coordination Meetings (All Disciplines)
-Managing Families, Shared Parameters, keynotes
-I also have experience in MEP and along with dissecting Arch files, I work with MEP on their files as well. This goes into MEP Systems as well.

[timsea81]

It is what you make it. If you don't have the opportunity to define your own role on the projects you work on at least to some extent based on what you can bring to the table, find somewhere where you can. I don't have any experience with big firms with full time non-billable "BIM Managers." I've worked in 2 small firms over the past 4 years so I'm not exactly an expert but from what I've seen CAD/BIM guys have fallen into one of two categories: young people learning the ropes and old schoolers taking a passive role in the design process. Not to discredit the later of those two examples but from what I've seen if you want to get ahead you need to expand your knowledge base beyond CAD/BIM production. Either move into design and get away from the computer end of things or get a job for autodesk and work on the software end as opposed to the user end. That's the lesson I've learned based on my own experience, but like I said I'm no expert.

[travis.hacker946347]

There really isn't a job description, it's more of... if you need help or don't know, come to me.


This sums it up completely.

[cyriousn]

Where I work its a little bit of a mess. We had an external guy who used to work for Autodesk come in and give us a training session on MEP 2010. We then had another guy come in and show only a few people how to build content, (myself not included errrr). Three months later the design team I work on was given the task of designing a 120,000 sq ft school in 2010 MEP while creating and figuring out all legends, families, parameters and handeling the expection of my reviewers to make the drawings look like they did in CAD. I remember spending almost a full week to understand how to use the family editor. We have no BIM manager so we were expected to figure it out while not blowing the budget out of the water....i think this post is turning in to a complaining session....anyways the plumbing guy on my team and myself have been trying to take in as much as we can and while the other teams are constantly lighting up our phones with questions. We had a information session during a "lunch and learn" where we tried to explain the concepts of parameters, families and scheduling and everyone gave us blank stares. It's pretty frustrating to take on this role with designing and then having the higher-ups wonder why we blew a budget and think this BIM investment was not a good idea. Enough complaining but thats just how its been where I work.

[RevitNinja]

The reason budgets get blown is because a huge portion of upper management still believes that BIM is a single piece of software. They think that if their design/production personnel attend a week of canned training, then they must be good to go. As long as management believes that this a nothing more than a computer program and not a different way of doing business, all of these stories will continue to appear on forums like this a hundred times over.

[gvluisi]

As Bim Coordinator in a firm recently adopting Revit as its Bim tool, I am thankful that my firm has embraced this technology. We have three offices and I visit them periodically or as the need arises. Lately I've been doing web meetings to reach more than one office.

My duties include: I receive the "Others" models and set up our MEP model. I coordinate with the "Others". I model whatever is needed and fill the gaps as we get up to speed. I create family content. I organize our library of content so that all 3 offices are using the same content. I talk our people off the ledge and convince them they are making progress and it will be OK. I spend alot of time on the phone trying to recreate the atrocites encoutered by our users. I create some of the bigger mistakes and try to fix them before anyone else realizes. I realize there are more cad users that are against Bim/ Revit and I try like hell to produce a (1) better quality product, (2) delivered in time and (3) under budget ...(well 2 out of 3 ain't bad)

I think there is a big difference between a the Bim Manager and a Bim Coodinator. The Manager holds onto the thicker end of the stick whilst swinging in a hammer like motion and the Coordinator has the thinner end of the stick and flails about in directions known only to the Manager.

I do a ton of stuff and I keep telling myself "This is the direction the industry is going" and If I keep doing what I'm doing I will have a job tomorrow!

[JSeferian]

Pretty much sums it up! Glad to see I'm not alone. Waiting for the industry to see the value....

[En.Fird]

DEFINATION of 'Manager' -

"Getting Things Done Through People"