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BCS Manufacturers Series Wrap Up

By BCS Committee Members: Mike Collins, Jim Conger & Randall Stevens

The first-ever BCS Online – Manufacturers Series took place in September 2020 and attracted over 200 attendees, mostly from a manufacturing background.  

Thank you to our fantastic speakers for making the event a successful one. We’d also like to thank our Gold Sponsor of the series, BIMobject, for their continued support. 

Over the course of four weeks we ran two presentation style webinars, and two in a panel format. We heard from experts from companies such as BASF, KONE and Microsoft, and topics looked at digital content marketing, how design stakeholders use manufacturer information in the BIM workflow, the barriers and opportunities when leveraging models and data during design and construction, and finally, the BIM journey of two manufacturers.  

All sessions were recorded and are available on-demand for registered attendees and DBEI Associate and Professional Members. If you missed the event, the BCS Committee have re-capped some highlights from the sessions below. 

Session 1: Leveraging Digital Content Marketing to the AECO Community (Galen Dow, AMPED Pipeline Marketing

Identifying the connection between a Building Product Manufacturer’s (BPM’s) product marketing spend and actual meaningful evidence that product content is used within the selection and specification process, has been a long-time challenge for BPM’s due to our very fragmented construction lifecycle. As an expert in content marketing, Galen leverages one of the leading software platforms, Hubspot. In this session Galen walked attendees through a high-level roadmap on how to understand a product’s journey through the construction lifecycle and how it can be tracked using the tools and processes he has successfully implemented in other parallel industries. Identifying key elements of how BPM’s can attract, convert, nurture and measure the “touch points” through the design lifecycle can truly help BPM’s understand if their marketing dollars are being well spent.  

Session 2: Design Build Stakeholders Discuss the Reality of If, How and When Manufacturer BIM Information is used in the Workflow (Panelists: John Niles, HITT, John Turner, Gafcon Inc., Salla Eckhardt, Microsoft) Moderated by Jim Conger, BIMobject/BCS Committee  

This panel discussion gave manufacturers a look into the mind of their Design/Build stakeholders and why the manufacturers of building products should be providing BIM files for the product selection and full lifecycle of facilities. The panel started with an introduction to Digital Twins and how they relate to the design/construction/operation workflows and specifically how BIM is the foundational piece that helps build these Digital Twins.   

We then explored the results of the end user survey* that DBEI performed in July and specifically discussed the following four important questions that many manufacturers have on how BIM relates to product selection and purchase: 

  1. How important is branded BIM content in the design workflow? 
  1. What factors are most influential when selecting a product for projects? 
  1. At what stage are products most commonly chosen in a model? 
  1. How do products that are placed in the model get into the specification? 

The panel wrapped up with a live Q&A session where questions from the audience were answered and discussed among the panelists.  

*survey report available on DBEI document library 

Session 3: Group Therapy: Building Product Manufacturers and the AECO Industry (Panelists: Robert Huffman, Kawneer, David Knapp, Chatsworth Products, Jeffrey Kuchta, BASF, Ricardo Rodriguez, BASFModerated by Ken Flannigan, KONE  

Ken Flannigan led a panel discussion with a group of building product manufacturers to learn how they think about, and enable, serving BIM models/content to their customers.  The panelists each discussed the goals they have for BIM models which ranged from mass distribution to project-centric delivery.  They also discussed how expectations from designers have evolved in relation to their BIM content needs and Ken explained that every project has unique requirements, and thus, the demands from BIM content can vary.  The panelists then touched on the various phases of a project and the varying needs at each phase and also talked about the role BPMs assume in BIM coordination and handover. The session concluded with a 30-minute open discussion forum where attendee questions were answered. 

Session 4: Manufacturers’ Journey (Ras Jayawickrama, Schneider Electric and Shailesh Koirala, Knauf Australia

This session looks at the BIM journey of two manufacturers.  

Ras Jayawickrama of Schneider Electric explains that they got involved with BIM because they saw an increase in demand from the consultants and engineers for BIM data.  Along with building out their files for their design customers, they also decided to become the leading manufacturer in the BIM landscape and have built out their BIM offering to include a Revit plugin, as well as hosting BIM design services.  They have made their assets available on BIMobject and seamlessly integrated their BIMobject BIM library into their own website so they only need to manage their content from one location. Schneider Electric plans to increase their LOD output into the 400 and 500 ranges to ensure successful implementation into Digital Twins ensuring future business from ongoing operation of facilities.   

Shailesh Koirala of Knauf Plasterboard explains that when they first heard of BIM, they figured it was really just for MEP type of products, but after learning more about BIM and the needs of their design customers, they realized that their products were a prime candidate for BIM. Much like Schneider Electric, Knauf chose to provide a similar BIM offering and spent a year developing its Revit and ArchiCAD plugins.  Shailesh suggests to Manufacturers that plan on building next level BIM tools, to make sure their product information is in a well-organized database which will help immensely when creating these next-level tools.   

You can access the recordings for FREE as an Associate or Professional DBEI Member. Find out more about DBEI Membership here.

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