Resurgence of CIM

Last week I was having lunch and sampling libations at a local spot with some of the smartest CAD/BIM minds in the Pittsburgh metro. We were talking about BIM, that's Building Information Modeling to you noobs, when one of the BIM gurus asked the local reigning Civil 3D king if CIM was still a thing. King Civil 3D of Pittsburgh said that term never really stuck and the conversation moved on.

Now for or those unaware, CIM is Civil Information Modeling. This conversation got my wheels spinning as I've been routinely pulled back into the civil construction workflows I walked away from years ago (more like I ran away screaming). Plus it seems I've been dabbling even more into CIM recently due to newer applications and uses.

While there is no definitive reason the terminology died I'd like to think it has something to do with a sole curmudgeonly old surveyor because that's just what we do when technology or workflows fail to progress. The exception being when one has the opportunity to blame an architect (or all of them) - then in that case you always blame the architect.

All kidding aside, the term may have been short lived but the intent has progressed without the cute moniker. I've taken part in many conversations as of late and CIM has, believe it or not, come up in more than a handful. The first was with a heavy civil contractor searching for standards, workflows, processes for sharing data, etc. If we were talking about vertical construction he could have found more content on BIM than one could digest in a lifetime (although we at BWB do try). Instead what he found was a certain BIM podcast which sparked a few conversations.

Another recent CIM related conversation was with a consulting firm providing best in class services that ripple through every part of the site work lifecycle. They are technology forward and try to connect the data and workflows. That said, they asked about BIM for the civil/dirt contractors and what it looks like. This prompted a discussion about CIM which was a completely new term to them. We later had a call with more staff to dive deeper and all I can say is that great content is sure to be produced by them regarding CIM.

So with these conversations in mind and presentations and webcasts resonating with similar tones I can assuredly say that CIM is going through a resurgence, if only for a brief moment in my own microsphere.

And that's where this would normally end, except it doesn't. I've since had a realization that CIM is secretly coming back in a large way (again without the cute moniker). What else would you call using survey data for engineering, civil designs for estimation and QTO, redlining, as builting, project standards, defined handovers, agreed accuracy, collaboration, etc.? There is so much more happening than we talk about. 

Side note, CIM is possibly further along than BIM in adoption. The reason being we typically do 70% (don't quote us on statistics lol) of the aforementioned CIM workflows - we currently only agree on doing 1 BIM workflow, coordination. Yes, I know it's an overstatement but it has merit.

The one area CIM fails more often than not is in the collaboration component. If your idea of collaboration is data shortcuts, missing xrefs, exploded dwgs, and sharing only 2d prints……. you miiiiiiiiiight be a Civil Engineer (now reread that in your best Jeff Foxworthy voice). A simplification would be that there are fears regarding liability, wanting to mitigate risk, and own your data in the civil space. I think that's not the case or atleast only part of it. Perhaps there just isnt a good way to share data that allows you to own your piece and provide accountability, or at least there wasn't a way. Now we have tools like BIM 360 Design and other non Autodesk platforms that I know even less about.

Trust me I know BIM 360 is a hard sell in the Civil space but to its benefit it is a bring your own license model unlike the other BIM 360 modules. It does have some pitfalls that need to be navigated but for the most part it is project ready and solves collaboration internally, externally, in the civil space, with non cad users, and even with those using BIM tools such as Revit.

I could probably have written another 10 pages but let's face it, I lost 90% of you at Resurgence of CIM. So in short, prepare for the next wave of CIM even though no one is calling it CIM.