Kardham Group: simplebim® makes data checking in digital BIM models more efficient

Company overview

With more than 500 staff offering consultancy, architecture, design and construction, engineering and digital solutions services, Kardham Group, headquartered in France, was built around a simple idea: a property project should not be limited to a mere exercise in technology and architecture.

Instead, it should sit at the crossroads of broader dimensions, grounded in the very foundations of sustainable development: people and society, the environment and the economy.

Constance Quaglino, BIM and Smart Building project director within the Kardham Group, originally trained as a geographer and urban planner, discovered BIM in 2014 as part of a specialised master's in "Sustainable Construction Project Management". Today, her role within the BIM team includes supporting projects in the implementation, deployment, management and monitoring of BIM practices throughout the property construction project, from design to operation. As part of this, she is responsible for ensuring the compliance of BIM deliverables, including digital models and BIM specifications.

The challenge

With several projects under way, Kardham Group's BIM team needed to check more than 130 existing sites, each made up of five to eight models (one model per building), over a three-year period. To meet the challenge, the team had to develop an efficient, well-defined BIM workflow that checked the data contained in all the various digital BIM models.

It was essential that the IFC models complied with an existing framework, where data had to be entered in a specific location and under a specific naming convention, since it needed to be imported into a separate operations tool used by the client. If the IFC model did not comply with the framework, importing the model, and therefore its database, would not work according to the software's configuration file.

Initially, Constance Quaglino and her team tried to check the data in the digital BIM models using a well-known model checker, but they quickly ran into limitations, particularly around defining checking rules and processing them. Looking for a solution, they turned to simplebim.

The solution

Kardham Group's BIM team quickly noticed that simplebim offered far more advanced functionality than other solutions. Enabling better data checking in digital BIM models than other solutions on the market, simplebim also has powerful capabilities for editing models and automating their processing.

Kardham Group's BIM division now uses simplebim to check IFC models, particularly their data, and to merge Bimsheet or model features, as well as to automate model processing.

The benefits of simplebim®

At the start of the simplebim rollout, CADatWORK Learning, simplebim's French partner, provided training on using the tool. With experience in model analysis, the team was able to quickly put the knowledge gained into practice, master the software and soon have a real-world case to test the approach.

simplebim is now used by Kardham Group's BIM team, supporting the company's projects, to:

• Check IFC models, particularly BIM data management.
• Increase workflow productivity.
• Reduce the time spent checking models and their quality.

Constance Quaglino's favourite simplebim feature is merging models and exporting the merged file. Kardham Group also thanks the trainers and support team at local partner CADatWORK Learning, who, according to Constance Quaglino, are "always available and attentive", which they greatly appreciate.

Looking ahead, Kardham's BIM team plans to explore every corner of the tool to go even further in checking and making use of the data in its digital models.