The results of the PRE program were prominently featured at the European BIM Summit in Barcelona in February. Anssi Salonen, Chief Technology Officer at RYM Oy, spoke in his keynote address about how BIM speeds up change in the Finnish real estate and construction sector.

The first European BIM Summit was attended by 450 construction sector experts across the world. The Association of Quantity Surveyors, Technical Architects and Building Engineers of Barcelona (CAATEB), with more than 8000 members, was responsible for organizing the event together with the international BIM Academy.

According to Anssi Salonen, the global strive for changing construction sector operating mechanisms could be sensed in Barcelona. The change is required to improve construction productivity as well as to allow meeting the continually tightening socioeconomic and ecological targets. BIM is an excellent tool for bringing about that change.

Catalonia intends to follow the example of countries like Finland, England and France by introducing large-scale deployment of information modeling in increasingly systematic form. The aim of the European BIM Summit declaration signed by the City of Barcelona and Catalonia is that by 2020 information modeling will be used in all phases of public sector building and infrastructure construction projects.

Finland shows the way for the world in InfraBIM

– In my speech I stressed the fact that industry players committed themselves to a common research goal and implementation in the PRE program. A good example of that are the concrete measures agreed on and developed within the Infra FINBIM work package aimed at bringing about a breakthrough of information modeling in the infrastructure sector. As a result of the collaboration of key infrastructure clients, about 20 infrastructure construction companies, and leading research institutes, Finland is the first country about to introduce Common InfraBIM Requirements. The internationally significant Inframodel format for effective exchange of information has been developed along with them, Salonen continues.

Salonen also brought up the multidisciplinary research collaboration of the PRE program that also involved behavioral sciences. It enabled detecting nodes that impede effective adoption of BIM technology. That enables developing new practices and methods of solving problems.

– My presentation gave rise to many questions and follow-up discussions about the experiences and lessons learned from RYM activity. People were especially keen to learn about the hindrances in the way of BIM change discovered in Finland and the success in tackling them. The Finnish innovation systems and the related SHOK mechanism based on close cooperation between enterprises and research institutes also interested many business leaders, according to Salonen.

View Anssi Salonen’s presentation at the European BIM Summit