BIM & Blockchain Examples 1
An example of where blockchain and smart contract utilising BIM could revolutionise our industry, is its application in the planning process. Design professionals who are in the BIM space have long ago seen the potential of submitting your BIM model for planning assessment as opposed to hardcopy drawings or digital PDFs.
Code checking which is a gray area of the planning process could be enforced with the use of code checking applications that run thru the digital models and report on compliance. The visualisation aspects of the digital model can be used for better decision making by the planners and the public.
The BIM model submitted can be ascribed on to the Government Planning Blockchain with with a digital marker with a timestamp. When planning is granted a smart contract is then activated with the planning permission certificate and conditions. The planning file is cryptographically secured and open to public scrutiny. The result is a speedier, more realistic, cost effective and transparent planning system
http://www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/iot-news/announcements/private-blockchain/
BIM designed buildings can be estimated to within a 95% + accuracy. This is because the estimating process has moved from “representation to simulation”.
If the client has TRUST that the building can be delivered for the price tendered the delivery of assets could be efficiently organised via a construction project blockchain with smart contracts triggered by “as constructed” building information modelling eliminating the need for a middleman.
Tender systems based on "Value" rather than lowest price. This value proposition can extend into the life cycle of the building with a new funding model for design and construction. What if design and construction alliances got paid on the basis of the performance of the building over 10/15/25 year life cycle.
A project Blockchain that carries over into post occupancy delivering reward based on data supplied by IoT sensors and adjudicated by smart contracts delivered or remaining payments based on energy performance.
Multidisciplinary Collaborative BIM can present problems of IP (intellectual property) and causation, (the action of causing something.: "investigating the role of design in the causation of an accident").
"Determining authorship of each element of the model is a projected problem coming from model authors, but is not just a question of rights over it, but is closely related to civil and criminal liability of a design flaw that might arise on a project. Blockchain can act as a certifier of the activity of each agent on the model, with the importance that this entails determining the responsibility to causation."
Ref: Flores FV (2016) Grant Thornton Spain and can be found at
http://blog.grantthornton.es/2016/06/23/bim-blockchain/
ascribe: lock in authorship of digital work
Creating and maintaining your own blockchain is a pain. It’s a specialist business to code the software, and you need a whole network of computers running it to secure your network. No surprise, then, that the same approach that has driven cloud services - everything from file storage to running software - has started to appear in the blockchain sector too.
The new ‘blockchain-as-a-service’ (BaaS) platforms aim to bring the benefits of blockchain to businesses and organizations that don’t have the resources to create their own.
Microsoft has been spearheading the BaaS approach with Azure, which makes different blockchains available to users.
But specific platforms are being designed that will enable anyone to launch their own bespoke blockchain, with its own parameters, on the back of an existing blockchain. You get the functionality you want, just without the hassle of maintaining the network.
Stratis is one such BaaS platform, which aims to bring a ‘cloud computing’ approach to blockchain deployment.
Ardor, too, will offer an ‘off-the-peg’ approach to launching new blockchains.
