In the interview below we hear (and see) some fantastic insights from the “BIM Evangelist” Professor Victor Arcos about how he is simplifying a BIM course for our next generation of BIM Managers on a masters program that uses LOD Planner.

LOD Planner

What is LOD Planner?

LOD Planner helps teams agree on the who, what, when and how for BIM projects. Through the creation of simple cloud based BIM Execution Plans and Visual BIM Scopes teams can remove confusion, waste and risk from their BIM workflow …and achieve collaborative BIM goals!

Professor Victor Arcos

Who is Victor Arcos?

Victor is a professor and BIM Evangelist with 20 years of experience in Design Management using 3D models over a wide range of project types.

Since 2005 Victor has been dedicated to the implementation and training of the BIM (Building Information Modeling) and IPD (Integrated Project Delivery) processes in the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) industry.

Victor’s expertise covers projects in the USA, Bahrain, UAE, and Colombia, he is currently acting as a BIM consultant for BIMES in Dubai and Egypt.

Victor is always looking for new challenges, improving methods and BIM workflow by implementing the latest BIM technology for his BIM courses.

Victor’s areas of expertise are: BIM/IPD Project/Design Coordination (Development & Management), Constructability Analysis, Bills of Quantities, and Schedule Optimization.

BIM Management Program

Victor’s BIM Course Description

What is the BIM course that Victor teaches and how does he continually improve it for his students using new technology and best practices?

In the interview we learn how the university has changed from 2D to 3D workflows – now even using Virtual Reality for reviewing their students work!

In the students first year they learn 2D drafting skills only – no technology is used!

It is not until their second year that they start using 3D tools and workflows. This is an admirable process first, tools last approach.

The students start using Revit and Archicad in years 2 and 3 for creating 3D models.

In year 4 they take a year in professional practice out in the AEC industry – to put the skills they have learned to work.

In the last year (Year 5) students are taught the SmartLeanBIM workflow – learning what a BIM Manager needs to know so that they can manage BIM on real projects when they graduate.

This workflow is taught using LOD Planner – for BIM Execution Planning (BEP), BIM Scoping and BIM Management.

The students also use Vico Office for 4D and 5D deliverables.

The LOD Planner platform is free to use for education institutions – you can register your institution here: Smart Lean BIM for Education Program

Would you like to find out more about simple BIM planning?

Students in the BIM Lab – learning how to use LOD Planner:

Video transcript will appear here:

Clive:

So today we are going to cover some smart lean BIM specifically in the education space we are truly excited that launching this program a few months ago with select number of universities has been really successful and we’ve already got a case study that Victor will share with us and more about how their university has employed LOD Planner

and help the students to get more than just a 3D knowledge really truly understand what BIM can do when they get into the workplace using it on some live projects so really excited about sharing more about that the agenda that we’re going to go through today first of all some of you people on the line haven’t actually seen the product so we’re going to do a very very brief introduction there then we’ll talk about how you can get on the education program we’ll have an interview and this is the main body of today we’ll have an interview with Victor we’ll find out more about Victor what he loves about BIM how he actually puts BIM into practice in his work and then also this case study about what they’re doing at the university how they’re getting the students involved and how they’re really differentiating themselves as a university and the students as a higher quality student as they come out and they are in more demand in the workforce we’ll also have Louie here answering questions and so tap your questions into the Q&A and Louie will also answer them as we as we go we believe in this concept of Smart Lean BIM and Smart Lean BIM is the right BIM at the right time by the right people for the right reasons because if we don’t then we’ve got a lot of waste in our workflow and if we look at the huge promise that we have in the in the world about using BIM and putting BIM into practice there’s significant design construction operation servings but if we don’t plan for it then we can get ourselves in a challenging situation and not knowing which BIM we need there’s always a good BIM for the right use so defining the use upfront planning for that and then carrying out as incredibly important we saw a big gap in the market and said hey what about the planning tools in relation to BIM let’s not use the disconnected Word Excel pdf etc let’s put them into one single platform and

make it connected make it easier so execution planning workflow and a collaborative visual scoping workflow enabling teams to actually scope out what they need and then a management platform to execute and make sure that you’re carrying out those tasks dragging and dropping completions also being able to print out your BIM Execution Plans (BEPs) as you go we have demos of the software on the website www.lodplanner.com/demo so if you would like to put  this on your program for free then just go and take a look and you can get a deeper dive but really what today is about is introducing our education program

getting to know Victor and really seeing how we can help universities around the world actually get a better starting point for a lot of the students as they go out into the workforce if you’re interested in the education program please go to www.lodplanner.com/partners and click the register button there’s a couple of

questions about your course and we’ll get somebody with a bunch of free

licenses and the content with the templates and all of the structure that will

help your students and help you make BIM a lot more simple for people that are

new to BIM let’s turn it to Victor Welcome Victor thank you so much

for joining us today I’m going to turn my sharing off and now we can talk to

Victor so victor Hi – thanks for joining us

Victor:

Hi Clive is nice to meet you as well

Clive:

maybe you could share with us a little bit about what BIM means to you and why you’re so passionate about BIM

Victor:

well I need to start 22 years ago where I just finished my school based on hand drafting tool and after I finished that I used then also digital and I found the concept of virtual model and that was a fantastic experience. I was able then to understood the space of what I think so I actually talked about walls windows doors it’s etc instead of lines and

circles and that is the beginning. i just can’t stop – love it and developed

my career around that concept the.

Clive:

So 20 years ago you were working with lines, arcs and circles and then seeing elements and being able to actually understand objects that was a big transition for you.

Victor:

That was a fantastic experience I can feel the excitement still after all these years

because in that moment few people believed in that – you know sometimes

you feel alone in that excitement you know it’s like yeah we don’t know yet this we are 2d 2d world and it’s how we work but I keep a motivation with this passion and believe

that that should be the way it let the world

Clive:

they in general the AEC industry should go and here we are 20 years later we are in that path and so you took that over the last 20 years and you’ve been teaching and sharing that passion tell us more about that

Victor:

this this passion make me leave my own country and I found – I first moved to the United States I meet great people with a lot more of experience that what I have I can

mention one name is Bruce cousins who actually was my mentor he teach me a lot

he guided me and helped me to improve the knowledge and and getting the right

path so after that I go around the world a few projects in different countries and six seven years ago I returned to the University and it’s where my professor career start trying to somehow pass what I have learned around the world with the students and was really an emotion seeing myself in the same University 20 years later teaching now tell them that all what you need is passion love and dream

Clive:

very very cool and so when you think about BIM and our AEC industry what do you see as being the major changes benefits challenges

Victor:

I see a gap that is my main concern when we start all the educational program is the gap between what the industry understood about BIM you know what is the expectations that they have about BIM and what the universities are teaching some universities they are teaching just the clicks on the software right and that is not what the industry are looking for they actually look for for professionals that understood construction processes and understood then how they can put a virtual model together with all these components and organized from the beginning that is the motivation every day to think and improve and reduce the gap so that is how we embraced the teaching of being at university

Clive:

your passion 20 years ago led you start sharing back in the university that you were in

and you see this is gap you said where we have the universities that are teaching

but they’re essentially teaching the click yeah the product rather than why they are actually doing the click can you unpack that a little more

Victor:

yeah as an example when we are in early  classes where did the students learn how

to create a virtual model we are not focused you know here is the wall you

make one click and then another click and the wall is there we are actually

teaching them what is the workflow of the architectural program and how you can use these as a tool to represent your thoughts how do you think about the project and that is just an extension so at the beginning first year we use hand drawing tools and the digitalization of what they are doing is after that what we are tell them is at the beginning you use parallel draw table squares pens all what is changing now is the tool you

need to do the same thing we want to see you at the end of the

career as an architect not as a good modeler right and that is how we teach

them constantly it’s not about the software for instance they show an elevation we say okay that is the elevation that the software make where is your elevation

Clive:

so you talk about how going from the hand drafting to then being able to use the tool to optimize but not make it about the tool make it about their thoughts and them being able to better express their thoughts in the tools as they better and better so that’s an interesting thing I think you’re gonna share a bit more about that when we when we learn more about the program yeah just to close out just to find out a bit

more about you what’s been your greatest achievement through that time that you’ve been sharing your knowledge of BIM what’s been the

most the biggest kind of highlight for you sometimes

Victor:

as I mentioned earlier I fight about what I believe when I cameto the University

it’s not easy that the people believe in in BIM or understood perfect what is

BIM and that is the big big challenge to start with you know tell the people

and make them a believers so I think of myself as a evangelist of the BIM and

the big challenge of the university program has been first

move the administrative part make them invest in what the BIM needs 100

percent BIM focus meaning that from two years ago we don’t

teach in any class and we don’t request from any student a 2d documentation well

we are doing now is challenge the professor’s talk about the project with

the students with virtual reality they them what is here see the space is know what should be the neighbor you need to respond to the context etc.. but we are focused now

hundred-percent in the development of a project based upon the creation of a virtual model

Clive:

what was that journey like? I presume it wasn’t just a switch that you turn from

we did 2d now we do 3d what did you have to do how did you change that

in your department or in the university how did you

Victor:

yeah well I identify first believers with other professors and I start making a group

with them and then join force to make it happen it wasn’t easy you know move the investment of university it takes timewhat I see is like a three levels you know when I go in front of the students and tell it here’s a new tool and this is the concept and this is how we can use they just jump on and take days the professors take you know some

months to believe and start move on but the administration the university level

the corporation level it takes years(!) to move on so you need to to move in all

these range of activities to be able to move the whole team together

Clive:

You’re sitting in one of the labs now

Victor:

yeah this is a lab that has one and half years okay say hi to Clive

Clive:

and everyone else online

maybe you can now share with us a little bit more about the program I know you’ve

got some slides that we can go through so two parts that I’d love to hear

more about what the program is and also if you could share some of the work

that the students have done that would be fantastic

Victor:

okay

Clive:

can you hit the share screen button

Victor:

yeah her we are perfect so of course we are believers of Smart Lean BIM we believe that we need to prepare professionals so they know what to do when to do and organize who do all the BIM process in the professional career and that is what we believe that

is the right path for us to teach them from the management of the BIM here are

some numbers of the architectural program at the university it’s a program that has 45

years during that time have four thousand graduates the curriculum is built around the concurrent concept so every part of the curriculum is moving in synchronized way so if the architectural part change all the other parts they will urban part the technical design part and the communication and means all of those need to change so here is the main classes we are teaching that was the perfect match for make the BIM implementation as a connector of all these ideas here is the quick overview of the program in the first core we teach them only the basic concepts without any instruments and tools so they

don’t use a computer during the first year they use hand drawing tools so they learn the basics of architecture also in the second core talking about the context they learn in terms of the BIM program how to create a computer model and how that is integrated through the development I have been mentioned by the university since 1995 is RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) certified University and we use most of the phases that are proposed by the RIBA and the tools that they use to do that workflow is ArchiCAD or Revit and in the third core they teach how to control how to do better how to perform and improve in the forth core they go to professional practice and over there they actually apply what they have learned about the creation of the virtual model the final core is called project here we teach them how to manage the project and the tools that we use in is LOD Planner and Vico Office so here is the plan for the project part

Clive:

and so so when you say the project part this is in the fifth year where people have

already understood what from an architecture perspective 2d drawing and

3d modeling and then going out into industry and being useful they come back

into the classroom and this is their fifth year and it’s really management of a

project it’s a real project or it’s a

Victor:

from the beginning we are working with real problems with real situations and real clients then in terms of LOD Planner we create a scope and understood how my model and will progress during the time we are working at this moment and I will show in a moment four phases one that is the concept all the regulations for the construction

industry the architectural development the construction development and that is how they scope in the LOD Planner help students to visualize and have more organized workflow for their own project finally we start doing the flow module who how when and why things needs to be done and how I can control those processes to summarize LOD Planner at the end of the semester will allow them to present BIM Execution Plan (BEP) they go through all these process and understood that that is what the BIM Execution Plan (BEP) is it’s all these steps in this order to be able to deliver a nice and neat project

Clive:

you have them plan understand who on the team is going to create what and they go through the creation of the model and then they actually as they’re creating the model is has been managing that workflow and they are creating a schedule as well inside of  ico from the model so they understand what the BIM uses are they’re gonna get quantities so they need certain elements in the scope and they’re also going to drive the the schedule so they need elements with certain quantities to drive schedule –

Victor:

yeah correct –

Clive:

and that’s a six week program on a real project and they go through that whole workflow as a sort of a pre-construction team and a design team design and pre-construction

team how many people and how is that structured

Victor:

we are creating groups of  three students each of them is one role and so on so we guide them we give them the opportunity to organize from the beginning the creation of the virtual model and that is the secret to be able to run smooth and fast during

the rest of the process

Clive:

I love that so you have a real project you put a team of three students onto that project and they have a manageable set of tasks I  love the idea of breaking it down and building the elements they’re building up the what the quantity takeoff is going to be when it’s going to be taken off what drives the estimating what drives the scheduling understanding when people are going to be responsible doing certain things so that whole workflow is actually possible in a 16 week period with a small amount of hours because you manage   the scope but you manage it on a real project and then you have teams of three tackling that I love the the real world like this having a team working on this challenge making it a real project but then because you’re in an education setting having to make sure that it’s done within a certain time frame not just saying go and do the whole thing with every single nut bolt and weld right you actually manage the and they understand the workflow therefore and they can go from start to finish on that

workflow for lots of different tasks but not get bogged down not get too much I love the approach hopefully that helps other people listening online as well could you maybe share a little bit more about how the LOD Planner team has helped what you guys have been doing?

Victor:

yeah I’m gonna jump over there

Clive:

that’s great so you’re in the education version and I see the Mortar Board on the “O” so that’s showing that you have an education account

Victor:

I appear in every project and I able to review sign and comment so we have three students all of them are managers but each of them has a different role that is how I track the work that each student made during the semester they are filling the information taking from different standards they decide which ones they like and make a translation and start writing in Spanish the content

Clive:

something to share Victor sorry to jump in we have a localization project and we have partners around the world that are helping us to translate into different languages standards classifications the content and the application if anybody is looking for more localization and they would like to join that project  also let us know more than happy to

share that so that you can benefit from  a more localized version of LOD Planner as well

Victor:

just yeah I think we  have we have doing some of these already there are some examples for example the table of BIM Use of that in Spanish here is the information of the project a description some drawings and so on then in the scope part development they architectural development and the construction development each of the members work and defined and what will be the level of the component for instance he said that the sidewalk they only will think of that in the development phase in the construction

development and it would be developed to the definition of 300 then they all understood what is the components that we have and gonna be responsible for that part some of them like in foundations they understood here for example that they will be no definition of reinforcement here is how this is responsibility of this student so each of these have different part for

Clive:

I think we’re losing connection

Victor:

did you hear me I can now ah sorry

Clive:

and do the students pick it up

quickly or are there some problem areas what do you find

Victor: yeah well I think it is two things you know one is that the interface is very well designed it’s easy to understood and and easy to know where the parts are and the other one is  as as I mentioned the students are already digital mind so for them is easy to understood and very navigate very intuitive through the interface

Clive:

right I think we’ve had some good requests as well from some of the students it’s great

yes it’s great to have feedback from people within the industry and people that are just starting the idea is to make this application just so simple that it really requires no training to know how to use the tool and it’s more about as you described earlier why you’re using it and what is important and for this BIM Use what do we need rather than knowing the button in order to define it how has this program help to differentiate both your University but also the students

Victor:

yeah it’s one very important part of the process we have a day shift 35% of those students are moving from day shift to night shift because the companies are hire them to keep working with them and that is indicator for us that we are doing the right thing so you’re not just saying that they are more employable you’ve got the result

Victor:

well no I just want to mention that there was a fantastic journey find the LOD Planner   and I embrace with passion and with the right motivation and is how we can deliver that and transfer in this fashion and the knowledge to the students and I encourage them to go beyond what we are teach them here and tell them that wherever they go wherever their dreams and  spirit of adventure and professional development put them remember the roots and return and give back to others what they learn

Clive:

that’s nice so your journey over that 20-year period going back to as we started you said you have this passion for BIM you help them to share their ideas using better tools and   better ways of doing things but I love the approach that you’ve taken and we love being involved thank you so much for allowing us to learn from what you’re doing as well it’s been a great experience for us as well thank you thank you so much maybe if I just share go back to my screen and we can just share something to close and then maybe

some summary words from yourself as well Victor if you would like to get on the education program this is how to do it just a reminder there if you go to  www.lodplanner.com/partners and the partner page registering for the education that in the center we are open to all universities all teams that would like to have this free opportunity to use the platform and mimic what Victor is doing teams small teams and giving them a project a real project that they can work through from beginning to end is a really very valuable lesson and we’ve seen some more of that with  Victor the localization project is another one if you’d like to get involved it’s extremely exciting now to be able to have the application in different languages if you’re in a commercial situation there’s actually a free option now to get BIM Execution Plans (BEPs) online that you can get started and that’s on the website just by going to click the free button on the website and Louie has been answering questions if you’ve got any other questions if you quickly type them in before we we finished I hope that Louie can either get to them now or I’ve heard Louie kind of tap tap tap away

Louie:

yeah If didn’t get you I’ll make sure to respond to any questions afterwards and send out the recording once we get this going

Clive:

there you go so thank you so much Victor any closing words anything to just share or eave with other people that are starting this journey at the moment

Victor:

well just to summarize and make the students understood that the program are tools but the human being is what is really important in all these process you can be a good  architect with hand drawing table or with the most advanced digital tool so the important thing here is a process is the do the right thing in the right time as we learn and also I’m very grateful that you and your team came out with this solution I think every time that people understood more and we have more professionals ready to work with we’ll make a lot of BIM’ers around the world more happy and make them the life easier to when they use the solution that you have developed and I very grateful for your work thank you

Clive:

thanks for sharing thanks for those kind word we’ll continue to make this easier for everyone thank you so much thank you take care Victor bye Victor

Victor:

okay guys thanks bye bye