Formación, estabilidad y propiedades de las emulsiones

Prior to software acquisition, the company had identified two new roles that needed to be created to implement BIM - the Revit Administrator and Revit Designer. According to Interviewee CB1, both roles are required to operate Revit software but the Administrator roles are extended to deal with the administrative role of the software such as developing a product library, troubleshooting, and also to deliver formal training and assisting the on-the-job training for the staff in the future. The new roles and responsibilities are therefore identified as another readiness criterion.

Another feature of readiness criteria in Company B is the presence of Head of Change which is carried out by Interviewee CB1. While the Administrator is responsible to look after the technical aspect of BIM, the Head of Change role is further listed as following:

a) To manage the BIM implementation activity such as preparing the implementation plan, directing the implementation and also monitoring the progress

b) Liaison between the top management and operational regarding the needs

c) Identify and prepare BIM-related requirements such as training, hardware upgrade and software acquisition

d) Redesigning the new roles and process flow

140 Both of the interviewees also suggest that empowerment plays a vital role in leading the process change. The empowerment must be tailored to suit certain levels of responsibility as explained by Interviewee CB1. The empowerment is evidenced within Company B through a collaborative involvement of the people to decide the software to purchase. Meanwhile, the senior management position that CB1 holds has also justified the need for empowerment to drive the implementation. The authority that the interviewee carries has enabled him to instruct and influence people to join the BIM implementation effort.

4.4.3.3.2Skills and Attitude

To ensure the successful implementation of BIM, the selection of staff must satisfy certain skill and attitude sets to become BIM Administrators or Designers. This is identified as another readiness criterion. According to Interviewees CB1 and CB2, the skill and attitude sets that both the BIM Administrators and Designers must have are:

a) Personal Interest

b) IT literate and computer Savvy

c) Helpfulness, especially important to support the team d) Ability of the staff to respond to change

e) Technical competency of engineering design and drafting

Meanwhile, the BIM Administrator demanded extra attitude and skill sets which are listed as following:

a) Coaching skills b) Troubleshooting skills c) Communication skills

4.4.3.3.3 Training and Education

As discussed in detail in Section 4.4.2, Chronology of BIM Implementation, the company has engaged two types of training, formal training and on-the-job training, which features as readiness criteria. The formal training which has been conducted in-house was targeted at developing entry and intermediate level of modelling competency on three different software. As Interviewee CB1 further supported, the training exposed and familiarised the staff with the software interface, buttons, function and the terms used, especially important in receiving technical assistance via telephone whenever problems occur. After the software acquisition was made, another formal training was conducted focusing on the advanced level, to fill the technical need to become a Revit Structure

141 Administrator. The training used the company‟s previous project data so the gap between theory and practice could be minimised. After the second training was completed, the company continued with on-the-job training on a small scale project which they have won recently. The on-the-job training aims at improving the skill, developing practical competency and also increasing the confidence level of the staff.

4.4.3.3.3 Work Environment

According to CB1, BIM is a new approach to design and therefore every procedure and method must be documented to help other staff, and also for future improvement. By using the company‟s IBS experience, the interviewee further explained its importance as following:

[...] Similarly to what we did with IBS, we documented in a form of hardcopy and softcopy. The technical aspect of IBS design, such as the connection and the component analysis, we want everybody to acquire the same knowledge therefore it is important to document the procedure to support knowledge sharing and retrieval[...] Interviewee CB1

Meanwhile, the importance of the work environment in supporting knowledge sharing is evidenced in the following statement made by Interviewee CB1:

[...] The mentoring and knowledge sharing is a norm within our practice. Before the BIM implementation, we had invested heavily on engineering design software and we cannot expect all of the staff to attend the training as it would interrupt our workflow. Last time when the training was conducted for StaadPro Software in a full week at the vendor’s office, we only sent 3 people to attend the training and after they completed the training, they were responsible to teach and train the other staff. The teaching and training activity not only benefitted them in terms of revising and practicing the knowledge, but they could also identify their weakness and thus consult with their instructor for improvement. Since then, the practice has become a norm within our company [...] Interviewee CB1

The above discussions suggest that the company has a structured method to capture knowledge, and a conducive work environment to support knowledge sharing among staff. Thus it features as readiness criteria within the work environment attribute.

4.4.3.4 Technology

TECHNOLOGY ELEMENT

READINESS CATEGORY READINESS CRITERIA

HARDWARE Adequate ICT Infrastructure

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TECHNICAL SUPPORT Vendor Evaluation Strategy

Technical Support

SOFTWARE

Software Evaluation Strategy Compatibility and Interoperability ICT System Review

Table 4.15 summarises the readiness criteria within the technology element that was identified in Company B. Six readiness criteria were sorted according to the readiness category and the following subchapter discusses in further detail the evidence of qualitative data that was found.

4.4.3.4.1Hardware

Adequate ICT infrastructure is also identified as readiness criteria within Company B. For a start, the company has only upgraded the RAM and the graphic card for the dedicated desktops. For the future, the company projected that the upgrading may not be an option and therefore consider replacing their hardware to suit with the advanced features of the software implementation. Meanwhile, the evidence that supports the criteria is as following:

[...] The computer infrastructure must match the software requirement to ensure the smooth running of the application and operation. No matter how good our software is, without an excellent infrastructure, the implementation will not be optimised [...] Interviewee CB1

[...] We consulted with our technical team and software vendor to identify the optimum hardware requirement. For the moment, we only needed to upgrade our 4GB RAM to 8GB and our 512MB Graphic Card to 1GB. It is enough to satisfy our need but over time, suitable with the advanced application of Revit, the Motherboard may not be able to support the higher capacity of RAM and Graphic Card. By that time we will acquire a new desktop [...] Interviewee CB2

4.4.3.4.2 Technical Support

As discussed in the current implementation of BIM, the company has engaged product demonstration and training prior to software acquisition to evaluate the capability of the software vendor in providing services, which includes a review of the vendor‟s track record and the availability of technically competent personnel. The capability of the software vendor was identified important by both interviewees to assist the BIM implementation and justified the company‟s approach for evaluating their capability. Therefore, having tools or techniques to evaluate the capability of the software vendor is identified as readiness criteria.

143 Meanwhile, an adequate technical support is a must to implement BIM as recognised by both interviewees. This lies on the ground of supporting the staff and avoiding disruption of the implementation. Although it is compulsory for the software vendor to provide technical support such as troubleshooting the technical problems, according to Interviewee CB1, the early stage of BIM environment in Malaysia requires the company not to rely on and expect too much from the software vendor to assist implementation. Normally, software-associated technical problems can be solved by the software vendor but other problems require third party expertise such as BIM consultants or business partners to get involved to resolve the problem. Therefore, adequate technical support features as another readiness criterion.

4.4.3.4.3 Software

Another purpose of having training prior to software acquisition is to evaluate the most suitable software for the company by incorporating the business and user needs as evidenced in the current implementation of BIM. The use of the training is identified as the company evaluation strategy and thus features as the readiness criteria. Meanwhile, another important criterion of the software, in addition to one that was discussed previously, is the flexibility to suit the company‟s process flow. Interviewee CB2further supports the flexibility in the following statement:

[...] Each company has a different IBS system covering the process flow and the IBS components. The systems were long developed by considering many aspects to optimise our operation and therefore we cannot simply change our IBS system to suit with the software implementation. The software instead must be flexible enough to support our system [...]Interviewee CB1

Meanwhile, the software interoperability of BIM software with CAD systems was also stressed as important by both interviewees since most companies in Malaysia are still using the system. Furthermore, the local authority and the client specify the CAD drawing as part of their requirements and thus request the company to deliver the CAD drawings rather than the BIM model. However, to minimise manual data transfer when drafting the drawings in CAD, the interoperability of BIM software with CAD is identified as important, thus featuring as another readiness criterion.

According to Interviewee CB1, the implementation of BIM is projected in a series of timeframes to optimise the investment by spreading the expenditure into small chunks. Therefore, the BIM hardware and software requirements will change over time in line with the sophistication and advancement of the BIM implementation, and thus require the company to regularly review their ICT system. Therefore, regular reviews of the ICT system are identified as another readiness criterion.

144

4.5

CASE STUDY FINDINGS FOR COMPANY C