Transforming construction SME digitisation adoption via Building Process Model Builder

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**Backdrop:**UK building firms have been directly impacted by Covid-19, with their workloads and management teams disrupted along with increasing costs due to materials/labour inflation and Covid-Secure measures.Concurrently Government is pressing the industry to;1. increase production of new sustainable houses and extensions2. improve the thermal performance of existing homes3. enhance productivity assisted by construction digitisation.**Problem:**Every year hundreds of thousands of houses, extensions and small industrial projects are commissioned by clients from Architects/designers prepared on CAD, 3D modelling systems, or by hand. Similarly SME Housing Developers and Design & Build firms (including Offsite Manufacturers) draft significant volumes of plans in-house.For Architects/designers the priority is to generate designs creatively and cost effectively given the project value is often quite low, charging modest fees. It is also important that the project can be built within the client's budget. The provision therefore of an accurate cost estimate generated direct from the plan would be advantageous rather than using rule-of-thumb or estimated separately.Housing Developers and Design & Builders have similar initial challenges, but they also then have to manage the entire delivery of the project on budget, on time.For all users/clients, it is important to explore sustainable fully-costed options. However, with current, often disparate non-integrated systems, this can be prohibitively expensive as creating multiple drawings/specifications/estimates in different software is time-consuming.What is needed, is a toolset to quickly generate plans and 3D models of multiple fully-costed project options, instantly ascertaining all labour and materials with a detailed project plan, reflecting the content of the work and, for constructors, their own resources, including all process management and documentation to efficiently construct the building.**Solution:**The solution to this challenge is HBXL's proposed **Building Process Model (BPM) Builder**, front-ending HBXL's existing software with brand new, fully-customisable parametric templates to rapidly produce 2D working drawings, 3D models and complete construction datasets for houses and extensions.These parametric templates can be Lego-blocked together to create an infinite array of fully digitised projects in minutes, not only providing the raw information (drawings, labour, plant and materials schedules) to construct the project, but also all process management information including Building Regulation documentation, estimates, Gantt chart, task management tools and Covid-19 health and safety documentation).Using the BPM, users can easily optioneer low embodied carbon/energy, low impact, restorative and regenerative environmental approaches comparing speed-of-delivery and overall costs.The resulting output can then be shared amongst and utilised by the entire project team in HBXL's soon-to-be-released Construction Cloud management software.**Why fund this innovative project?**This innovative project addresses Government's twin goals of the ISCF Construction Sector to digitise the construction industry and deliver more sustainable buildings.The Building Process Model Builders timely approach automatically digitises the entire construction process direct from plans in minutes, saving days of work over the life of each project. Project outcomes have the potential to transform the way digitally-excluded less tech-savvy, time-pressured SMEs engage digitally, delivering incredibly easy-to-use tools, saving large amounts of time, simultaneously improving delivery speed, quality and sustainability.