Majenta Helps University of Cambridge Through the BIM Learning Curve
Radical transformation makes Cambridge team a model for best practice
“We’re the University of Cambridge. We want to reflect our status as a global centre of excellence,” says David Wickett, Senior Project Manager for the university’s Estate Management team.
David Wickett can now say this with confidence. The Estate Management office is efficient, well-coordinated and Building Information Modelling (BIM)-enabled. In fact it’s now so on top of managing BIM projects that recently one of the leading large global contractors praised its approach and wants to use its documentation templates as an example of best practice. However, this has not always been the case.
According to Mr Wickett, a while ago operational processes were, “in a fairly haphazard state”. Managing around 50,000 CAD drawings was getting the better of the team. Their data management system at the time was too unwieldy, so nobody liked using it and so tried to work around it.
“Our ‘as built’ drawings were meant to be our key assets; a definitive reference to every building within the university,” he explains. “But because staff found the system difficult and cumbersome to use, instead they stored the drawings all over the place, on USBs and hard-drives, for example.”