On September 1 (2023) Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 331 in a new edition came into effect. According to this every developer working on capital construction projects under 214 Federal law must use Building information technologies (BIM) from July 1 (2024).

The Construction News Agency has prepared material based on the opinions of leading experts in this field to find out the readiness of Russian developers to use BIM. According to experts, the readiness to introduce BIM into everyday practice among Russian construction companies is very heterogeneous. One of the reasons is the lack of a unified methodology and IT standards and the reluctance of some market players to switch to new work standards.

“In our opinion, most developers and 100% of major large developers already use BIM, and they have their own internal standards for the information model at different stages of design and construction stages of a facility. In my opinion, in Moscow and St. Petersburg the number of developers using information modeling can reach 80%. I think it is about 20% in Russia in general. The use of BIM also directly depends on the specific customer, on his requirements for organizing design and construction. Despite the fact that the situation is getting better, the introduction of information modeling at construction sites is hampered by the insufficient number of qualified BIM managers capable of integrating it into real construction processes. There is no methodology that is understandable to everyone, and insufficient capabilities of domestic software to implement the necessary requirements for a modern BIM model. Accelerating the implementation process is possible by developing a competent, carefully planned sequential plan, which will be adjusted by practical experience, allocating sufficient funding for the development of domestic software and training specialists.”

Oleg Baranov also recalled the advantages of BIM:

“With the help of a virtual model it is possible to control the timing of work, promptly make the necessary adjustments and subsequently use BIM at the operation stage. At the same time, construction costs are reduced by an average of 10–15%. The most common software when creating a project model is Revit, Archicad, Renga, Model Studio and others. At this stage, domestic software is inferior to Western software, so most developers work using Revit, the implementation of which requires significant funds, the necessary technological tools are configured. The transition to alternative software is quite a difficult task. However, to ensure peer review, the result of all the diverse work in various models, performed in accordance with the required information content, must be able to be uploaded into a unified IFC format.”

The opinions of experts from CSoft Development, Nanosoft, Renga Software and other companies you can read here.