Metsec Invests in BIM

Visiting Metsec’s website, you are only one click away from learning all about building information modelling (BIM). Behind the new, dedicated BIM area on the cold rolled steel specialist’s website lies a profound understanding of how BIM is transforming the playing field in the British construction industry.

Metsec, the UK’s largest specialist cold roll-forming company, is bringing BIM to the fore on its new website. Metsec’s BIM area comes complete with an introduction to collaborative working in BIM, an interactive 3D steel framing model conceived in Revit and a downloads section.

Here, visitors have the opportunity to download a number of Revit and IFC files. Thus Metsec model purlins and framing can be easily integrated in contractors’ and specifiers’ master models when tasked with choosing a suitable system during pre-construction.

Roy Burns, Managing Director for Metsec Lightweight Steel Structures is delighted at the inclusion of a dedicated BIM area: “It reflects our efforts to push building information modelling as an efficient tool of collaboration. 3D detailing of our steel framing systems in BIM compatible software is fundamental to integrated working across the supply chain.”

“BIM has grown to become a key part of our service offering and, where possible, we make use of its cross-functional properties to deliver value-engineered solutions that provide cost certainty for the main contractor. Take One Smithfield Square in Manchester, for example. Here, Metsec is supplying cold-rolled steel framing and sections had to be integrated with hot-rolled steel. Only through 3D modelling was it possible to design a most accurate, no-waste solution. Without the virtual model and the comprehensive data fed into it by the technical and design teams, as well as the SFS installer, we would not have been able to identify any potential clashes from an early stage.”

“Beyond the design stage, however, BIM data also helps us and the main contractor to track the cost of all structural elements that are to be built into the project, and to inform the construction programme,” he continues. “After all, the federate model provides us with a sound basis to determine lead and delivery times.”

Metsec’s continuous investment into BIM tools to enable 3D detailing for both its Metframe and SFS systems does not come as a surprise. The company has embraced the opportunities that BIM opens up since the associated technology was in the fledgling stages.

“It is no secret that the demand for suppliers and subcontractors with BIM-capability is on the rise. Main contractors increasingly request partners that have adopted the model as they are already mandated to contract appropriate suppliers on public and government projects. Manufacturers and installers, in particular, need to be sensitised to the role that BIM is playing and will continue to play in building design and delivery in the future if they are not to lose vital contracts to competitors.”

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