INCORPORATING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM) INTO AN INDUSTRIAL CONSTRUCTION COURSE IN AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING MASTERS PROGRAM

Over the past few years of teaching innovation projects, the student surveys completed at the end of the projects attest to student interest and motivation. Their interest is strongest in those subjects that incorporate computer tools and professional structural calculation engineers into the classroom experience. The present teaching innovation project is designed for an Industrial Construction course in an Industrial Engineering master’s degree program and involves collaboration with a pioneering company in the field of structure calculation. The activities proposed are: 3D modeling using Building Information Modeling (BIM) for structures, and the structural analysis of the different components and identification of the take-up rates. This activity is completed by students working in groups and utilizing Open BIM. This tool facilitates collaborative, multidisciplinary and multi-user workflow by allowing students to work together on projects in an open, coordinated and simultaneous manner. The collaborating company CYPE Ingenieros S.A. also held two online seminars on Open BIM: "Introduction to Open BIM" and "Open BIM workflow during the project phase for designing structures and building installations through the online platform BIM Server Center”. Through these seminars, students are expected to acquire a professional understanding of BIM according to structural engineers and planners. And lastly, prototypes are also constructed cooperatively by all the groups working together (the entire class). Once the activities are completed, students fill out a satisfaction survey to provide feedback for our continuous improvement.