As part of our series of ‘Excellence in Engineering’ webinars EnExG welcomed Matt Burke and Iain Bomphray from Williams Advanced Engineering. We had previously shown them round our Explore factory and have been discussing ways their expertise in lightweight structures, energy storage and energy recovery might apply to the construction sector. We had also chatted about the way BIM is being applied in the construction sector. As part of a wide-ranging presentation Iain talked in some detail about the way Digital Engineering is central to the design and support of their cars, and evidently the issues they are addressing are close to the Construction’s BIM agenda.

Central to all Williams’ operations is “the BoM” – the Bill of Materials. This is a model with embedded and attached databases that tracks the huge number of components needed in an F1 car, right down to individual screws. In BIM terms this is their Federated Model – the virtual mirror of ‘real reality’. The BoM is the way Williams tracks the many developing components all the way from an idea through to being on a car. It is closely linked to their process for design, manufacturing, and testing. In a similar way a BIM model would have objects with developing Levels of Detail (LoD) and status tracked against a Plan of Work (PoW).

Williams evidently have great discipline in following all the processes wrapped around the BoM. Iain told a great story where two copies of a new component were made. One was immediately shipped to Spain and put on the car. Meanwhile the other was put on the test rig at HQ and taken through its paces. The test completed successfully; the lab technician signed it off within the BoM followed by the head of the lab. The workflow switches instantly to Spain where the car is already fuelled up, and the chief mechanic clicked the final box to release it onto the track. Rapid prototyping in action, revolving around digital workflows.

A coming challenge for BIM is Asset Information Management (AIM). F1 is already dealing with this. Apart from knowing its design and manufacturing status every component recorded in the BoM knows if it is in a store in HQ, deployed to the track, or already on the car. Some components such as tyres only last part of a race whilst a chassis may compete in several. Each item in the BoM needs to know its allowable lifespan and how far through that it is, so it can flag up when a replacement is needed. Maintenance manuals for every component are of course linked to each object. I think the construction industry is some way away from achieving the asset integration F1 already has!

There is a key difference between construction and F1 that I hadn't previously thought of. Each part of the car can simultaneously exist in several different versions. The example given was that the nose cones and front spoilers are different for every race, evolving and adjusting the required trim of the car. Several may get taken to each race for test laps before the final one is chosen. At each race the car is unique! I feel grateful that we at least only have to deal with one version of reality in BIM once the design moves towards construction.

I believe the key to BIM is going to be a cultural one – once all the people involved are prepared to engage with the model and respect proper data protocols we will have it cracked. I asked whether Williams have to continually work on culture and training and is everyone happy to engage in this parallel digital world? Much to my relief Iain also sees this as a key issue that needs continuous work. Evidently the BoM is immensely successful, but I was relieved when he did admit that behaviours are ‘sometimes a bit messy’.

Phew. I get intimidated by perfection. Thanks Matt and Iain for a great talk!