CIPAA Regulations and the Development of a Standardized BIM

I had chaired another BIPC (Building Industry President’s Council) Meeting on 7^th May 2012 at RISM.  It was for the purpose of discussing two significant matters brought up by the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACEM), which will purportedly affect the building and construction industry.  Present in the meeting were Presidents (or their representatives) of Pertubuhan Arkitek Malaysia (PAM), Malaysian Institute of Planners (MIP), Institution of Engineers (IEM), Master Builders Association (MBA), Association of Consulting Engineers (ACEM), as well as the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (REHDA).  Since the discussion would be dealing with matters affecting the building and construction industry, I’ve had the assistance of the Chair of Quantity Surveying Division, RISM (Sr Eddie Wong Weng Hong), who participated in the meeting as well.

Basically, two burning issues were brought up by ACEM; i.e.:

(i)            The involvement of industry players in the KLRCA Drafting Committee for the CIPAA regulations; and

(ii)          The development of a standardized BIM.

According to the Attorney General, the KLRCA should be charged with the nomination of adjudicators.  In this regards, KLRCA has been supposedly working on the CIPAA regulations that would provide for relevant aspects concerning adjudication and adjudicators.  However, as was with the case of formulating or the drawing up of CIPAA, KLRCA has not been involving the main industry players or stakeholders, with the exception of a few.  Personally, I believe that policies drawn up without having gone through the rigorous process of engagement with interested parties would eventually end up being shakeable. In government itself, with the recent fumble in the formulation of the new salary scheme, much more emphasis has been placed on this very important process of engagement with stake holders.


Building Information Modeling (BIM) is actually a new emerging approach to design and construction as well as facility management in which a digital representation of the building process is being created to facilitate the exchange of information in digital format. Despite the advantages that could be derived from this tool, the local construction industry is still reluctant to deploy it in its service delivery. BIM has in fact been accepted by a substantial number of construction professionals (especially Architects and Engineers); however, the majority is still using AutoCAD in their design services.

ACEM seems to have the competent people who had been previously involved and had the experience to assist in the the development of a standardized BIM.  The availability of a good BIM would evidently provide related professionals with the required tool to assist them in their work.  Since it is agreed that it would be very useful to have it made available, the meeting concurred that its development should be initiated and funding be seeked from CIDB for this purpose.