Mark Crowe

Director

Mark Crowe
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Mark is responsible for technical delivery on projects across BIM Academy’s global operations, as well as continuing to ensure the organisation is at the forefront of practical capability. Graduating from Northumbria University, Mark puts a significant emphasis on practical, socially sustainable design, as well as having a natural in-depth understanding of design technology and information systems.

What inspires you?

A relentless distaste for waste or inefficiency in processes.

Working with people – both within BIM Academy and our clients – who genuinely want to create better processes, that deliver better products in more efficient ways is highly inspirational for me. It reinforces that for all the complexity and difficulty in the world, we are genuinely making progress as humanity – even in the construction industry!

What do you believe are the current challenges in our industry and how can we overcome them?

I think we still have a significant divide between the strategic thinkers and the practical deliverers within the BIM industry. Naturally, in the early stages of new technologies and process, a lot of work is involved in coming up with the ‘perfect answer’ as so much is unknown or incomplete, and naturally there is a need for direction to be provided to push the industry to come up with the answers. However, I believe whilst there are many, many areas that can be improved, within BIM we have progressed to the point where practical implementation should be practical and therefore we need a step change in the tone of debate and guidance to give real practical, deliverable and value orientated answers to the large number of organisations and people looking for them.

What is your proudest moment?

Working with Sydney Opera House is my proudest moment, but not because the building is a famous landmark – and not because Sydney is my favourite place – but because we were supporting a team who were really striving to deliver a leading solution that delivered absolute value for their estate. They were prepared to take a uniquely leading role with their Contractors and Supply Chain to deliver it. The team was fantastic and supporting them in their vision was a genuine pleasure.

What added value do you bring to your projects?

I would like to think that I listen carefully to our clients and where they see the most value on their projects and ensure that value is delivered based precisely on their aims. I’d like to think that I am able to quickly understand their value cases and work with them to identify key deliverables that allow them to achieve those value aims.

I understand not only strategically, or theoretically, what BIM can do, but practically how it can be delivered in a significant range of project types, with a wide range of different technologies and across all potential BIM uses. This allows us to convey to our clients a significant breadth of experience, from which we can not only advise them on the best course of action, but also, take them through the process of why it is, to provide them a fuller understanding and grounding of the decisions made.

Together this ensures that we’re focused on delivering real, practical value that is demonstrable directly in our clients’ processes and outputs, and ultimately improves their lives and that of their clients.

What do you think our industry could learn from other sectors?

We like to consider that the construction industry is particularly complex due to the large volume of interrelated components and the bespoke nature of every product. However, we should be paying a lot of attention to the software development industry. Software development commonly now involves the integration of thousands of individual files (millions in the largest cases) – all which have to interact in precisely the correct way; worked on by large teams with different contractual requirements; including revision and issue management approaches that are light years ahead of construction; and reliant on test driven design that ensures that all these complex arrangements work for their intended process throughout development, with breaches identified quickly and clearly. There’s a huge amount we can learn from understanding more about the industry and considering how we could apply similar solutions. But for many the parallels aren’t as easy to see as with manufacturing.