Metlam Case Study

Quality Washroom Accessories BIM Content

BIM Strategy / Revit, ArchiCAD & SketchUp Content Creation

Project Summary

Metlam is Australia’s leading supplier of commercial washroom accessories. In recent years the company has grown its market share within this product category at an impressive rate, owing to a shift in strategy that has seen them focus heavily on achieving greater volumes of architectural specification. A key to achieving this significant increase in specification-driven sales has been engaging IGS to create the Metlam BIM content library and provide BIM strategy advice.

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Project Background

In recent years, Metlam made a strategic decision to shift its focus firmly towards becoming the most specified supplier of commercial Washroom Accessories in Australia. In addition to employing a team of staff dedicated to servicing specifiers, developing innovative products and creating a new suite of marketing tools (website, catalogue etc) Metlam put a high priority on generating quality BIM content that would allow designers to specify their products easier and faster than that of their competitors. Metlam engaged IGS to supply them with BIM content across multiple platforms including Revit, ArchiCAD and SketchUp to ensure they were able to provide native BIM content to the greatest possible number of specifiers.

Challenges

The Metlam product range is significantly large, with many of their products available in a various sizes, configurations and finishes. Unfortunately, for many of these options and variables Metlam were unable to provide current CAD files that could be used as a reference to create accurate geometry in any BIM-authoring platform. The fact that Metlam required BIM content in three formats, each with natively created geometry made this task a challenge, if not from a technical perspective, from a project management one. It was important that IGS was able to provide not only the best possible outcome, but do so as cost-effectively as possible.

Solutions

Rather than creating the first iteration of the Metlam BIM library in all three formats simultaneously, the Revit library was created first, then used as the basis for creating subsequent libraries. When creating BIM content for large product ranges, there is often a lot of work that goes into planning tasks like break-up of the families / models, collating product data, cross-referencing data to ensure it correlates and validating that the information is correct. For example: do the supplier’s CAD files match the drawings in their literature? Do they have information on all configurations of all products? Is all the information current? Are all the CAD files to scale? Creating all BIM libraries at the same time would lead to the same prep-work being done multiple times. By creating one library, in this case Revit, then using the information obtained in this project (geometry + data) as the basis for additional ArchiCAD and SketchUp libraries, we were able to save a significant amount of time, therefore saving the client money and creating a more consistent set of content libraries. To complete the ArchiCAD and SketchUp libraries, IGS collaborated with industry expert collaborators in developing content natively in these BIM content formats.

Project Outcomes

The size of Metlam’s product range and their ongoing development of new products means that the Metlam BIM content library is a constant work in progress. Metlam are committed to continually growing and improving their BIM content libraries as time goes on. Since releasing the Metlam BIM content library – in Revit, ArchiCAD and SketchUp formats – coinciding with the launch of a new company website, Metlam have seen a significant growth in commercial project sales and overall market share. They have also experienced a far greater degree of engagement with specifiers who appreciate the quality and extent of the Metlam BIM content library. Importantly, they are able to communicate the product data of their vast product range far more effectively and efficiently than before, a desirable outcome for both Metlam and Metlam’s growing list of specifier clients.

What Did The Client Think?

Metlam saw investing in BIM as a key factor in achieving our objective to grow our commercial project sales through architectural specification. Research told us it was vital we chose a BIM content partner that knew how to create BIM content specifically catered to the needs of commercial project designers. IGS was recommended by several Architecture firms as the best BIM content provider in the business. To date, working with the IGS team has been a pleasure. The quality of their service has been outstanding.
On many occasions specifiers have been sceptical of our BIM content, due to bad experiences with manufacturers’ content in the past. But when we referenced IGS as our content creator they said “oh, great!” The feedback we have received from clients about our BIM content so far has been extremely favourable.
By having BIM content freely available for our products in Revit, ArchiCAD and SketchUp formats, designers are able to document our products faster and more accurately, meaning we are specified more often. We would definitely recommend IGS to other companies seeking a BIM content provider.”

Gavin Kerr
General Manager
Metlam Australia

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