Nima

In the UK, the Government Construction Strategy published in May 2011, stated that the '...Government will require fully collaborative 3D BIM (with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic) as a minimum by 2016'. This represents a minimum requirement for Level 2 BIM on centrally-procured public projects from April 2016.

In the run-up to the 2016 deadline, the BIM Task Group was set up to bring together expertise from industry, government, institutes and academia to strengthen the public sector's BIM capability and provide the information the industry needs to meet the government's BIM Level 2 requirement.

The UK BIM Alliance is a construction industry alliance set up to respond to the challenges set by BIM Level 2 and to continue the work of the BIM Task Group. It was officially launched during the 2016 ICE BIM Conference and Digital Construction Week.

The UK BIM Alliance will provide a common and clear point of reference for built environment companies, with a view to enabling and supporting their BIM journeys. It's pre-launch activities involved working on coordination, common messaging and common understanding across a coalition of more than 50 organisations.

In a post on the BIM Regions website on 28 June 2016, the UK BIM alliance wrote: “It is time for industry to step up, and provide the necessary leadership to drive implementation of BIM Level 2 across the wider industry… It is clear that following the successful activity of the UK BIM Task Group over the past four years in defining and implementing BIM Level 2 within Government Departments, the challenge now is to transition from mobilisation for BIM Level 2 to creating 'business as usual' for the entire industry – and not just for the centrally procured public sector projects.”

Speaking on behalf of the UK BIM Alliance, Anne Kemp, Director of BIM strategy and development at Atkins said, : “Upon its launch in October, the UK BIM Alliance will provide clear, guiding leadership for industry on BIM Level 2 which makes the true benefits – the cost and waste reductions; the increased productivity and competitiveness – easily understandable and obtainable for all. This will build on, and remain aligned with the Government's programme for publicly procured projects”

At the 2017 buildingSMART summit, it was announced that the UK BIM Alliance would merge with buildingSMART UKI by the end of 2017. Ann Kemp said; "Shared common goals and the intention of both parties to work towards a digital built industry makes this the ideal time to collaborate and deliver the needs of the industry today and for the future”.

Find out more at: https://www.ukbimalliance.org/

In October 2022, the UK BIM Alliance announced that it was being renamed nima, the Greek for thread, and signifying a move away from the technology associated with BIM, towards I for information and M for management. A new website was launched at: https://wearenima.im/