Course 04: BEP – Building Execution Plan

In this lecture, Ignasi Pérez Arnal concludes his analysis of the American BIM Execution Plan model by detailing how to organize and distribute BIM uses across the key project phases—planning, design, construction, and operation. Drawing from the University of Pennsylvania framework, he introduces the “Last Planner System” as a reverse-planning method that helps teams prioritize actions based on delivery goals. Pérez Arnal demonstrates how to build a comprehensive matrix that aligns BIM uses, project stages, and technical responsibilities, ensuring coordination between disciplines. Each BIM use is documented through individual data sheets describing its potential value, required resources, and competencies, reinforcing a structured and collaborative approach to digital project execution.

Key Takeaways:

• BIM uses should be mapped across all project phases for coordinated implementation.

• Reverse planning (Last Planner System) helps identify critical tasks from the delivery goal backward.

• A shared matrix aligns BIM uses, stages, and professional roles.

• Each BIM use requires a detailed record of its purpose, value, and resources.

• Systematic documentation enhances collaboration and ensures measurable project benefits.

English transcript:
Let’s now see how the detailed process comes to an end within this BEP and how we’ll determine the BIM objectives and uses. Remember, we’re working with the American model from the University of Pennsylvania, which has become the reference. What’s important here — and that’s why we visualize it — is how to translate the phases of planning, design, construction, and operation.

Once we’ve defined the uses that will apply to each of these phases, we can see on the right how these stages — planning, design, construction, and operation — are turned into what’s known as a *Last Planner System.* We flip them around so that what used to be the final step now appears at the top. We’ve rotated the table and start with the operation phase, reworking the plan in reverse order.

The *Last Planner System* method, which can be somewhat compared to how we structure the BEP, is very interesting because we usually plan in a linear way — thinking: today we’ll do this, tomorrow we’ll do that, the next day we’ll do the following. But it’s very different if we start from the delivery day and work backward. In that way, we usually feel more pressure, and it helps identify the truly critical points in planning this execution plan — the “BIM Bible.”

To do that, if we were to expand this for each phase, we’d have a list of BIM uses on one side — a list that might contain 50 or 100 different items — and for each use, we’ll specify: can it be performed during the planning phase? Yes or no. Can it be performed during the design and drawing phase? Yes or no. During the construction or operation phase? Yes or no.

This gives us something like a Gantt chart, in which each use — whose benefits we already analyzed earlier — is now defined in terms of when it applies.

So, how are these uses defined by the two most relevant models for us? The American model — we’ve already provided the translation so you can see how the Spanish term corresponds to the English or North American concept — and in the third and fourth columns, you also see both the Spanish and English versions for direct comparison.

In fact, we’ve already prepared this work for you, and every time you have to create a BEP, use this matrix so that everyone who interprets different uses across different phases can understand them in a coordinated and collaborative way.

The next step, once we’ve determined the uses within those planning phases, is to identify which technical professionals will need to participate in each of these uses. For that, we consider: there’s a developer — at what stage will they be involved? The preliminary study, the basic project, the executive project, the *as-built* phase, etc. Surely, each of you in your own countries has slightly different stages.

We participated, for example, in creating the BEP for the government of Macedonia, and there were more than 42 stages for the approval of a single project. Imagine what that Excel sheet looked like! And remember, Excel is the best BIM software that exists. In that Excel, we had to incorporate each of the certifying bodies or authors of every part of the BIM use we were defining, and within the phase — or phasing — of the BIM project we were developing.

So, by introducing this table, we’ll include and define the BIM uses. We’ll take one of these uses and create a BIM use sheet — a case example — to show how to describe it: its potential values, the resources it requires, and the competencies needed from the professionals involved in each of these uses.

Keep in mind that sometimes we’re talking about an endless number of uses. We’ll have to make a specific sheet for each one so that the entire team truly aligns and understands the importance of each use — because, remember, each one is linked to a benefit, to a potential value we aim to achieve within our BIM Execution Plan.