How BIMBox reduced clash management from 42 hours to 9 minutes with BIMcollab
Manually locating and communicating clashes across multiple authoring tools can consume days of coordination time. For BIMBox, a specialist digital construction consultancy, this challenge was a recurring reality — until they adopted BIMcollab. By integrating BIMcollab into their clash detection and reporting workflow, BIMBox dramatically reduced the time required to locate and navigate clashes, from days to minutes.
Background: Who is BIMBox?
BIMBox is a UK-based team of design and construction professionals supporting estate owners, local authorities, contractors, designers, and manufacturers. Operating nationwide, they help clients implement BIM and digital construction workflows in line with PAS 1192 and ISO 19650 across sectors including education, commercial, leisure, and manufacturing.
A strong focus on collaboration and continuous improvement underpins BIMBox’s approach to digital transformation.
Challenge
As part of their clash detection services, BIMBox regularly managed hundreds of clash groups across multiple disciplines and tools, including Navisworks, Revit, Archicad, Tekla, and Solibri.
Using a manual process, each clash group required:
- Locating model elements using grid and level information
- Opening the correct views
- Sectioning or isolating elements
- Communicating issues to the relevant consultants
Based on BIMBox’s experience, an experienced technician could spend approximately 5 minutes per clash group. On a project with 500 clash groups, that equated to 2,500 minutes (around 42 hours) of coordination work — nearly five full working days (!).
Solution
BIMBox integrated BIMcollab as their primary issue tracking and management platform within their clash detection and reporting service.
Using BIMcollab, clash results could be converted directly into issues, allowing teams to:
- Instantly locate clashes in the relevant authoring software via BCF
- Assign responsibility to the correct discipline while notifying others
- Comment on, reassign, and close issues collaboratively
- Track progress using clear, cloud-based dashboards
- Access issues from desktop or mobile devices
- Use sorting, filtering, and project-specific parameters to manage large issue sets efficiently
BIMcollab also became a central tool during BIM coordination meetings, enabling teams to quickly recall issues and focus discussions on outstanding actions.
The results
The impact on coordination efficiency was immediate and measurable.
For the same example of 500 clash groups, BIMBox found that the manual process of 2,500 minutes (42 hours) was reduced to approximately 9 minutes using BIMcollab’s direct issue navigation.
Beyond time savings, BIMBox observed:
- Smoother issue allocation and communication
- Faster resolution of clashes
- Improved multi-disciplinary coordination
- Clearer insight into project status and performance
- More focused and efficient coordination meetings
As BIMBox explains:
“BIMcollab proved to be very beneficial in issue allocation, communication, tracking, and management. We noticed a much smoother process and a significant time saving compared to the manual process.”
By using BIMcollab as a core component of their clash detection and reporting services, BIMBox transformed clash results into clear, actionable issues. The platform enabled better collaboration across disciplines, reduced coordination effort dramatically, and helped teams spend their time resolving issues rather than searching for them.
