Why CIM Build exists
The worst problem in construction is cost overruns.
The second worst is finding out why.
For decades, builders have taken on skyscrapers, hospitals and metros with tens of thousands of pages of documentation behind them. And for a long time, that documentation could be trusted. Architects took pride in their sets. A drawing was a promise: build this, and it will work.
Then the ground shifted.
More regulation meant more consultants. More consultants meant more handoffs, and more places for detail to fall through the cracks. Fees got squeezed, coordination reviews got thinner, and the experienced people who could catch a problem on paper before it became a problem in concrete began retiring faster than anyone could replace them.
A new language appeared on drawings, written as much by lawyers as by designers. “By others.” “Refer to specialist.” “To be confirmed.” Every consultant carefully wording their way out of responsibility, and it kept rolling downhill until it hit the builder.
At some point, documentation quality stopped meaning something.
But builders held the bag.
The contract says the builder delivers. So when a mistake buried on page 4,000 surfaces mid-construction, it's the builder who wears the delay and the blown margin. The builder pays in margin, in an industry that runs on 2 or 3 percent. The client pays in trust, every time the number moves. And cities pay in time. A hospital that slips is care that doesn't happen. A delayed metro is a city commuting slower for years.
Bad drawings and documentation slow down cities.
You'd think technology would have caught this by now. The last great leap in this area was BIM (Building Information Modelling): BIM specialists would model the building in 3D and the clashes reveal themselves. This helped detect geometric issues like the duct running through the beam. But most of construction's risk lives in words. Specs that contradict drawings. Notes that quietly shift scope onto someone who never priced it.
What BIM sees
The duct through the beam. Geometry against geometry - the model flags it on its own.
What lives in the words
Specification 08.31
Doors to Level 03 corridors to be solid core, fire rated –/60/30, self-closing.
Drawing A-402, note 7
Door schedule by others. Ratings to be confirmed.
Two documents, one door. Somebody prices it; nobody owns it.
BIM reads the clashes.
CIM finds the discrepancies, and accelerates the build.
We're building CIM to review documentation the way the best senior people do: drawings against specs, specs against standards, discipline against discipline, doing this across your largest document sets, before the contract is signed, while a mistake is still cheap to fix. We are currently deployed and live - helping customers resolve issues on some of the most important projects in the country - banks, underground facilities, social housing, hospitals.
Catching mistakes is the start.
Our mission is to unlock construction through accurate drawings.
Today a builder gets a tender set of thousands of pages and a few weeks to price it. They review what they can and submit the number knowing there are problems they haven't found. They price that fear. Everyone does, on every bid in the country. Now imagine the other direction: a full set verified in hours, issues resolved before they're priced, builders bidding with confidence, clients believing the number. Procurement starts earlier. Ground breaks sooner. Cities stop measuring major projects in decades.
We believe the next era of construction can be the fastest in history, and the best built, because for the first time the industry will have tools that actually understand what it builds.
That's why we built CIM
So buildings get delivered on time and on budget.
So the knowledge walking out the door gets captured before it's gone.
So cities never slow down because of a bad set of drawings.
And so, one day soon, we can have better cities and more housing for all.