A clash report with zero conflicts looks like success. It isn't, by itself — it just means the software found no geometric overlaps in the model. Whether the resolutions behind that clean report actually work in the field, whether every trade agreed to them, and whether they survived the next round of design changes are separate questions the clash report can't answer.
The model is the record of coordination. The coordination itself happens in the room, between people who have to agree on who moves, and that process is where most of the actual value of BIM either gets captured or gets lost.
Clash Detection Finds Conflicts. It Doesn't Resolve Them.
Software is very good at finding where a duct crosses a structural beam or where a conduit run intersects a piping route. It has no opinion on which system should move, how much slack each trade actually has, or which resolution is cheapest to build. Those are judgment calls that require the trades in the room, not just the model on a screen.
A clash list handed to trades without a structured resolution process just becomes a to-do list nobody owns. The clashes get "resolved" independently by whichever trade notices first, sometimes in ways that create new conflicts nobody catches until the next clash run — or worse, not until installation.
What Makes a Coordination Meeting Actually Work
The meetings that produce durable resolutions have a few things in common: every affected trade is in the room at the same time, not consulted separately after the fact; resolutions get documented in the model immediately, not promised verbally and forgotten; and there's a clear escalation path when two trades can't agree, so disputes don't just sit unresolved until someone notices during installation.
Without that structure, the model can be perfectly clash-free on paper while the actual field coordination is still unresolved — and that gap is invisible until construction starts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a clash-free BIM model mean the design is fully coordinated?
Not by itself. It means no geometric overlaps were detected — it doesn't confirm that every trade agreed to the resolutions shown, or that those resolutions are actually buildable in the field.
Who should be in a BIM coordination meeting?
Every trade with a system in the affected area, present at the same time — coordinating trades separately and after the fact is how conflicting resolutions happen without anyone noticing until installation.
How often should coordination meetings happen during design?
Frequently enough that the model stays current with the pace of design changes — a coordination process that runs once and stops while design keeps evolving just produces a model that's accurate on the day of the last meeting and increasingly wrong after.
Where BIM's Real Value Is
The model is the record. The coordination meetings are the work. Projects that fund the meetings properly get the value BIM actually promises — fewer field conflicts, not just fewer flagged conflicts.
