BIM Contract

Purpose - Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies and Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) processes are becoming a driving force for advancing the design, construction and operation of buildings that may have the potential to reduce claims, disputes and litigation throughout the construction process. However, evidence shows that BIM isn’t universally successful. To this end, this research aims to identify the most common BIM contractual risks (BCR).
Design/Methodology/approach - This research intends to go further into about 22 BIM Contractual Risks that have been identified from the literature review. A questionnaire survey was made to identify the risks occurrence rate, involved parties and solutions for highest faced risks based on number of participants and their years of experience. Result analysis was based on experience years for each participant’s vs each risk’s parameters.
Findings - The presented process mitigates the construction project participant’s ability to complete the construction project under BIM collaborative environment and contracts isolation nature through the following: (1) identification and examination of about 22 BIM contractual risks, level of occurrence and solutions; (2) provide a BIM contractual framework that allows for defining each party’s responsibility in BIM workflow.
Research Limitations – Due to diversity in construction project, BIM based projects require an additional drafting method to the contract and provide an understanding of each party’s responsibility by analyzing legal implication of BIM adoption. In addition, local legislation can provide the support needed for BIM implementations.
Practical implications – Findings’ implication suggests providing a legal understanding of BIM work flow through the investigation of BIM risks among construction project’s parties and providing a contractual framework either in the BIM execution plan BEP or in the employer information request EIR. The presented BIM framework mitigates the likelihood of these risks rising into disputes.
Originality/value – While there have been publications that investigate BIM contractual risks, they mainly provide guidelines of the risks and solutions. The following publication propose a thorough examination of BIM contractual risks, introduce a BIM framework based on industry’s experts experience and the specification required in the contract, BIM execution plan regulation and legal background needed for BIM adaptation in a construction project.

Construction industry has recognized BIM implementation as a best practice that provides a new set of processes and technologies in construction projects. Despite the significant growth in BIM adoption and research on technological aspects of BIM, far too little attention has been paid to research on BIM contracting. So far, two industry leading organizations (AIA and AGC) have developed standard forms of agreement for BIM contracting. However, many projects have incorporated custom manuscripts to satisfy their special contractual needs, but the existing literature has not dealt with these industry-wide trends of BIM contracting. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine custom developed contracts in order to trace the advances in BIM contracting. This research demonstrates that there are several areas of importance in that standard forms have not addressed them. These include but are not limited to (1) requirements for BIM process inputs (e.g. BIM staff competencies), (2) requirements for BIM process management (e.g. BIM quality assurance and quality control, a metric based BIM processing assessment), (3) requirements for information modeling (e.g. landscape, facility management), and (4) requirements for data security (e.g. corruption of files, and data misuse). This study has practical implications for BIM contracting practices and future developments of inclusive BIM standard agreements.

Purpose - Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies and Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) processes are becoming a driving force for advancing the design, construction and operation of buildings that may have the potential to reduce claims, disputes and litigation throughout the construction process. However, evidence shows that BIM isn’t universally successful. To this end, this research aims to identify the most common BIM contractual risks (BCR). Design/Methodology/approach - This research intends to go further into about 22 BIM Contractual Risks that have been identified from the literature review. A questionnaire survey was made to identify the risks occurrence rate, involved parties and solutions for highest faced risks based on number of participants and their years of experience. Result analysis was based on experience years for each participant’s vs each risk’s parameters. Findings - The presented process mitigates the construction project participant’s ability to complete the construction project under BIM collaborative environment and contracts isolation nature through the following: (1) identification and examination of about 22 BIM contractual risks, level of occurrence and solutions; (2) provide a BIM contractual framework that allows for defining each party’s responsibility in BIM workflow. Research Limitations – Due to diversity in construction project, BIM based projects require an additional drafting method to the contract and provide an understanding of each party’s responsibility by analyzing legal implication of BIM adoption. In addition, local legislation can provide the support needed for BIM implementations. Practical implications – Findings’ implication suggests providing a legal understanding of BIM work flow through the investigation of BIM risks among construction project’s parties and providing a contractual framework either in the BIM execution plan BEP or in the employer information request EIR. The presented BIM framework mitigates the likelihood of these risks rising into disputes. Originality/value – While there have been publications that investigate BIM contractual risks, they mainly provide guidelines of the risks and solutions. The following publication propose a thorough examination of BIM contractual risks, introduce a BIM framework based on industry’s experts experience and the specification required in the contract, BIM execution plan regulation and legal background needed for BIM adaptation in a construction project.