BIM Procurement

Building Information Modelling (BIM) concepts and workflows continue to proliferate within organisations, through project teams, and across the whole construction industry. However, both BIM implementation and BIM diffusion are yet to be reliably assessed at market scale. Insufficient research has been conducted to date towards identifying the conceptual structures that would explain and encourage large-scale BIM adoption. This paper introduces a number of macro-adoption models, matrices and charts (Fig. 1). These models can be used to systematically assess BIM adoption across markets, and inform the structured development of country-specific BIM adoption policies.

This research is published in two complementary papers combining conceptual structures with data collected from experts across a number of countries. The first paper “Macro-BIM adoption: conceptual structures” delimits the terms used, reviews applicable diffusion models, and clarifies the research methodology. It then introduces five new conceptual constructs for assessing macro-BIM adoption and informing the development of market-scale BIM diffusion policies. The second paper “Macro-BIM adoption: comparative market analysis” employs these concepts and tools to evaluate BIM adoption and analyse BIM diffusion policies across a number of countries. Using online questionnaires and structured interviews, it applies the models, refines the conceptual tools and develops additional assessment metrics. The two papers are complementary and primarily intended to assist policy makers and domain researchers to analyse, develop and improve BIM diffusion policies.

The term Building Information Modelling (BIM) refers to an expansive knowledge domain within the design, construction and operation (DCO) industry. The voluminous possibilities attributed to BIM represent an array of challenges that can be met through a systematic research and delivery framework spawning a set of performance assessment and improvement metrics. This article identifies five complementary components specifically developed to enable such assessment: (i) BIM capability stages representing transformational milestones along the implementation continuum; (ii) BIM maturity levels representing the quality, predictability and variability within BIM stages; (iii) BIM competencies representing incremental progressions towards and improvements within BIM stages; (iv) Organizational Scales representing the diversity of markets, disciplines and company sizes; and (v) Granularity Levels enabling highly targeted yet flexible performance analyses ranging from informal self-assessment to high-detail, formal organizational audits. This article explores these complementary components and positions them as a systematic method to understand BIM performance and to enable its assessment and improvement. A flowchart of the contents of this article is provided.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a set of technologies, processes and policies enabling multiple stakeholders to collaboratively design, construct and operate a facility.
There are numerous challenges attributed to BIM adoption by industry and academia. These represent a number of knowledge gaps each warranting a focused investigation by domain researchers. This study does not isolate a single gap to address but espouses a holistic view of the knowledge problem at hand. It contributes to the discussion a set of conceptual constructs that clarify the knowledge structures underlying the BIM domain. It also introduces a number of practicable knowledge tools to facilitate BIM learning, assessment and performance improvement.
This study is delivered through complementary papers and appendices to answer two primary research questions. The first explores the knowledge structures underlying the BIM domain whilst the second probes how these knowledge structures can be used to facilitate the measurement and improvement of BIM performance across the construction industry.
To address the first question, the study identifies conceptual clusters underlying the BIM domain, develops descriptive taxonomies of these clusters, exposes some of their conceptual relationships, and then delivers a representative BIM framework. The BIM framework is composed of three-axes which represent the main knowledge structures underlying the BIM domain and support the development of functional conceptual models.
To address the second question, BIM framework structures are extended through additional concepts and tools to facilitate BIM performance assessment and development of individuals, organizations and teams. These additional concepts include competency sets, assessment workflows and measurement tools which can be used to assess and improve the BIM performance of industry stakeholders.
In addressing these research questions, a pragmatic approach to research design based on available literature and applicable theories has been adopted. By combining several research strategies, paradigms and methods, this study (1) generates several new conceptual structures (e.g. frameworks, models and taxonomies) which collectively clarify the knowledge structures underlying the BIM domain; and (2) develops a set of workflows and tools that facilitate BIM assessment, learning and performance improvement.
This study delivers an extendable knowledge structure upon which to build a host of BIM performance improvement initiatives and tools. As a set of complementary papers and appendices, the study presents a rich, unified yet multi-layered environment of conceptual constructs and practicable tools; supported by a common framework, a domain ontology and simplified visual representations. Individually, each paper introduces a new framework part or solidifies a previous one. Collectively, the papers form a cohesive knowledge engine that generates assessment systems, learning modules and performance improvement tools.

Professional, organisational and educational institutions have started to adopt BIM software tools and adapt their existing delivery systems to satisfy evolving market requirements. To enable individuals within these organisations to develop their BIM abilities, it is important to identify the BIM competencies that need to be learned, applied on the job, and measured for the purposes of performance improvement. Expanding upon previous research, this paper focuses on individual BIM competencies, the building blocks of organisational capability. The paper first introduces several taxonomies and conceptual models to clarify how individual competencies may be filtered, classified, and aggregated into a seed competency inventory. Competency items are then fed into a specialised knowledge engine to generate flexible assessment tools, learning modules and process workflows. Finally, the paper discusses the many benefits this competency-based approach brings to industry and academia, and explores future conceptual and tool development efforts to enable industry-wide BIM performance assessment and improvement.

BIM concepts and tools have now proliferated across the construction industry. This is evidenced by the comparative results of BIM adoption rates reported through a number of industry surveys. However these surveys typically cover a small number of industry stakeholders; are intended to establish adoption rates by organizations rather than markets; and are unsupported by theoretical frameworks to guide data collection and analysis. Based on a published theoretical framework, this paper proposes three metrics to augment survey data and help establish the overall BIM maturity of countries. These metrics apply to noteworthy BIM publications (NBP)s and assess their BIM knowledge content (BKC). NBPs are publically-available industry documents intended to facilitate BIM adoption; while BKCs are specialized labels (e.g. report, manual, and contract) used to describe NBP contents. The three metrics – NBP availability, NBP content distribution, and NBP relevance - are applied in assessing the knowledge deliverables of three countries –  United States, United Kingdom and Australia - chosen for their similar construction culture and active BIM scene. The paper then discusses how these complementary metrics can inform policy development and identify market-wide knowledge gaps.

Public and private procurers around the world are either mandating or encouraging the adoption of BIM within their construction sectors and projects. For example, in the UK, BIM (i.e., 'BIM Level 2') is mandatory on all government centrally procured projects. 'BIM Level 2' is a collaborative way of working, in which 3D models with the required data are created in separate discipline models according to a set of guides, standards and specifications. Mandating BIM Level 2 required the development of a range of guides, standards and specifications 1. These policy documents are intended to guide and facilitate the adoption of BIM by the project supply chain. They are considered complex as evidenced from the large amounts of requirements included within each of them and from the strenuous discussions around their implementation in professional networks and specialised blogs. Tools for assessing the compliance of project activities and deliverables these against requirements of these policy documents do not exist. This research proposes a tool, which enables a project team to determine the compliance of project activities and deliverables with BIM Level 2 policy documents at every phase of the project lifecycle. The tool was built by extracting all requirements from the policy documents. This paper will present the tool and demonstrate its application in a case study. The results show that the proposed tool can help in assessing the compliance of project activities with the policy documents and in simplifying their complexity. The two limitations of this research include the following: a) the used requirements were added to the matrix without any prior processing (e.g. semantic and ontological development); and b) an assumption was made that the policy documents used to build the matrix are trustworthy despite several of them are still at the specification stage – a stage that precedes their conversion into standard – and are untested from research perspective.

This theory paper probes the intersections of Lean, Mass Production and conventional Construction, Lean Construction, the Simple Framework for Integrating Project Delivery model, and Virtual Design and Construction (VDC). The authors argue that Toyota recognized that integration was necessary to achieve the goal of global optimization in design and production and that this imperative confronts Lean Construction today. They briefly describe the Simple Framework for Integrating Project Delivery as a system model to achieve the high level of integration required to deliver a valuable, high-performing building. Then they focus on how VDC fits within and enables the Simple Framework model, explaining each element of VDC and how project teams can leverage it to consistently deliver high-performing buildings.

the construction industry despite the significant attempts to promote it.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper framed and compared the normative model of COBie to a descriptive model of COBie. The normative model was based on the assumptions and planned procedures outlined in the COBie documentation. The descriptive model was developed through a case study of COBie implementation, with ethnographic observations, interviews, and artifact analysis as the data collection methods and thematic analysis as the data analysis method.
Findings: The comparative analysis of the normative and descriptive models showed that the underlying normative assumptions of COBie can be challenged in its implementation. In the case study, implementing COBie disrupted the conventional practice of few participating firms as the data requirements and the expected sequences and timelines of tasks were not aligned with the industry norms for exchanging data. Furthermore, the normative model of COBie could not account for the unanticipated variability in the internal routines of firms for submittal production.
Practical implications: COBie, as an instruction-based model, may not provide enough flexibility for some firms to adapt to its requirements such that COBie tasks become integrated with their existing workflows. COBie tasks may become additional efforts, and at times, conflict with the industry norms and firms’ routines, and therefore, disrupt the efficiency goals.
Originality/value: This paper provides empirical evidence to clarify why implementing COBie has not been as efficient for all industry players as expected.

The public construction sector has recently started to put more effort into cost savings and improvement of efficiency. Therefore, public clients have started to promote new strategies, embracing innovative approaches such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and e-Procurement. Tendering plays a key role for the success of the overall process; however, the selection of the best contractor is still a difficult task. The paper investigates how tendering can be integrated with Model Checking in order to control the compliance between the client’s requirements and bidders’ offers within a digital environment. The research shows that, although the BIM is still not widely adopted in tendering procedures, Model Checking tools are already available to support the jury, as well as bidders. Moreover, even though BIM can be implemented in several procurement procedures, it is more effective if a collaborative and integrated behaviour is promoted. Results can help increase public clients’ awareness of the limits and potentials of an innovative approach and to set BIM requirements and guidelines.

The traditional construction project performance indicators are no longer the sole determinant of the performance of construction projects, firms, and actors because other construction performance indicators and factors such as Building Information Modelling are increasingly becoming important and relevant. This paper identifies a comprehensive set of construction project performance indicators, and it establishes a new, integrated, model for evaluating construction performance. The model uses ten types of performance indicators and four types of performance factors for Building Information Modelling-based construction projects. The result of the study is a set of comprehensive construction project performance indicators that are useful in enhancing the performance of construction firms, projects, and actors. The paper concludes with recommendations for the development of relative weightings and measurement models for the indicators and the development of measurement models for the various components of construction project performance indicators and Building Information Modelling performance indicators in future studies.

Se otorga permiso para copiar, Distribuir y/o modificar este Documento bajo los términos de la Licencia de Documentación Libre GNU, Versión 1.1 o cualquier otra versión posterior publicada por la Free Software Foundation; sin Secciones invariantes.

In recent years, the research about energy waste and CO2 emission reduction has gained a strong momentum, also pushed by European and national funding initiatives. The main purpose of this large effort is to reduce the effects of greenhouse emission, climate change to head for a sustainable society. In this scenario, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a key role. From one side, advances in physical and environmental information sensing, communication and processing, enabled the monitoring of energy behaviour of buildings in real-time. The access to this information has been made easy and ubiquitous thank to Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and protocols. From the other side, the creation of digital repositories of buildings and districts (i.e. Building Information Models-BIM) enabled the development of complex and rich energy models that can be used for simulation and prediction purposes. As such, an opportunity is emerging of mixing these two information categories to either create better models and to detect unwanted or inefficient energy behaviours. In this paper, we present a software architecture for management and simulation of energy behaviours in buildings that integrates heterogeneous data such as BIM, IoT, GIS (Geographical Information System) and meteorological services. This integration allows: i) (near-) real-time visualisation of energy consumption information in the building context and ii) building performance evaluation through energy modelling and simulation exploiting data from the field and real weather conditions. Finally, we discuss the experimental results obtained in a real-world case-study.