The Issues and Considerations Associated with BIM Integration

The management of data, information and knowledge through the project life cycle of buildings and civil infrastructure projects is becoming increasingly complex. As an attempt to drive efficiencies and address this complexity, the United Kingdom Government has mandated that Building Information Modelling (BIM) methods must be adopted in all public sector construction projects in 2016. Emerging from the US Department of Defence, BIM is an approach to the co-ordination of design and production data using object-oriented principles as described in ISO 29481-1:2010. The underlying philosophy of BIM is to ensure the “provision of a single environment to store shared asset data and information, accessible to all individuals who are required to produce, use and maintain it” (PAS 1192-2:2013). A key aspect of BIM lies in the notion of ‘interoperability’ between various software applications used in the design and construction process and a common data format for the efficient exchange of design information and knowledge. Protagonists of BIM argue that this interoperability provides an effective environment for collaboration between actors in the construction process and creates accurate, reliable, repeatable and high-quality information exchange. This UK government mandate presents numerous challenges to the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) professions; in particular, the characteristics of BIM Level 2 remain explicitly undefined and this created a degree of uncertainty amongst the promoters and those professionals charged with delivering projects. This research casts a critical lens on the current literature in the domains of object-oriented modelling of infrastructure and the associated implications for procurement and project management. A mixed-methods approach using questionnaire analysis and secondary case study analysis was used to enact an inductive research approach that captures a range of data on the practical issues and considerations associated with the integration of BIM in the industry.