Elsevier

Automation in Construction

Volume 31, May 2013, Pages 204-214
Automation in Construction

Building Information Modeling (BIM) partnering framework for public construction projects

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.12.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Organizational and people centered issues pose the greatest challenge for Building Information Modeling (BIM) implementation. Studies showed that BIM implementation is still a challenge for the North American construction industry. The Canadian construction industry, in contrast, is well behind that of the U.S. in its BIM adoption rate. Maturity and adoption of BIM depends mainly on the client or the owner in construction projects. Public sector clients often think that the market is not ready for BIM and are afraid to increase project costs by limiting competition. Moreover, if the contractor is not integrated in the project in the design phase, BIM has limited power. This paper proposes a ‘BIM partnering’ based public procurement framework to ensure ‘best value’ in construction projects. The case study presented in the paper proved the feasibility of proposed BIM based procurement in publicly-funded construction projects. The suggested contractual arrangement for the project resulted in improved productivity, better coordination, and reduced error, and rework.

Highlights

► This paper presents a public construction procurement framework through BIM-Partnering. ► This framework aligns with current contractual and project delivery methods. ► It proposes a virtual design environment with an unprecedented level of collaboration.

Introduction

The construction industry still exhibits a low maturity in BIM use, since no significant changes in the traditional business model accompany the introduction of new tools [1]. However, to maximize the benefits of this technology, a variety of organizational, procedural, and technical issues are needed to be addressed. In the survey conducted by the McGraw Hill on BIM adoption [1], not enough demand for BIM from clients was identified as a main factor. Strong leadership of public clients in the US might partly explain the significant gap in BIM adoption that exists between the US and the Canadian industries. In contrast to 30% moderate BIM users in the Canadian construction industry [2], US have crossed the adoption gap with a degree of adoption of nearly 50% in 2009, viewing the adoption of BIM as an excellent return on investment [1].

Rogers [3] described the technology adoption process as a normal curve that divides into five groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and the laggards. Moore and Dainty [4] added to this theory, the notion of ‘adoption-gap’, which is a gap that needs to be crossed for successful adoption of a new technology. The best way for a technology to be accepted is when the client/owner imposes it in the contract, since it is not negotiable. Despite the need for a client‐based BIM approach, the Canadian government still does not play a big role in its implementation [5]. Accenture's (2001) survey of 22 wealthy countries shows that the public sector lags behind the private sector in its use of the new technologies [6].

In public sector, another central issue is moving from a low-bid process to any of the other alternative project delivery methods. As the public sector client is accountable to the public, an open competitive bidding process, that is awarded based only on price, is highly preferable. However, selecting a contractor based solely on price greatly diminishes the significance of importance of criteria, such as time and quality, which does not guarantee a maximum value [7]. Low bid price as the sole award criterion encourages unqualified contractors to submit bids [8] along with bidders that submit a very low bid with the intent of recovering their losses through change orders and claims, also known as predatory bidding [9]. Therefore, low bid is not necessarily the ‘best value’ for the owners. The means of obtaining the ‘best value’ under this system is to award a contract to the responsive and compliant bidder, that is willing to fulfill the terms of the contract, for the lowest dollar value with innovative ideas.

Institute for BIM in Canada suggested that one way to facilitate BIM adoption may be to make BIM a mandatory requirement for public projects [2]. Moreover, it was recommended to develop supplements to existing contract and procurement documents [5]. Public sector is more focused on administrative decision making, where using BIM is not their first priority, but only one of many responsibilities [5]. Thus, it becomes important to review and evaluate the current performance of the procurement process, to ensure that public sector obtains a greater value for the money in their construction projects. No such methodology, framework, or analysis in public procurement with BIM is available in the published literature. BIM's usage will certainly increase in the future, especially with its' eventual adoption by the public sector; with appropriate project delivery methods that seek to make the most efficient use of a collaborative BIM model.

BIM adoption in public construction projects would require a change in the existing work practices to achieve better results with higher quality buildings that perform at reduced costs [10]. Further, higher the level of integration of team members in the early design stages, greater the opportunities to get maximized benefit out of BIM [11], [12]. For public organizations, especially in democratic countries like Canada, there are political sensitivities, deadlines, quality requirements, and strict budgets. This research was aimed to focus on the following questions to position BIM adoption in the public sector:

  • How BIM process can be smoothly introduced to the existing public procurement system?

  • Is it possible to achieve maximized benefits out of BIM, through a coordinated modeling process, during the project design phase?

  • How the contractor could be involved early in the modeling process along with the design team?

  • Can interoperability issues be handled with Industry Foundation Class (IFC)?

  • What are the available BIM guidelines in other countries to handle legal, intellectual property, and copyright issues?

This paper aims to propose a structured public project procurement methodology to the Canadian construction industry, with an aim of encouraging widespread BIM adoption. However with minor modifications in fixing the target value and construction award process, the proposed methodology can be applied to any other country or jurisdiction.

In this paper, a collaborative BIM-Partnering project procurement framework is proposed. The proposed framework is a structured approach for public sector BIM users. The proposed methodology facilitates the understanding of BIM tools' capabilities and addresses likely legal and procedural conflicts among project stakeholders. A case study is presented in the paper to explain the ‘Early BIM Partnering’ collaborative process. The case study tested the proposed BIM framework in a publically funded construction project, which used traditional design-bid-build delivery method with lowest bid procurement.

Section snippets

Current status of BIM in the construction industry

As an emerging research field, BIM has limited existing studies, the literature review therefore goes beyond academic publications to also include white papers and technical reports of BIM related applications (i.e. [2], [5], [14], [15], [18], [21]), guidelines and reports generated by government and other regulatory bodies (i.e. [7], [16], [17], [22]), and articles in well respectable online newsletters (i.e. [aecbytes, buildingSMART]) that reflects on the latest development of BIM. These

Public procurement methods

The literature review indicated that there are no significantly new project delivery methods with BIM integration. Almost all the delivery methods are mere modifications or slight variations of existing or past methods. The most widely used delivery method with BIM is the traditional method of D–B–B [19]; i.e. Design–Bid–Build. Present practices for the road sector are Design–Build (DB) and Design–Build–Finance–Operate (DBFO) delivery methods. These methods are sometimes referred as Public

Change drivers for BIM

Government, as a client, can drive significant improvements in cost, value, and carbon performance through the use of BIM as an open and sharable asset information model [13].

Public sector clients around the world – such as General Services Administration and the U.S. Coast Guards [24] – started requiring BIM in their supply chains and property services. US construction industry is making a significant progress in moving toward full BIM implementation [1]. The GSA in US is committed to a

Legal and contractual issues with BIM

The use of BIM in a project raises important contractual issues relating to project responsibilities and risks, contractual indemnities, copyright, and use of documents that are not addressed by the standard industrial contract forms. This, potentially, is a major concern against speedy adoption of BIM. To address specific concerns raised by BIM, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) released its ‘Building Information Modeling Protocol Exhibit’ which intended to be attached to

Suggested approach for public procurement with BIM

A comprehensive literature review indicated that there is no significantly new project delivery methods evolved with BIM integration [30], [31], [32]. Almost all the existing delivery methods are mere modifications or slight variations of past established methods. The traditional method of procurement has been criticized for separating the design and construction process, which obstruct communication and coordination between design and construction teams. Under the traditional procurement

BIM based partnering: a case study

This section describes a case study which explored the practicality of the proposed ‘Early BIM Partnering’ collaborative process in a publically funded construction project. The case study was performed by working in parallel with the project team. The project was originally planned to use traditional design-bid-build with low bid procurement. A coordinated ‘Full Design Model’ was created during the design phase by A/E/C design teams. The exact details and characteristics of the project will

Conclusions

This paper proposed a construction project procurement framework for public sector construction projects. The paper describes an approach that facilitates BIM adoption through a BIM-partnering framework and the development of a collaborative BIM model for construction process. Specifically, paper describes different approaches that will help project teams to overcome technical, procedural, and organizational challenges.

BIM adoption would require a change in the existing work practice. A

Acknowledgment

Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is gratefully acknowledged for the financial support to conduct this research project.

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