BIM implementation costs

Ku and Taiebat (2011) carried out a baseline study to establish the level of BIM implementation, capabilities of construction organisations and their expectations for new staff hires in terms of BIM knowledge. Their study employed an online survey of 31 construction companies. Despite the small sample size and response rate which is typical in BIM research, the results confirm existing evidence in the literature. The challenges identified include importantly, a lack of skilled staff and

50 a steep learning curve. Others are the high cost of investment in BIM tools, lack of collaborative work processes and modelling standards, non-interoperability, and lack of legal or contractual agreements for implementing BIM.

Sebastian (2011) also carried out two case studies of large medical facilities in the Netherlands. Firstly, Sebastian (2011) found that despite efforts by the design team to agree beforehand on the BIM authoring software to use, not all of the project participants were capable of using the selected tool, therefore, necessitating the conversion of BIM models to formats that are readable and usable to non-BIM users. This is a big challenge that is capable of bringing about non-interoperability and an eventual breakdown of communication between project team members. In the extreme, it could render the information modelling process useless. The study showed that the lack of knowledge about the ICT capabilities, systems and applications of contractors before they tender is a challenge as is the uncertainty about returns on investing resources in the BIM- enabled project process. Similarly, in a case study of specialist sub-contractors included in the design and construction of engineered façade, Brewer and Gajendran (2012) while claiming a phenomenological perspective as well as ethnographic data collection techniques also found that the high initial cost of investment in high-end technological infrastructure required for implementing BIM is a significant challenge.

In Eadie et al.’s (2013) study of BIM implementation in UK construction projects’ lifecycle, participants were drawn randomly from a BIM expert group on LinkedIn for a questionnaire survey. This was preceded by three semi-structured interviews. Interestingly, about 83 percent of their respondents believed the implementing BIM on projects where it wasn’t, would have been advantageous while 17 percent thought otherwise. However, this was not an objective assessment. Further, they found that the top two reasons why BIM is not implemented on projects are first, the lack of knowledge on the part of the project team and the lack of knowledge and expertise within organisations. These two are clearly linked as organisational level BIM expertise would influence team level BIM expertise. Virtually all of the BIM literature is in agreement that lack of

51 knowledge and expertise are significant challenges, perhaps the most important. There are questions in the literature and in practice about how best to provide the knowledge required by professionals to participate and collaborate in BIM- enabled projects successfully. There are also pedagogical questions on the depth of knowledge that can, or should be provided at the tertiary level as well as how best to teach BIM related concepts.

A significant portion of the BIM literature has been dedicated to providing a general perspective of issues without unpacking how the results of can be partitioned to show discipline specific peculiarities or nuances. Yet, most of those that provide a more nuanced perspective do not always provide an informed idea of the differences in, for instance, adoption patterns, attitudes, procedures, processes, challenges among other issues. Aibinu and Venkatesh (2014) nevertheless investigated the experience of quantity surveyors in implementing BIM. This was to examine its impacts on the firms, and also the benefits, barriers, and drivers of BIM use among quantity surveying professionals. The study does corroborate findings from similar non-discipline-specific studies using a web survey of quantity surveying firms in Australia including two follow-up interviews. Further, it reports of scarcity of skills among quantity surveyors, although employee turnover was not rated as a highly significant challenge. The study highlights interoperability challenges, high costs of procuring relevant software and model inaccuracy. In the main, there are concerns that regardless of the effort put into modelling accuracy, the responsibility for the integrity of cost estimates still rests with the quantity surveyor. Some of the respondents also highlighted the need for learning new ways of working, the need to change procurement culture and lack of demand by clients as barriers.

Manderson et al. (2015) reported on a study which alluded to the inability of the industry to achieve integration through BIM despite its benefits as motivation. The qualitative study reported challenges to implementing BIM as including high costs of procuring software, hardware upgrades and staff training. One interesting finding is the difficulty in getting project participants to collaborate in the real sense when they could become competitors for future projects. The reasoning

52 behind this is perhaps that organisations that compete for construction work essentially need to demonstrate an edge over each other to win bids. In a fully collaborative team, however, knowledge sharing and transfer are inevitable. This may, therefore, hinder the willingness to collaborate fully with others on BIM- enabled projects.

To provide perspectives from the Malaysian consulting engineering organisations on the adoption of BIM, Rogers et al. (2015) conducted a questionnaire survey. The results of the study show that the challenges to adoption and implementation include inconsistencies (in models and modelling methodology), lack of common platforms for standardising information, cumbersomeness of the software, deficiencies in graduate training and a shortage of skilled personnel in BIM. Importantly, the study found that one of the key challenges to implementing BIM is a lack of understanding of how the design and construction processes are, and could be impacted when BIM is implemented.

Using a mixed method research design (questionnaire, focus group), Abandah et al. (2015) found that 34% to 50% of their survey respondents indicated that the current proliferation of BIM-related software is a significant barrier to the uptake of BIM. However, it can be argued that the proliferation of authoring software and associated tools impacts more on technological interoperability rather than being a direct impediment to the uptake of BIM. The authors also found that half of their survey respondents indicated the lack of BIM knowledge as a significant challenge. Further, in a study that aimed at analysing the impact of implementing BIM on bridge construction projects (although it is non-specific about which aspects), Fanning et al. (2015) conducted a case study research involving two similar roadway bridge construction projects. The study found, inter alia, that a key impediment to implementing BIM remains a lack of standards that facilitate tool and business process interoperability among project stakeholders.

Gledson (2016) conducted a study aimed at gaining novel insights into organisational perspectives on BIM adoption in the innovation-decision process using case studies of early BIM adopters (employing mainly semi-structured interviews). The findings portray, although anecdotally, that implementing BIM

53 requires changes in culture and the processes delivery process for projects. Another important finding emanating from the study is the difference in technological capabilities between relatively younger organisation staff compared to the older ones. This finding supports that of Hachmann (2004) in a study that provided a German perspective on socio-technical aspects of concurrent engineering in construction. This is a classic implication of new technology adoption within organisations. The solutions to these kinds of problems lie mainly in encouragement, incentivising and continuous training. According to Gledson (2016), this situation called for a two-way transference of knowledge between younger and older staff. The senior staff transfer in-depth experience of building knowledge while the younger exchange that with knowledge acquired through their superior ability for grasping new ideas and concepts. Other challenges identified in the study include high investment costs, particularly for smaller contracting firms, and large file sizes that place heavy demands on projects’ IT infrastructure.

Sun et al. (2017) conducted a literature review to identify and classify negative factors limiting the application of BIM in the construction industry. They classified 22 limiting factors including, for example, lack of data interoperability, cost of training, changes in workflows and inappropriate business models, need to educate professionals, ownership of BIM data and intellectual property rights into five areas. These were technology, cost, management, personnel and legal limiting factors respectively. Furthermore, they found that the top cited limiting factors in the literature are management, technology, personnel, legal and cost factors in that order.