Effects of the Interactions Between LPS and BIM on Workflow in Two Building Design Projects

Variability in design workflow causes delays and undermines the performance of building projects. As lean processes, the Last Planner System (LPS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) can improve workflow in building projects through features that reduce waste. Since its introduction, BIM has had significant positive influence on workflow in building design projects, but these have been rarely considered in combination with LPS. This paper is part of a postgraduate research focusing on the implementation of LPS weekly work plans in two BIM-based building design projects to achieve better workflow. It reports on the interactions between lean principles of LPS and BIM functionalities in two building design projects that, from the perspective of an interaction matrix developed by Sacks et al. (2010a), promote workflow

The changing perception in the artefacts used in the design practice through BIM adoption

When CAD (Computer Aided Design) was generally adopted in the early 1990’s, the hand drawn process was replaced with the CAD drawing but the nature of the artefacts / deliverables and the exchanges of information between disciplines remained fundamentally the same. The deliverables remained 2D representations of 3D forms and Specifications and Bill of Quantities. However, the building industry is under great pressure to provide value for money, sustainable design and construction. This has propelled the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM). BIM is a foundational tool for a team based lean design approach. It can enable the intelligent interrogation of design; provide a quicker and cheaper design production; better co-ordination of documentation; more effective change control; less repetition of processes; a better quality constructed product; and improved communication both for the architectural practice and across the supply chain. As BIM enables a new of working methodology, it entails the change in perceiving artefacts used and deliverables produced in the design and construction stages. In other words, defining what the informational issues are, who does what and who is responsible for what and the level of detail required at each stage in design and construction is critically important to adopt and implement BIM in the construction sector. This paper presents the key findings through the action research methodology about the change in the nature of artefacts and deliverables resulting from the BIM adoption in the KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) project undertaken by the University of Salford and John McCall Architects

Building Information Modelling (BIM) aided waste minimisation framework

Building design can have a major impact on sustainability through material efficiency and construction waste minimisation (CWM). The construction industry consumes over 420 million tonnes of material resources every year and generates 120 million tonnes of waste containing approximately 13 million tonnes of unused materials. The current and on-going field of CWM research is focused on separate project stages with an overwhelming endeavour to manage on-site waste. Although design stages are vital to achieve progress towards CWM, currently, there are insufficient tools for CWM. In recent years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been adopted to improve sustainable building design, such as energy efficiency and carbon reduction. Very little has been achieved in this field of research to evaluate the use of BIM to aid CWM during design. However, recent literature emphasises a need to carry out further research in this context. This research aims to investigate the use of BIM as a platform to help with CWM during design stages by developing and validating a BIM-aided CWM (BaW) Framework. A mixed research method, known as triangulation, was adopted as the research design method. Research data was collected through a set of data collection methods, i.e. selfadministered postal questionnaire (N=100 distributed, n=50 completed), and semistructured follow-up interviews (n=11) with architects from the top 100 UK architectural companies. Descriptive statistics and constant comparative methods were used for data analysis. The BaW Framework was developed based on the findings of literature review, questionnaire survey and interviews. The BaW Framework validation process included a validation questionnaire (N=6) and validation interviews (N=6) with architects. Key research findings revealed that: BIM has the potential to aid CWM during design; Concept and Design Development stages have major potential in helping waste reduction through BIM; BIM-enhanced practices (i.e. clash detection, detailing, visualisation and simulation, and improved communication and collaboration) have impacts on waste reduction; BIM has the most potential to address waste causes (e.g. ineffective coordination and communication, and design changes); and the BaW Framework has the potential to enable improvements towards waste minimisation throughout all design stages. Participating architects recommended that the adoption of the BaW Framework could enrich both CWM and BIM practices, and most importantly, would enhance waste reduction performance in design. The content should be suitable for project stakeholders, architects in particular, when dealing with construction waste and BIM during design

Building information modelling (BIM) implementation and remote construction projects: issues, challenges, and critiques.

The construction industry has been facing a paradigm shift to (i) increase productivity, efficiency, infrastructure value; quality and sustainability (ii) reduce lifecycle costs, lead times and duplications via effective collaboration and communication of stakeholders in construction projects. This paradigm shift is becoming more critical with remote construction projects, which reveals unique and even more complicated challenging problems in relation to communication and management due to the remoteness of the construction sites. On the other hand, Building Informational Modelling (BIM) is offered by some as the panacea to addressing the interdisciplinary inefficiencies in construction projects. Although in many cases the adoption of BIM has numerous potential benefits, it also raises interesting challenges with regards to how BIM integrates the business processes of individual practices. This paper aims to show how BIM adoption for an architectural company helps to mitigate the management and communication problems in remote construction project. The paper adopts a case study methodology, which is a UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project of BIM adoption between the University of Salford, UK and John McCall Architects (JMA), in which the BIM use between the architectural company and the main contractor for a remote construction project is elaborated and justified. Research showed that the key management and communication problems such as poor quality of construction works, unavailability of materials, and ineffective planning and scheduling can largely be mitigated by adopting BIM at the design stage

Project-based pedagogy in interdisciplinary building design adopting BIM

Purpose – This study aims to present a pedagogical practice in the project-based assessment of AEC students’ interdisciplinary building design work adopting BIM. This pedagogical practice emphasizes the impacts of BIM, as the digital collaboration platform, on the cross-disciplinary teamwork design through information sharing. This study also focuses on collecting students’ perceptions of BIM effects in integrated project design. Challenges in BIM adoption from AEC students’ perspective were identified and discussed, and could spark further research needs. Design/Methodology/Approach – Based on a thorough review of previous pedagogical practices of applying BIM in multiple AEC disciplines, this study adopted a case study of the Solar Decathlon residential building design as the group project for AEC students to deliver the design work and construction planning. In total 13 different teams within the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, each group consisting of final year undergraduate students with backgrounds in architecture, civil engineering, and architectural environmental engineering, worked to deliver the detailed design of the solar-powered residential house meeting pre-specified project objectives in terms of architectural aesthetics, structural integrity, energy efficiency, prefabrication construction techniques, and other issues such as budget and scheduling. Each team presented the cross-disciplinary design plan with cost estimate and construction scheduling together with group reports. This pedagogical study collected students’ reflective thinking on how BIM affected their design work, and compared their feedback on BIM to that from AEC industry professionals in previous studies. Findings – The case study of the Solar Decathlon building project showed the capacity of BIM in enabling interdisciplinary collaboration through information exchange and in enhancing communication across different AEC fields. More sustainable design options were considered in the early architectural design stages through the cross-disciplinary cooperation between architecture and building services engineering. BIM motivated AEC student teams to have a more comprehensive design and construction plan by considering multiple criteria including energy efficiency, budget, and construction activities. Students’ reflections indicated both positive effects of BIM (e.g., facilitating information sharing) as well as challenges for further BIM implementation, such as some architecture students’ resistance to BIM, and the lack of existing family types in the BIM library, etc. Research limitations/implications – Some limitations of the current BIM pedagogy were identified through the student group work. For example, students revealed the problem of interoperability between BIM (i.e., Autodesk Revit) and building energy simulation tools. To further integrate the university education and AEC industry practice, future BIM pedagogical work could recruit professionals and project stakeholders in the adopted case studies, for the purpose of providing professional advice on improving the constructability of the BIM-based design from student work. Originality/value – This work provides insights into the information technology applied in the AEC interdisciplinary pedagogy. Students gained the experience of a project-based collaboration and were equipped with BIM capabilities for future employment within the AEC job market. The integrated design approach was embedded throughout the team project process. Overall, this BIM pedagogical practice emphasized the link between academic activities and real-world industrial practice. The pedagogical experience gained in this BIM course could be expanded to future BIM education and research in other themes such as interoperability of building information exchange among different digital tools

BIM Assisted Design Process Automation for Pre-Engineered Buildings (PEB)

The effective adoption and implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is still challenging for the construction industry. However, studies and reports show a significant increase in the rate of BIM implementation and adoption in mainstream construction activities over the last five years. In contrast, Pre-Engineered Building (PEB) construction, a specialized construction system which provides a very efficient approach for construction of primarily industrial buildings, has not seen the same uptake in BIM implementation and adoption. The thesis reviews the benefits and the main applications of BIM for the PEB industry as well as challenges of its practical implementation. To facilitate the implementation of BIM in the PEB industry, a BIM framework is adapted from Pre-fabrication (Pre-fab) industry and new workflows, process maps, and data-exchange strategies are developed. As the PEB industry traditionally makes significant use of automation in its design and fabrication process, accordingly this work investigates the technical challenges of incorporating automation into the proposed BIM process. Two new BIM concepts, “Planar Concept” and “Floating LOD”, are then developed and implemented as a solution to these challenges. To define the proper input/output criteria for automated BIM design processes, a numerical study was performed to identify an “Optimum LOD”. A software implementation embodying the research outcomes was developed to illustrate the feasibility of the results. Its step-by-step deployment is analyzed and discussed using an example industry PEB design project. Further, the impact of this work is extended by integrating the developed BIM framework and automated design process with wind engineering design activities and tools and procurement systems. The study concludes that the deployment of the proposed BIM framework could significantly address existing issues in project design through to operation processes found in the PEB industry. Also, the results indicate the developed concepts have the potential for supporting the application of automation in the other sectors of the general construction industry. This thesis is written using the Integrated Article format and includes various complementary studies

Design for safety: theoretical framework of the safety aspect of BIM system to determine the safety index

Despite the safety improvement drive that has been implemented in the construction industry in Singapore for many years, the industry continues to report the highest number of workplace fatalities, compared to other industries. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical framework of the safety aspect of a proposed BIM System to determine a Safety Index. An online questionnaire survey was conducted to ascertain the current workplace safety and health situation in the construction industry and explore how BIM can be used to improve safety performance in the industry. A safety hazard library was developed based on the main contributors to fatal accidents in the construction industry, determined from the formal records and existing literature, and a series of discussions with representatives from the Workplace Safety and Health Institute (WSH Institute) in Singapore. The results from the survey suggested that the majority of the firms have implemented the necessary policies, programmes and procedures on Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) practices. However, BIM is still not widely applied or explored beyond the mandatory requirement that building plans should be submitted to the authorities for approval in BIM format. This paper presents a discussion of the safety aspect of the Intelligent Productivity and Safety System (IPASS) developed in the study. IPASS is an intelligent system incorporating the buildable design concept, theory on the detection, prevention and control of hazards, and the Construction Safety Audit Scoring System (ConSASS). The system is based on the premise that safety should be considered at the design stage, and BIM can be an effective tool to facilitate the efforts to enhance safety performance. IPASS allows users to analyse and monitor key aspects of the safety performance of the project before the project starts and as the project progresses

Development of BIM implementation framework for digital construction in Tukey

Yapı Bilgi Modellemesi (BIM), bir binanın planlama, tasarım, inşaat ve işletme sürecini 3B ve ötesine entegre etmek için yenilikçi bir yaklaşımdır. Bu yenilikçi yaklaşım ülkemizde henüz istenilen düzeye gelmemiştir. Gelişmiş ülkeler ise, inşaat sektörünü işci odaklı sektörden bilgiye dayalı bir sektöre dönüştürmek için bir takım stratejik politikalar izlemektedir. Son yıllarda, inşaat sektörü Türkiye'de ülke ekonomisinin öncü sektörlerinden birisi haline gelmiştir. Ancak, bu sektörde uygulanan geleneksel inşaat yöntemleri ve uygulamaları, verimliliği ve sürdürülebilirliği olumsuz yönde etkilemektedir. Dünya geneline baktığımızda yaygın olarak kullanılan BIM tabanlı proje tasarımı ve yönetimi Türkiye'de henüz istenilen düzeye ulaşamamıştır. Ayrıca, BIM tabanlı tasarım ve yapım yaklaşımının, Türkiye'deki endüstriyel üreticiler tarafından ortak bir kullanımı da yoktur. Bu neden ile dijital dönüşümün önündeki engellerin üstesinden gelmek ve endüstrinin BIM tabanlı uygulamaya geçişini hızlandırmak için uygulanabilir bir stratejik yol haritası hazırlanması gerekmektedir. Bu çalışma; dijital dönüşümün sosyal ve teknik yönleri, iş modeli, eğitim ve inşaat piyasasına entegrasyonu ve sürdürülebilirlik gibi temel unsurları incelemeyi amaçlarken, aynı zamanda, Türk inşaat sektöründe BIM kullanımının farkındalığının arttırılması, geçiş sürecinin doğru yönetilmesi ve engelleri sistematik bir şekilde ortadan kaldırmayı hedeflemektedir. Yaptığımız bu çalışmada, niteliksel ve niceliksel araştırma yöntemleri bir arada kullanılmıştır. Nitel veriler doküman incelemelerinden, gözlemlerden ve görüşmelerden elde edilirken, nicel veriler ise vaka çalışması analizlerinden ve ankete dayalı verilerden oluşmuştur. Araştırmada şimdiye kadar toplanan verilerin analizi, Türkiye'de BIM uygulama planının gelişmesinde büyük bir rol oynayacaktır. Son olarak bu çalışma içeriği ile etkinliklerle kapasite oluşturma, BIM standartları ve protokolleri geliştirme, üniversite eğitim sistemleri ile ilgili düzenlemeler, profesyoneller arasında bilgi paylaşımı süreçlerini gerçekleştirilmesini kapsar. Bu kapsam doğrultusunda, uygulama planını sistematik bir şekilde hayata geçirilmesi için BIM merkezine ihtiyaç vardır

The implementation of building information modeling (BIM) towards sustainable construction industry in Egypt The pre-construction phase

Global environmental changes, energy consumption, and the scarcity of water have all imposed the need to implement sustainable development strategies worldwide. The construction industry and its healthy practices are not exception, as it should take more strides to alleviate harmful impacts of unsustainable construction practices on the built environment. Sustainable construction has many aspects such as passive design, selection of the appropriate materials and construction techniques, energy efficient systems, and water conservation. In Egypt, current situation regarding energy consumption, accelerated urbanization, and high pollution rates are urging the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) professionals to convert current conventional construction approaches into more sustainable ones. One of the useful in this regard is to capitalize on technological innovative means to narrow the gap and advance the sustainable green construction mission. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a relatively recent technology within the construction industry that, when properly introduced, can help in providing adequate project quality, accurate time and quantity take-offs schedules, and project costs reduction. For instance, this tool can result in more efficient design practices, which contribute to reducing waste generation, energy consumption and promote passive design strategies. This study aims at analyzing the impact of BIM implementation on the sustainable construction practices and assessing current BIM implementation trends during the design process phase in the AEC industry. In principle, the study tackles BIM adoption situation factors of influencing and the barriers, and opportunities confronting its implementation within the Egyptian consultancy firms. Building on the literature review, this study discusses the sustainable design and constructability concepts in the construction industry and the manner by which BIM can be effectively utilized the pre-construction phase. Furthermore, the study describes the BIM implementation obstacles, success factors, and the role of government and other stakeholders in adopting BIM for achieving sustainable construction industry. To meet this objective, interviews were conducted with BIM users and experts to investigate the BIM implementation situation in the Egyptian consultancy firms and needed actions for successful BIM adoption in the Egyptian construction market. The academic knowledge with the interviews provide the researcher with the base to articulate the ideas and develops the discussion to figure out the critical issues regarding BIM adoption in Egypt. In this manner, the research provides some recommendations for successful BIM adoption in the Egyptian construction industry. In addition, the study recommended adopting BIM as the technological pillar towards sustainable construction industry in the country\u27s 2030 sustainable development strategy. The research also encourages the collaboration between the construction industry stakeholders to set a roadmap for adopting BIM in the Egyptian construction industry. Finally, build on the literature and the experts\u27 opinions, the research recommended practical actions for the industry players to ensure a successful transition towards BIM implementation