BIM Research in Irish Academic Institutions 2015-19

The use of BIM in the Irish construction industry has become pervasive in the last decade and it is an essential element in improving productivity in the market. The developments in BIM education and training in supporting the increase in Ireland’s BIM maturity has been well documented in recent years, principally through the proceedings of the BIM Gatherings and the BIM in Ireland 2017 and 2019 reviews. Similarly, the public and private sectors have been surveyed to establish their readiness for digital transformation on their BIM journey. However, BIM research undertaken by Irish academics, while individually strong, has not been strategic at national level nor has it yet met all the needs of industry. This paper will review the learned publications of all research-active academics on this island in the various aspects of the field of BIM-related research in the last 5 years. It will categorise and analyse their achievements, acting as a national reference source for all parties in this industry. It will also suggest areas where further research opportunities exist in support of the continuing fast-paced evolution of this digital technology in the construction industry, nationally and internationally

Digital Construction and BIM Research in Ireland 2016-2020

As the construction industry opens up post pandemic, new and significant challenges will demand considerable expertise, not least in financial viability, solving the housing crisis and facing the very significant climate change pressures to make the industry less wasteful and less carbon intensive. This presents an excellent opportunity to further inculcate aspects of lean construction, particularly BIM into many aspects of construction not traditionally associated with digital construction, provided the necessary expertise is available and known to exist. Following a well-received recent conference paper summarising BIM-related research published by academics in Ireland’s higher education institutions in 2020, this paper will review and identify noteworthy publications in digital technologies, including BIM, by academics of this island’s third level institutions in the last five years. Areas of expertise of individuals will be identified to act as a useful directory for both industry and fellow researchers as well as providing a valuable national resource to identify research gaps which need funding if the ambitions of the national plan for the digitisation of the industry are to be realised. Using an already proven methodology, a survey of the 16 academic institutions in Ireland will be conducted through identified representatives in each institution, seeking all conference and journal papers published in the 2016-2020 period. The assembled database will be categorised, sorted and analysed to identify academic individuals in the workforce with extant research strengths in the various themes to establish the available expertise and areas for growth in the next five years

Benefícios da relação entre Gestão do Conhecimento e Gestão de Projetos

A Gestão do Conhecimento e a Gestão de Projetos são temáticas organizacionais que visam o sucesso institucional. Ambas se relacionam pela promoção do sucesso institucional, bem como por atuarem visando vantagem competitiva, dentre outros. Contudo, os contributos entre essas não foram, especificamente, revelados. Desse modo, essa pesquisa tem por objetivo analisar os benefícios bidirecionais – mútuos – promovidos entre a Gestão do Conhecimento e a Gestão de Projetos. Trata-se de uma abordagem qualitativa, de cunho exploratório, que faz uso da Análise de Conteúdo para examinar pesquisas advindas da promoção de uma Revisão Sistemática da Literatura. Os resultados anunciam que a Gestão do Conhecimento contribui com a Gestão de Projetos em seu sucesso, desempenho, eficiência, controle de tempo e custo, capacitação para o gerenciamento, estimativa de cronograma, escopo e orçamento dos projetos. Em correspondência, a Gestão de Projetos contribui para a conformação da cultura do gerenciamento do conhecimento, bem como apoia o uso, criação e compartilhamento desse ativo, culminando em um ciclo retroalimentar. A busca pelos aspectos nocivos dessa relação é uma sugestão de pesquisa futura

Modeling the determinants of BIM-enabled integration and collaboration

Purpose – BIM research to date has in general zeroed in on featuring the significance of BIM-enabled integration and collaboration (BIMIC) rather than giving exact proof of its occurrence. Accordingly, this research quantitatively explored the determinants of BIMIC in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach – This research conceptualized a four-pillar model of BIM-enabled integration and collaboration. The speculations in the model were examined using SEM-MLE. Findings – The aftereffects of the SEM-MLE demonstrated that network communication, knowledge sharing, and transfer, information sharing and exchange and trust-based relationships are critical determinants of BIMIC. The model's prescient power demonstrates an acceptable validity, and the boundary gauges showed that all the hypotheses were measurably huge. Research limitations/implications – This research gives a hypothetical premise for further investigation of BIMIC by supporting the postulations on the occurrence of collaboration and integrations among the BIM-SCM. Practical implications – The idea investigated involving SEM in this research gives a holistic view to the BIM managers in arranging BIM-based activities and overseeing BIM cycles and supply chain members. It likewise offers rules and structures for accomplishing and overseeing integration and collaboration among the BIM supply chain members. Originality/value – Despite 20 years of exploration on the BIM concept and adoption, no idea has been given to clarify the determinants of integration and collaboration as a BIM cycle. The four-pillar model of BIMIC created and tested in this research clarified BIMIC and contributed a new model to the current literature on the BIM process

Developing A Bim-Knowledge (Bim-K) Framework For Improved Decision-Making In Building Construction Projects

The construction industry is a knowledge-intensive industry, and knowledge has been identified as a vital resource for improving decision-making and a critical factor for increasing productivity and gaining organisational competitive advantage within the construction industry. Although, building information modelling BIM has been described as a 'shared knowledge resource for information' which forms the basis for 'reliable decisions during the lifecycle of a project', evidence from the literature indicate that current BIM implementation (BI) has not been able to effectively integrated knowledge into BIM. While BIM has significantly improved the quality of information available for use within the industry, capturing and integrating experiential knowledge (EK) into BIM implementation (BI) for improved decision-making in BIM projects is still very challenging. Knowledge management (KM) as a discipline can provide processes and tools/techniques for capturing and integrating EK into BI. Hence, leveraging KM processes and tools, this study develops a conceptual BIM-Knowledge framework for integrating EK into BI for improved decision-making in BIM projects. The study adopts convergent parallel mixed methods based on a pragmatic paradigm, which combines both qualitative and quantitative methods concurrently in a single study. Pragmatism philosophical stance provides the flexibility required to address the complex nature of the research question, which explores how the integration of EK into BI could improve decision-making in BIM projects. The study starts with the review of extant literature to explore the key concepts in the study, culminating in developing a preliminary framework. The preliminary framework provides the basic constructs that were further explored and investigated using semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty highly experienced stakeholders within the UK construction industry to explore their lived experiences about the constructs. Transcripts of the interviews were subjected to content analysis using NVivo 11 to identify prevalent codes from the quotations. In line with the adopted research philosophy, constructs from the literature review were also put together in a questionnaire survey and distributed to industry practitioners via Bristol Online Survey (BOS) to investigate their opinions about the constructs. The questionnaire's responses were subjected to rigorous statistical and factor analyses using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS-21). Findings from the analysis of both semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were triangulated for corroboration. The triangulation results led to the development of a conceptual BIM-Knowledge (BIM-K) framework for integrating EK into BI for improved decision-making in BIM projects. The proposed conceptual BIM-K framework consists of three main components: the BIM-K Core, which forms the framework's nucleus; the SKI, which consists an inventory of the skills and knowledge important to key decision-makers in BI; and the Output, which is the improved decision-making in BIM projects. The BIM-K Core component consists of three layers of concentric circles: (i) the integration layer where EK from best practice, past mistakes and creative ideas from different project phases are integrated into BI, (ii) the KM process layer, where the five KM processes and their appropriate tools and techniques help facilitate the effective integration process, and (iii) the layer of impacting factors, where four categories of factors that could impact on the effectiveness of the integration process are domiciled. The conceptual BIM-K framework was partially validated with industry experts virtually to test its suitability for practical implementation. The framework will benefit all key decision-makers in BIM projects, especially the client, designers, the engineer, contractors and suchlike, by improving the quality of decisions regarding BI tasks and activities right from the pre-design phase of the project

BIM-based knowledge management in construction projects

Construction organizations have increasingly realized the importance of knowledge management (KM). They have also increasingly applied various tools and strategies to manage their knowledge. Due to the temporary nature of construction projects, however, there continues to be certain barriers and challenges of KM that are hard to overcome. This article explores the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to achieve better KM in UK construction organizations. First of all, why and how BIM can facilitate KM in construction projects are identified from the literature review. Secondly, a questionnaire survey in quantitative measurement is used to investigate key aspects of KM that can be improved by using BIM. The results of quantitative data analysis are further discussed with the help of literature review. It is found in this article that BIM has the potential to support KM in construction projects. In particular, BIM contributes to proactive KM, lifecycle KM, and KM processes. The findings of this article provide researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of BIM-based KM.</p