Visual product chronology as a solution for accessing building product model data

SUMMARY Building product modelling technology is principally aiming for solutions which are capturing the data of gradually developing buildings. In simple terms these solutions can be characterised as storages where the most recent data and its updates exist. At the moment IFC standard is providing a common starting point for sharing building product model data between various applications. Having this as a starting point one major current challenge is to build methods and practical tools for accessing building product models. Here the term access means both data input and different analyses over building product model data. For example, the user needs to find out all building components where changes have appeared during certain period and visualise those in an appropriate level of detail. It is considered that these types of operations shall provide a true basis for wide acceptance and impact of building product modelling technology. Visual Product Chronology is an application, which can be used for linking data from various sources with the objects of building product model and for analysing the content of the resultant data storage. Development of Visual Product Chronology is proving improved understanding of various problems and their potential solutions when we are on way to develop applications enabling versatile but an easy access of building product model data

Suitability of BIM for enhancing value on PPP projects for the benefit of the public sector

Collaborative integrated working and stakeholder’s interest have been among key drivers that underpin and encourage the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) within the AEC industry. BIM is becoming a major means to deliver projects with better improved product, and reduced risk within the construction industry. Furthermore, using BIM in areas like buildability, quality assurance, cost and scheduling can be justified through BIM-nD modelling application. What is not so obvious is how the utilisation of BIM visualisation and knowledge embedment will enhance these areas to refine and achieve better value for PPP procurement projects for the long term benefit especially during post-construction phase for the public sector. As of now there is no well-defined guidance with respect to BIM usage incorporating all of the above. Do we really need to revisit the way we specify projects within the contractual framework under PPP? This paper examines the possibility of how BIM can be utilised in the realisation of augmented formal database information management system under the PPP procurement routes with respect to operation and maintenance support. The paper concludes with additional measures that BIM can offer at the post-construction phase for the public sector at learning organisations

Electronic Document Management in Construction – Research Issue and Results

Electronic document management (EDM) technology has the potential to enhance the information management in construction projects considerably, without radical changes to current practice. Over the past fifteen years this topic has been overshadowed by building product modelling in the construction IT research world, but at present EDM is quickly being introduced in practice, in particular in bigger projects. Often this is done in the form of third party services available over the World Wide Web. In the paper, a typology of research questions and methods is presented, which can be used to position the individual research efforts which are surveyed in the paper. Questions dealt with include: What features should EMD systems have? How much are they used? Are there benefits from use and how should these be measured? What are the barriers to wide-spread adoption? Which technical questions need to be solved? Is there scope for standardisation? How will the market for such systems evolve

A Review of application building information modeling (BIM) during pre-construction stage: retrospective and future directions

Pre-construction is one of the biggest areas of risk and uncertainty in construction project as it deals with subsurface ground conditions information. The amount of detail data needed in pre-construction especially for existing data modelling and site analysis should be sufficient enough to ensure that significant risks could not reasonably be anticipated. Current practicing method in interpreting data during this stage tasks reveal limitation. Construction industry faced many obstacles due to the depends on the traditional practice; paper-based document which missing and redundant data always happened. In recent years, there has been a shift in construction where people move to BIM application because of its potential to reduce the problem faced by infrastructure world. BIM has become a successful technology and widely popular in the construction world especially in developed countries because of its potential. Nowadays, people are moving one step ahead in BIM which is adoption of BIM during pre-construction stage. Thus, this paper review studies centered on BIM-integrated modelling during preconstruction stage. But there is lack of practical researches have been made during this stage. Although a large number of studies on BIM have been conducted in the past decade, a lack of consensus remains among researchers and practitioners regarding the applications of BIM during pre-construction stage, the availability of subsequent data integration tool for geotechnical activity. A comprehensive literature review was conducted for data collection and analysis. After in-depth review of journal articles widely cover the application of BIM, this study summarizes an overview and critical reflection of geotechnical data integration using BIM during pre-construction stage. The results are useful for the identification of research clusters and topics in the BIM community

From Finnish AEC knowledge ecosystem to business ecosystem: lessons learned from the national deployment of BIM

Government actors, public agencies, industry and academics have struggled to change the rules of the existing business ecosystem to support the networked practices that were envisioned back in the 1980s with the introduction of building information modelling (BIM). Despite the industry’s far-reaching technological capabilities, BIM has primarily assumed productivity improvement by individual firms, which has not lead to a systemic change in the Finnish architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) business ecosystem. A field study of the Finnish AEC industry has resulted in a critical understanding of why successful and intensive R&D at a national level and wide adoption of BIM technology in Finland has not led to the expected systemic evolution of its AEC business ecosystem. Additionally, a methodology based on inductive grounded theory and historical analysis has been used to capture and identify the evolving and dynamic relationships between various events and actors between 1965 and 2015, which, in turn, has aided in the identification and characterisation of the knowledge and innovation ecosystems. The research findings provide insights for BIM researchers and governments in terms of establishing new policies that will better align BIM adoption with the systemic evolution of business practices in the AEC business ecosystem

Unravelling project ecologies of innovation: A review of BIM policy and diffusion

As the concept of Building Information Modelling (BIM) gains traction in the construction industry, many studies have been attracted to understanding its adoption in firms (micro-level), implementation in projects (intermediate level), and diffusion across the industry (macro-level). This is a theoretical paper which mobilises contextual theories from Social Science and Project Management, such as institutional logics and project ecologies respectively, to map and rationalise the various social layers activated in diffusing BIM innovation across different national contexts (countries). Drawing upon data about Anglo-Saxon and corporatist-type national business systems, there is currently a mismatch between their BIM innovation diffusion strategy – which unfolds in a top-down and bottom-up manner respectively –, and their intended outcomes. This study highlighted that the diffusion of BIM innovation has been seen as disruptive in the United Kingdom and incremental in countries such as the Netherlands and Norway. Apart from mapping various social layers activated in BIM diffusion, this study outlines implication for policy-makers and practitioners, by stressing that not only global solutions for BIM diffusion are probably misguided, but re-establishing the links between project and context is a comprehensive approach to dismiss the rhetoric of BIM panacea and a sensible way to increase BIM diffusion and effective BIM implementation in project

Information Technology in Construction – Domain Definition and Research Issues

This article discusses the scope of research on the application of information technology in construction (ITC). A model of the information and material activities which together constitute the construction process is presented, using the IDEF0 activity modelling methodology. Information technology is defined to include all kinds of technology used for the storage, transfer and manipulation of information, thus also including devices such as copying machines, faxes and mobile phones. Using the model the domain of ITC research is defined as the use of information technology to facilitate and re-engineer the information process component of construction. Developments during the last decades in IT use in construction is discussed against a background of a simplified model of generic information processing tasks. The scope of ITC is compared with the scopes of research in related areas such as design methodology, construction management and facilities management. Health care is proposed as an interesting alternative (to the often used car manufacturing industry), as an IT application domain to compare with. Some of the key areas of ITC research in recent years; expert systems, company IT strategies, and product modelling are shortly discussed. The article finishes with a short discussion of the problems of applying standard scientific methodology in ITC research, in particular in product model research

Boundary spanning and knowledge brokering for digital innovation

The adoption of digital innovations in construction is a topic with growing importance, as organisations restructure to adopt and sustain innovations. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is currently at the forefront of this digital shift in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The relation between knowledge sharing and sustained innovation adoption in organisations has been previously acknowledged by management scholars. There is further room to adopt a structurational view of knowledge and focus on how agency contributes to knowledge sharing for increasing digital innovation adoption in firms. This paper uses the theoretical lens of boundaries and boundary brokers to guide the data selection and interpret a rich dataset about boundary brokers of digital innovation. The research aim is to explore how these boundary brokers, referred to as digital innovation champions, facilitate knowledge of digital innovations and BIM to support digital transformation in firms. A single case study of a large international multi-disciplinary consultancy was used as a research setting. Data were collected through interviews with the digital champions as well as with additional data collected from the internal online platform for data triangulation and research validation. Key findings include the multi-faceted levels of boundaries crossed by the digital champions to share knowledge about digital innovation: hierarchical, professional and organisational boundaries. Namely, the digital champions were found to hold multiple memberships in groups, holding both technical and inter-personal competences as well as engaging in conflict resolution. The study concludes with implications for practice and suggests courses of actions to increase knowledge sharing in firms for innovation adoption by developing and incentivising individuals

Towards implementing integrated building product libraries

Electronic product catalogues and brochures are gaining popularity but there is little agreement on content, format and searching methods. This limits their usability and integration with existing construction software tools. This paper examines a productmodelling approach to delivering building product information and describes a proposed multi-tier client-server environment. ISO/STEP and IAI/IFC building product models are considered to facilitate representation, exchange and sharing of product information. The proposed architecture incorporates scalability with middleware components that would provide single or few points of entry to integrated product information. This paper is part of a research project, which builds on the results of related projects including ConstructIT Strategy, PROCAT-GEN, Active Catalog, COMBINE and ARROW, towards implementing the required software components