135 research outputs found

    A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study into the impact of BIM on the Social Dynamics of the AEC professional in the workplace.

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    A review of the literature published surrounding new digital design and construction technologies and associated processes described within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) community as Building Information Modelling (BIM) or Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) reveals a gap in the theoretical understanding of the impact these technologies are having on professionals who work in this industry. The central aim of this research is to discover if there has been a shift in social dynamics as a result of the adoption of BIM in the workplace and, if there has been, to discuss the meaning of this for the industry and the community who educate these professionals. This study is important as it seeks to develop an understanding of the impact of BIM from the perspective of those AEC professionals affected. The study of human beings is referred to as Anthropology. It is a social science and is characterised as the study of human societies, cultures, and development often affected by social or technical intervention. BIM is an example of a technological intervention that has been introduced into the complex design and construction industry. This multidisciplinary industry has relied on representation in the form of paper-based communication documents for 500 years. However, with the introduction of new technologies, the AEC industry is experiencing a digital transformation, characterised by a move from representation to simulation. The author has conducted a study examining the lived experience of AEC professionals who have come into contact with the subject phenomenon in their workplace. The workplace is the locus for this research. It is defined as the place where the AEC professionals conduct their day to day business. The subjects of this research study are a purposeful selection of industry professionals who have experienced the phenomenon and have told the Author their stories. These lived experiences have been analysed and interpreted using a suitable methodology to address the research question; in this case, Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The data analysis has identified four themes: Identity, Empowerment, Disarrangement and Collaborative Practice. The emergence of these themes and the discussion around them will add new knowledge into the subject area. The study concludes by discussing the implications of this research for the design and construction industry and educational institutions

    Emerging risk from the application of building information modelling through the life cycle of projects

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    Over the last decade, the use of BIM methodology, both in terms of technology and process, has experienced a rapid growth in the construction industry, there is a worldwide increase trend on the use and investment in this new technologies. Although, the benefits associated with the use of BIM in the construction industry, the literature has been demonstrated that BIM as a digital collaborative environment between construction stakeholders is here to stay. However, some aspects of the technology are still unfamiliar within the industry, several problems associated with BIM application and adaptation has been surfaced. Unsurprisingly when new technologies are used, such of these problems will appear, this is because BIM approaches represent new concepts and untested in construction industry. Therefore the challenge to overcome problems facing a using BIM, and identify the key risk factors becomes tangible more than any time before. From this perspective, the aim of this study is to identify the emerging risk that influence BIM use in the projects, investigate these risks based on the perception of academics and professionals from the Western world. In this research was to identify 128 of the risk factors based on a review of previous literature, these factors have been categorized into five key clusters (contractual, legal, technical, managerial, application and security). The study employs an online survey, which was sent to 426 respondents. The respondents were drawn from websites and professional networks. The statistical techniques of descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, ANOVA analysis, and analysis of variance were used for data analysis. The analysis findings show that four contractual risks were assessed to be important: LC2 "Trades on site may not be working from the model", LC1"Unclear how to deal with BIM documents’ precedence", and LC5 “Misplaced assumptions that the design team, with a “push of a button” is able to produce a perfectly coordinated series of documents through BIM”. In the legal risk cluster, the respondents agreed on the importance of L.IPR1 "Lack of clarity of the ownership of the BIM objects"; LD4 "Lack of knowledge of the missing data" and likewise, LP1 “Modelling participant does not meet the standard of care required” risk factors. The research findings also indicate that four technical risks will have an influence on BIM usage: TC1 “Complexity of transferring modelling data between programs from one program to another", TI2 "Lack of understanding of BIM for the different software platforms", TI3 "Interoperability shortcomings", TQ9 "Failure to discover errors in the model", and TI1 "Risks of different software platforms”. The results appear to show that the respondents thought ten managerial risk factors are of relevance: MX5 "Lack of understanding of the expectations from BIM modelling"; MX4 "Lack of experience and skilled personnel”; MC4 "Lack of clarity on integration BIM with the current business practice"; MS1 "Conflict due to dissimilar expectations from BIM"; MS4 "Lack of collaborative work processes and standards"; MX7 "Lack of understanding of BIM processes"; MX6 "Lack of understanding of modelling behaviors"; MX8 "Lack of expertise within the project team"; MX9 "Lack of expertise within the organizations"; and MS3 "Lack of criteria for BIM project implementation". Only three application risks were deemed important: PS6 "Implications of amendments are unclear or not defined"; PT10 "Lack of updating the designed model to incorporate the BIM changes made during construction"; and PT11 "Model not updated along with progress reviews" risk factors. The results showed that the respondents strongly agreed that eight out of ten BIM security risks are relevant in BIM application and are very likely to emerge: S9 "Disclosure of confidential information that need to integrate with BIM programs"; S6 "Lack of understanding or ignoring security policies"; S3 "Disclosure of BIM data"; S10 "Unauthorised access and remote access"; S5 "Weakness in technical controls"; S4 "Weakness in security procedures"; S8 "Corporate surveillance"; and S7 "Opening non-trusted e-mail" risk factors. The ANOVA analysis results revealed a variety of interrelationships between the identified risks based on respondents’ profiles, affect in adapting with application and the use of BIM, this requires to be considered by BIM stakeholders, and developing an international standard for BIM risk management, finding optimal solutions for such these identified factors, in addition to further studies and researches in this field. This thesis investigates the emerging risks from BIM application and delivers an original contribution to knowledge in the form of identifying and classifying BIM application risks, which will enhance the level of stakeholder awareness and avoid any risks associated with usage of BIM in the future projects and assist in the maturity of BIM usage

    An investigation of building information modelling implementation in KSA

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    A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been well recognised all around the world as a technology driven approach that can bring radical improvements in construction productivity. There is considerable demand for using BIM in the KSA due to the large scale of its construction industry that needs to improve its productivity to overcome the persistent problems, such as project delays, planning inefficiencies, and waste of resources. The aim of this study is to investigate how the KSA construction organisations are implementing BIM for competitive advantage. Qualitative research approach was adopted to collect and analyse data from 46 BIM professionals. As part of the analysis of the interviews, content analysis was employed. The unit of analysis adopted for this study is the ‘construction industry’ and the embedded unit is ‘individual employee’. The KSA construction industry is heading in the right direction for implementing BIM, however it is lacking BIM knowledge and does not understand BIM as a set of requirements. Therefore, an industry wide awareness-raising programme on the concept of BIM needs to be developed and deployed. The existing education and training programmes need some reorientation. Furthermore, the KSA construction organisations would not survive if they choose not to use BIM. BIM is widely used during planning and design stage. The four most important drivers for BIM implementation are: client pressure, competitive pressure, to improve collaboration, and government pressure. Eleven challenges were also revealed in this study of which organisational culture for change is the key challenge for adoption of BIM in the KSA construction organisations. Leaders of a change process need to realise that most changes within an organisation will usually cause and expect some change in its existing culture and sub-cultures. Therefore, having a better understanding of the effects change has on the sub-cultures of an organisation, group or team, will in turn help leaders of a change process better understand the resistance towards the change itself, and provide a more realistic approach on how to manage it. A BIM implementation framework is developed for the benefit of KSA construction organisations. It is recommended that KSA construction stakeholders including the government and professional regulatory bodies should work together in ensuring that the enablers of BIM adoption such as the provision of regulations and industry standards guiding the implementation are provided and strengthened to make the industry ready enough for BIM adoption

    Enabling the Development and Implementation of Digital Twins : Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

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    Welcome to the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2020). This year we are meeting on-line due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. The overarching theme for CONVR2020 is "Enabling the development and implementation of Digital Twins". CONVR is one of the world-leading conferences in the areas of virtual reality, augmented reality and building information modelling. Each year, more than 100 participants from all around the globe meet to discuss and exchange the latest developments and applications of virtual technologies in the architectural, engineering, construction and operation industry (AECO). The conference is also known for having a unique blend of participants from both academia and industry. This year, with all the difficulties of replicating a real face to face meetings, we are carefully planning the conference to ensure that all participants have a perfect experience. We have a group of leading keynote speakers from industry and academia who are covering up to date hot topics and are enthusiastic and keen to share their knowledge with you. CONVR participants are very loyal to the conference and have attended most of the editions over the last eighteen editions. This year we are welcoming numerous first timers and we aim to help them make the most of the conference by introducing them to other participants

    Development of interactive and distributed virtual environments for immersive communication in the furniture, fixture and equipment sector

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    Despite the significance of the furniture fixture and equipment (FFE) sector to the UK’s economy and the construction industry, this sector faces challenges that impede its productivity and performance, including an inability to meet end-user expectations in the delivery of its services. Lack of adoption of digitalisation and poor design communication between the stakeholders have been identified as one of the issues leading to challenges in the FFE Sector. In this context, visual representation offered by virtual reality (VR) can play a critical role in communicating the designs with the stakeholders effectively. However, evidence suggests that the current state of the VR application in the FFE sector lacks three critical advancements namely BIM-data interaction (interaction with the meta-data associated with the FFE elements), human-building interaction (interaction of stakeholders with FFE elements in the virtual environment) and human-human interactions (multi-user interaction). Therefore, the aim of this study was to bridge this gap through the development and testing of novel virtual environments for immersive communication between FFE and its construction project stakeholders. Furthermore, pre-conditions for the successful implementation of the developed VR applications were evaluated in this study through experimentation.A sequential, exploratory, mixed-method research design was adopted for this study in three phases. In phase one, an extensive literature investigation was carried out to acquire deeper knowledge of existing literature to understand the state-of-the-art developments of immersive technologies in the construction industry with a specific focus on the current challenges and benefits of implementing immersive technology. Phase two of the study involved the development and testing of immersive, distributed and interactive VR applications for various scenarios of the FFE communications for construction. Each application was developed by applying rapid application development methodologies and combining BIM, game engine and low latency cloud server development paradigm. The developments were tested through quasi-experiments and evaluation by stakeholders to ascertain usefulness and utility in the FFE sector context. The first development focused on interactive VR for FFE and was tested among (n = 12) stakeholders using a quasi-experiment in a single-group, pre-test-post-test design. The second development focused on distributed immersion for FFE design communication and was tested among construction stakeholders involved in FFE design decision-making (n = 26). The distributed VR application was further tested further among (n = 9) stakeholders in the context of FFE retail and showcasing of FFE products. The experimental approaches in the second phase adopted combined quantitative and qualitative evaluations to ascertain system usability which fed into further development and finetuning of applications. Finally, in the third phase of the study, the interactive and distributed VR applications were validated among wider group of construction stakeholders (n = 117) using a survey to ascertain industry-wide utility and usefulness as well as establish factors that influence their wider adoption in the sector. A combination of descriptive and inferential statistics was applied to establish findings including Kruskal-Wallis and ANOVA to measure variations in views across different segments of the population of respondents.Findings indicated that the interactive distributed immersive virtual FFE environment can enhance the productivity of the design team through a collaborative virtual workspace offering a synchronised networked design testing and review platform. Furthermore, it can reduce the time required for the stakeholders (Client/end-user, architect, FFE designer/contractor, FFE manufacturer) to comprehend and test the design options. In addition, the developed VR applications can enhance the design communication and quality of the design and encourage a collaborative culture in the industry and improve the design satisfaction of the stakeholders. It was also identified that the VR applications developed for this study can reduce the time required for design decision-making significantly when compared with traditional methods. In the retail and product showcasing context, the system was found to be a highly efficient and viable tool, which can deliver a compelling and richer experience similar to an FFE in-store experience. The testing also revealed that the proposed system not only improves the sense of presence but also brings in a new dimension of a sense of being together, which has a positive impact on decision making. Cumulative findings of this study revealed that distributed and interactive VR has become essential to digitalising the FFE sector’s design communication, with improved design communication being regarded as the most important benefit of its use. Conversely, the most critical challenge that inhibits the implementation of these two VR applications in the FFE sector is the perceived cost. This research proposes a step change in the way furniture design is communicated and coordinated through an immersive virtual experience, thus allowing informed decisions making and creating shared understanding before the commencement of the construction activity
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