HOW BIM COMPATIBLE ESTIMATING SOFTWARE IS ADOPTED IN THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

ABSTRACT Building Information Modeling (BIM) has been widely accepted as an advanced technique and can be applied throughout the project lifecycle including design, construction, Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S), maintenance, and demolition. Estimating software is a significant management tool for project development; and currently there are two main categories: one type is BIM compatible, and the other type is non BIM compatible. There are very few research or investigation on the currently status of using BIM compatible estimating software in the Australian construction industry, and it is not clear how the functionalities of the BIM compatible software are utilized by the estimators. Therefore in this research, an extensive literature review was firstly carried out and used as basis for further investigation. An industrial survey was then carried out to find out the current status of adopting BIM compatible software in the Australian construction industry.It is found that industrial professionals have not prepared well for the adoption of the BIM compatible estimating software, and the users' demand of BIM compatible estimating functions are very low. The factors that may affect the BIM compatible estimating software adoptions have been discussed. In practice, it is not necessary to adopt BIM compatible estimating software unless the project tenders are mainly operated on BIM models. The estimating software adoptions are more dependent on the project design and organizational development strategies than any other factors