Functional Suitability of BIM Tools in Pre-Construction, Construction and Post-Construction Phases of a Building Project

Functional Suitability of BIM Tools in Pre-Construction, Construction and Post-Construction Phases of a Building Project

Vijaya Desai
Copyright: © 2013 |Pages: 15
DOI: 10.4018/ij3dim.2013040103
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Abstract

Managing building projects and communication of information between the stakeholders of the projects is getting collaborative and faster, with the availability of Building Information Modelling (BIM) software system. Numerous BIM systems are offered by various software developers. Each one of these systems provides pre-construction, construction, post construction functionalities or all of them. Some are suitable for architects, contractors, engineers, clients or all of them. Therefore there is a need to develop a systematic approach to evaluate the functional suitability of these systems and guidelines to help the project stakeholders to evaluate the BIM software for their need. This paper presents a study of commonly used BIM systems for their functional suitability for Pre-construction, Construction and Post-construction phases of the Building Project. Various functionalities of these three phases are derived. The relevant functional areas in Pre-construction, Construction and Post-construction are identified. A scoring methodology is presented to rate the BIM systems based on these functionalities. This methodology forms the basic guideline for architects/engineers, general contractor, sub-contractors and facility managers to evaluate functional suitability of BIM systems for their respective functions.
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2. Bim And Construction Management

BIM is an approach to building design, construction, and management along with co-ordination and information sharing capacities between the project stakeholders. It supports the continuous and immediate availability of project design scope, schedule and cost information that is high quality, reliable, current, integrated and fully coordinated. It is an approach which has integration of several technologies in one system and integration of most of the business functionalities of pre-construction, construction and post construction phase of a building project. BIM is essentially the intersection of two critical ideas: 1) Keeping critical design information in digital form that make sit easier to update and share more valuable to the firms creating and using it, 2) Creating real-time consistent relationships between digital design data with innovative parametric building modelling technology that can save significant amount of time and money and increase project productivity and quality. (Autodesk, 2012)

Technically BIM is primarily a three dimensional digital representation of a building and its intrinsic characteristics. It is made of intelligent building components which includes data attributes and parametric rules for each object. BIM provides consistent and coordinated views and representations of the digital model including reliable data for each view. This saves a lot of designer’s time since each view is coordinated through the built-in intelligence of the model. (Hergunsel, 2011).

The recent developments in BIM systems provide different modelling levels ranging from 2D, 3D, 4D and 5D. It all starts with 2D drawings; then we receive or make the 3D models and coordinate them; then we use the construction-caliber quantities from the takeoff for the 4D schedule and the 5D estimate. (http://www.vicosoftware.com).

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