A survey of current status of and perceived changes required for BIM adoption in the UK

Abstract

Purpose – Construction organisations are mandated to use Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Government projects from 2016. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current status of the management aspects of BIM. Design/methodology/approach – Following a telephone sift, a web-based questionnaire was conducted with UK construction BIM experts with 92 responses. Findings – This research demonstrates a paradigm shift in construction as operations were deemed more important than the technical aspects of BIM Adoption. Respondents agree with enforced Level 2 BIM, demonstrating client demand is a significant driver on uptake. BIM use will substantially increase in the next five years. Ranking of the importance of current BIM standards indicated BS1192 was most used but almost a third adopted individual standards producing fragmentation. BIM’s effect on consultant fees indicated the need for structural change. Practical implications – Front end design via BIM models and clash detection outweighed the use for facilities management indicating industry were meeting the target but not exploiting BIM to its full potential. Design and build and framework arrangements were the most common BIM procurement routes. Fragmentation of standards use creates a future interoperability problem between BIM systems. Social implications – Design team structure changes are supported with the adoption of a separate BIM manager being popular. Analysis of industry-wide model hosting characteristics indicated individual disciplines managed their own models meaning without an additional target for Level 3 BIM the single model environment is unlikely to be widely adopted. Originality/value – BIM fee structure and procurement are investigated for the first time