BIM-based building design coordination: processes, bottlenecks, and considerations

Abstract

Successful management of the building design coordination process is critical to the efficient delivery of cost-effective and quality projects. The traditional setting of design coordination, however, is inefficient and error-prone. Building information modelling (BIM) has proven valuable for increasing satisfaction with the meeting process and decreasing arguments over issues. Despite the many advantages of BIM tools, however, many design coordination issues remain undetected, design issues are poorly documented, and coordination strategies are inefficient. The objective of this study was to develop a characterization of the BIM building design coordination process, identify the bottlenecks in the current process, and provide design considerations to alleviate the bottlenecks. The bottlenecks include: outdated BIM, disconnected trades, lack of terminology, insufficient documentation, inefficient transitions across views and artifacts, unavailability of design information, information discrepancy, unfit navigation tools, and office–site disconnect. The outcomes of this research is useful for future construction projects and the software development community.