AN ANALYSIS OF THE DRIVERS FOR ADOPTING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is one of the pillars of the UK Government Construction Strategy. While many benefits (drivers) of BIM are mentioned in literature there is little by way of research to evaluate their importance. The objective of the survey reported in this paper is therefore to fill this knowledge gap by identifying and prioritizing the factors driving BIM adoption to enable those seeking to adopt BIM to gain an understanding of the relative importance of each of these drivers in order to inform their strategic and operational decision making. The research sample was limited to the top 100 UK construction contractors with international business activity. Online survey respondents were asked to score on a Likert-type scale of 1-5 the level of importance they would place on the identified factors driving BIM adoption. Responses to the online survey were analysed using relative importance index and rank agreement factor. The study concluded that those who had adopted BIM ranked the drivers for BIM differently than those yet to implement a BIM solution.Overall, the study found that the three most important drivers for BIM implementation are “Clash Detection”,“Government Pressure” and “Competitive Pressure”. The top drivers for non-users of BIM could be grouped under pressure from external sources while operational drivers were more important for users of BIM.