BIM in Malaysian Construction Industry: Status, Advantages, Barriers and Strategies to Enhance the Implementation Level

Abstract

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a new approach of construction design. It does not only facilitate the digital representation for designs but also provides all the necessary information for any project before it is constructed. Despite this advantage, the adoption of BIM in Malaysian construction is very low. Motivated by this, current study has focused on assessing current status of BIM implementation in Malaysian construction industry. It has also investigated advantages and disadvantages together with barriers to implementations of BIM and proposing effective strategies for enhancing the BIM implementation in construction industry. Investigation was done through survey where 150 questionnaire forms were distributed and 95 completed forms received back were analyzed with Average Index (AI) and Relative Importance Index (RII) method. Findings of the study revealed that the rate of BIM implementation in construction industry is very low. Major advantages of BIM are improved scheduling, improved drawing coordinated, controlling time and cost and singe detailed model. Enhanced collaboration, requires coordinated drawing, interoperability are the major disadvantages and limitations of BIM. Major barriers to low level of BIM implementation are lack of competent staff to operate the software, unawareness of the technology and non availability of parametric library. Provision of trial software, training of construction staff and introducing of BIM in university curriculum are very effective strategies in enhancing the implementation of BIM.