Assessing the BIM maturity in a BIM infant industry

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is rapidly gaining acceptance of building industries internationally, and is likely to become the primary industry standard for AEC information exchange in near future. The built-in intelligence of BIM offers the highest potentials for adopting lean approaches for project delivery, and minimizing of risks and uncertainties; enabling highly sustainable procurement systems for the building industry. While it is accepted that BIM is in its infant stage in Sri Lanka and BIM technologies are rarely present, adoption of BIM has been identified to be timely. Use of inappropriate BIM adoption strategies would waste valuable resources and time. This will also hinder the industry acceptance of BIM. Development of reliable strategies requires information on current BIM maturity in order to identify the gaps. Wider gaps in a BIM infant industry give rise to the number of potential alternative BIM adoption strategies. Thus, a coherent assessment of current context is crucial to chose most suitable strategies. BewRichards BIM Maturity Model and Succar’s BIM Maturity Stages were the widely referred models used to ascertain the BIM maturity of an industry or an organization. However, these were found to be less useful to assess a BIM infant industry. The study proposes framework comprising four components, viz. collaborative processes, enhanced skill, integrated information and automated systems, and knowledge management.