Current Legal Problems and Risks with BIM in the Swedish AEC Industry

Abstract: The Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry is often described as fragmented, highly complex and risk-oriented with major challenges due to the high level of conflicts and low level of productivity. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is claimed to be the future of the AEC industry and is a way to address these issues. A BIM model can be used in all the phases of a facility's life cycle and can result in better quality at lower cost and reduced time-consumption. However, there are not just benefits with BIM but also risks and problems, which can be hard to manage and prevent the adoption of BIM. Several of the risks and problems are connected to legal issues.  This thesis consists of a qualitative research study that explores the current situation of the legal challenges with BIM, which companies are facing in their construction projects in the Swedish AEC industry. The study intends to develop an understanding of the legal problems that hinders the adoption of BIM and how these problems can be minimized. Semi-structured interviews were held with ten respondents in different companies in Sweden to get an understanding of the legal issues with BIM in their construction projects. The result of the interviews showed that the major legal issue with BIM is the capability to define the model as a legal act and rank the model higher than drawings in a contract. In addition, it was found that the difficulty to review that the model is sufficiently correct and reliable is also something that companies see as a hinder for the full adoption of BIM. Therefore, companies still often prefer to have the drawings as a legal act rather than models.