Study of the implementation process of BIM in construction projects

Abstract: The AEC-industry has been lagging behind other types of production industries in terms of productivity development for the last 40 years. The reason for this has been described as to be a combination of the collaborative needs in performing construction projects combined with the fragmented nature of the AEC-industry. Building information modelling (BIM) has been presented as a way of addressing these issues and thereby improving productivity in construction projects. The adoption of BIM has been slow and many barriers hindering widespread adoption of this technology have been revealed. There are however no single barrier that could be solved individually in order to enable more extensive BIM adoption. These barriers are hindering many different aspects of effective adoption of BIM. When compared to traditional 2D CAD systems, BIM is a more efficient way of handling information connected to the project or the building. Adoption of BIM enables changes in work processes that can streamline the performance in construction projects. Adoption of BIM is not only a change in technology; there is a need for substantial changes in work processes in order to make improvements to productivity. BIM is a tool to improve processes in order to reach certain goals, not a goal in own right. In this thesis I examine how BIM has been adopted in two different construction projects. The research aims to develop the understanding of the barriers hindering BIM adoption in order to make it more accessible for the AEC-industry.