BIM - the Next Step in the Construction of Civil Structures

Abstract: Productivity in the construction industry has been stagnant during the late twentieth century. One reason for this is considered to be an inefficient construction process, „Building Information Modeling‟ BIM is considered by some to be the tool that is going to transform the construction process. The concept of BIM is not new, almost 40 years ago the foundation for what we today call BIM was laid. However, it is only recently that the work with the BIM has made an impact in the building and construction industry, the impact has mainly been in building projects and therein during the design phase. Since the focus so far mostly has been on the design phase and the building industry, the authors thought that it would be interesting to explore how BIM can be used in the construction phase in civil construction projects. The purpose of the thesis is to clarify how BIM is used in the construction phase of civil construction projects within Skanska Sweden AB, which is in an early phase, and Skanska USA Inc., which have reached further in the implementation work. The authors‟ aims to explain how the implementation of BIM has been conducted and to what extent and after this analyze what has gone well and what has gone less well. This work is done in order to be able to give suggestions for what Skanska Sweden ought to consider during the continued implementation of BIM. To achieve these aims the authors had to carry out a literature review regarding the subject area. This proved easier said than done since there are many different opinions about what BIM more precisely entails, but literature describing the subject from a broad perspective is sparse. After the literature review was conducted the authors carried out 19 interviews, 11 in Sweden and 8 in the U.S., all in all the authors visited 6 projects. After this a survey was executed in which 6 people participated. The results from the study show that the knowledge and expectations of BIM within Skanska Sweden differ considerably. Furthermore, Skanska USA Inc. has, just as expected, made more progress in the implementation of BIM in civil projects; this has possibly led to the understanding of the subject as well as the expectations of BIM more dispersed within the organization. The conclusions from this study show that the expectations of BIM in Sweden are largely met by the implementation work carried out so far in the U.S. The primary lessons derived from the implementation of BIM within Skanska USA Civil are; start working with a model in which the employees feel comfortable, make sure there is enough resources to keep the model updated and remember that the implementation process is at an early stage, which ought to lead to an iterative approach to the work with the model.