ITcon Vol. 17, pg. 75-92, http://www.itcon.org/2012/5

Building information modelling (BIM) implementation and remote construction projects: Issues, Challenges and Critiques

published:May 2012
editor(s):Egbu C., Sidawi B.
authors:Yusuf Arayici
The School of the Built Environment, The College of Science and Technology,
The University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK y.arayici@salford.ac.uk

Charles Egbu
The School of the Built Environment, The College of Science and Technology,
The University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK c.o.egbu@salford.ac.uk

Paul Coates
The School of the Built Environment, The College of Science and Technology,
The University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK s.p.coates@edu.salford.ac.uk
summary:The construction industry has been facing a paradigm shift to (i) increase productivity, efficiency,infrastructure value; quality and sustainability (ii) reduce lifecycle costs, lead times and duplications viaeffective collaboration and communication of stakeholders in construction projects. This paradigm shift isbecoming more critical with remote construction projects, which reveals unique and even more complicatedchallenging problems in relation to communication and management due to the remoteness of the constructionsites. On the other hand, Building Informational Modelling (BIM) is offered by some as the panacea toaddressing the interdisciplinary inefficiencies in construction projects. Although in many cases the adoption ofBIM has numerous potential benefits, it also raises interesting challenges with regards to how BIM integratesthe business processes of individual practices.This paper aims to show how BIM adoption for an architectural company helps to mitigate the management andcommunication problems in remote construction project. The paper adopts a case study methodology, which is aUK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project of BIM adoption between the University of Salford, UK andJohn McCall Architects (JMA), in which the BIM use between the architectural company and the maincontractor for a remote construction project is elaborated and justified. Research showed that the keymanagement and communication problems such as poor quality of construction works, unavailability ofmaterials, and ineffective planning and scheduling can largely be mitigated by adopting BIM at the design stage.
keywords:Building Information Modelling, Communication, Remote Construction Projects
full text: (PDF file, 1.49 MB)
citation:Yusuf Arayici, Charles Egbu, Paul Coates (2012). Building information modelling (BIM) implementation and remote construction projects: Issues, Challenges and Critiques, ITcon Vol. 17, Special issue Management of remote construction sites and the role of IT Systems, pg. 75-92, https://www.itcon.org/2012/5