Parvan, K (2012) Estimating the impact of building information modeling (BIM) utilization on building project performance. PhD thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, USA.
Abstract
Many benefits of utilizing the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology have been recognized and reported in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry literature. However, it seems that the construction industry still hesitates to fully adopt BIM. As some researchers suggest, the root cause may be in the lack of understanding of whether and how BIM improves project outcomes. This research aims to shed some light on this matter by studying the impact of BIM utilization on building project performance. This research follows a model-based approach as opposed to statistically analyzing the project outcomes with and without BIM utilization. The construction project supply chain is modeled at the design and construction activity level to represent the project behavior in terms of cost over time. As traditional project management tools as well as statistical methods are not able to consider the dynamic nature of the projects such as feedbacks, time delays and non-linear relationships, this research uses system dynamics methodology to model the project supply chain. The project supply chain model is calibrated with two sets of the projects; with BIM and without BIM. The two calibrated models, Non-BIM and BIM-utilized, are used to estimate the outcomes of a hypothetical set of the projects. The outcomes are compared in terms of the project performance indexes to analyze the BIM impact on the project performance. Since relatively few projects that utilized BIM were found, this research employs expert elicitation (EE) technique to capture the required knowledge from the industry to estimate the parameters of the BIM-utilized model. The EE is used to build a causal model to capture the impact of BIM utilization on the Non-BIM project model parameters in the absence of sufficient BIM-utilized project data.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Haghani, A |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction activity; construction project; architectural engineering; building information model; building information modeling; feedback; architect; project performance |
| Index terms: | construction project, system dynamics, methodology, estimating, project data, architectural engineering, time delay, statistical method, project performance, architect, design and construction, estimate, construction industry, project management, building information modelling, construction activity, project outcome |
| Subjects: | production management, research methods, contractual arrangements, construction operations, project completion, statistical analysis, information systems, industry analysis, project controls, project management theory and practice, design practice, financial and cost management, computing systems, profession, data collection methods |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Cost Management, Roles and Professions, Digital Applications, Design Practice, Site Management, Time Control, Project Management, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here