# A BIM-Based Value for Money Assessment in Public-Private Partnership: An Overall Review
## 5 Discussion--Research Gaps Identified  
BIM research has demonstrated its potential of application in VFM. These benefits include better collaboration between different stakeholders, as well as advanced analytics and the optimisation of information management. The lack of reliable information support in VFM can be improved by using the standardised data and information exchange process in BIM. The existing BIM tools with various functions can also help VFM to construct a better decision-making environment. Nevertheless, a few research gaps were identified by this review, as below:  
* Information exchange--A scheme that highly accepted information delivery was lacking. Although there are various implementation approaches for calculating costs and quality features using an IFC model in the construction stages, no information exchange scheme was fully extended to encompass the significant elements of VFM within PPP infrastructure projects, especially in operation and maintenance stage. This is most likely due to the complexity of PPP, involving various types of infrastructure works. In addition, the growing use of big data approaches and machine-learning techniques are reducing the need for structured data formats. These emerging methods still require integrated datasets and explicit exchange requirements to capture the asset information in the very beginning and, later on, benefits the operation and maintenance [72; 73; 74; 75]. Therefore, determining a universally agreed upon information exchange scheme is still a high-profile research area.
* Alignment of the VFM knowledge with the supporting information--There were numerous studies that used the BIM information and ontologies to automate various support solutions. These knowledge-based approaches have been applied to the PPP business domain at the organisation level, where BIM could benefit the project justification and procurement plans is an area yet to be explored and would be relevant to the various types of construction-based projects. VFM in PPP requires comprehensive qualitative and quantitative assessments. Due to the different types of procurements, VFM also requires knowledge support to facilitate a much more holistic process that considers determinants, especially the results of quantitative PSC and PPP values. These processes could be rendered much more effective.
* Data integration environment--BIM-based management systems have focused mainly on technical applications for integrating additional dimensions into the already developed 3D information model. The ability to analyse and visualise the data has only been determined within construction  
Figure 8: BIM aligned with the semantic function.  
projects. However, even the IFC structure is expanding. The current datatype is difficult to use for project external data, such as financial and organisational data. The approach of placing all the project external data and internal data into a single database is urgently required, as this approach could be applied to real-world projects to provide more accurate results and create benefits in operation and maintenance. In such cases, the data extracted from BIM can guarantee the real-time accuracy of the internal project measurements. In addition, the linear or nonlinear data analysis approach could measure external performance. Therefore, a virtualised data integration engine should be explored to provide both one location for information and a database that contains project externalities.