Investigation of Readiness for 4D and 5D BIM Adoption in the Australian Construction Industry

INTRODUCTIONIt has been a central issue for construction customers to maximise value, lower cost and achieve sustainability in an industry that has been criticised for its inefficiency and lack of productivity. This inefficiency results in delays in the project schedule, budget and scope, and eventually causes a quality compromised product with a higher price (HZ, 2007) According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (2004) $15.8 billion per annum is estimated to be spent due to inadequate interoperability among project stakeholders based on different software systems in the capital facilities sector of the US construction industry. Despite the current inefficiency in the construction industry, recent customers' design requirements have become more irregular and bespoke. These are difficult to be presented in a two dimensional manner, and require more productive ways to manage the clients' design needs from the outset of a construction project.As a response to the increasing complexity of construction projects and a demand for productivity improvement, information and communication technology such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been introduced to manage, as well as achieve, sustainability in construction projects (Taxen and Lillieskold, 2008; Gaith et al, 2012) Building Information Modelling (BIM) is defined as an information management system to integrate and manage various construction information throughout the entire construction project life cycle based on a 3D parametric design to facilitate effective communication among project stakeholders to achieve a project goal(s) in a collaborative manner (Kim, 2014) The purpose of this research is to identify if the current Australian construction industry is ready to adopt BIM technology by following the current trend of global construction industry.BIM ENGAGEMENT STATUS IN AUSTRALIAVarious benefits of BIM are identified, and three major benefits are commonly mentioned in the literature: 1) Design Quality Improvement, 2) Productivity Improvement (Effective and Efficient Project Information Management) and 3) Sustainability Enhancement (Eastman et al. 2011; Hannele et al. 2012; Froese, 2010) 3D parametric representation is a fundamental distinctive capability of BIM, and there are different capabilities of BIM that are described in a nD capabilities based on 3D BIM capability as shown in Table 1 (Eastman et al. 2011) 4D BIM capability can establish links between project activities and the 3D building elements that enables construction professionals to conduct the constructability check before the construction phase (Eastman et al. 2011).5D BIM is capable of managing costs throughout a project life cycle including cost estimation and budgeting. In particular, quantity surveyors and cost estimators can reduce time and efforts on quantity measurement and development of bill of quality, and moreover can improve the accuracy of cost estimation (Hannele et al. 2012; Froese, 2010) Consequently, BIM is regarded as a major paradigm shift in the construction industry (Hannele et al. 2012; Succar, 2009) and currently developed countries such as US, UK, and South Korea strive to adopt BIM relentlessly by establishing the BIM strategies and mandates as shown in Table 2. The US government established a national 3D 4D BIM program to increase BIM uptake for public office building design and operation led by the General Services Administration. The UK and the South Korean governments have introduced and promoted BIM in the construction industry by mandating BIM use for all public construction projects (HM Government, 2012).Nevertheless, Australia has been stalled behind in the BIM adoption status because there have been no follow up efforts to mandate BIM adoption or develop specific national BIM standards like others. Comparing with high level of public drivers' involvement in other countries, the engagement of BIM driven by the government initiatives is currently limited.