Proceedings of the VII Elagec, 16 - 17 November 2016 | Bogotá, Colombia 1
T
HE
S
TATUS OF
BIM
A
DOPTION AND
I
MPLEMENTATION
E
XPERIENCES OF
CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES IN
C
OLOMBIA
Juan M. Gomez-Sanchez (a), Juan S. Rojas-Quintero (b), Ajibade A. Aibinu (c)
(a) Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, jm.gomez14@uniandes.edu.co (b) Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, js.rojas128@uniandes.edu.co.edu (c) Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, MSD, The University of Melbourne, Australia, aaibinu@unimelb.edu.au
________________________________________________________________________________________________ A B S T R A C T
The Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry in Colombia faces challenges like constant time and cost overruns, low quality deliverables and decreased productivity. This issues could be partially attributed to the fact that traditional practices are no longer suitable for the development of increasingly complex projects. It is widely known that Building Information Modeling (BIM) addresses the interdisciplinary inefficiencies in construction projects and enhances collaborative work, although, its implementation depends on the specific cultural context of each country and industry. This study focuses on determining successes, errors and identifying the challenges involved in implementing BIM in Colombia. A web-based survey was carried on to gather data from AEC companies. Seven in-depth interviews were also undertaken. Results show that BIM implementation has remained significantly low in Colombia even though the level of awareness is very high. The main barriers are that suppliers are not yet using BIM tools, resistance to change, high costs of implementation and lack of qualified personal. Overall performance in terms of quality, estimations and integration were identified as major benefits. Respondents identify that there is a need for a BIM implementation standard jointly promoted by the government, the academy and the industry through guilds and associations. Some recommendations on implementation in Colombia are also discussed.
Keywords:
Building Information Modeling, Adoption, Benefits, Barriers, Colombia.
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1.
Introduction
Traditional delivery methodologies in the AEC business model in Colombia remain largely fragmented, in many companies, multidisciplinary designs are in constant interference and a significant amount of rework needs to be done. Currently, procurement methods’ workflow in the construction industry still has a lack of full team integration and projects frequently suffer from adversarial relationships, high degree of inefficiency and rework, frequent disputes and lack of innovation; therefore, project information are often difficult to generate, transmit, reuse, coordinate and causes a bad management practice (Aibinu & Venkatesh, 2013) that leads to delays, unanticipated field costs, undesired legal implications and a poor quality final product.
The Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) process has grown considerably and is often defined as a “Relational Contracting approach that aligns project objectives with the interests of key participants” (Matthews & Howell, 2005) or as a method that “integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively exploits the group’s talents and insights of the stakeholders optimizing the results of the project during its lifecycle from inception onward” (AIA, 2007). Consequently, the AEC industry actors can improve integration and build better buildings by successfully implementing a relatively new approach to design, construct and manage projects called Building Information Modeling (BIM).
BIM is a collaboratively generated and maintained source of information for the entire lifecycle of a project (Malleson, 2014). It provides a digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a certain facility (NBIMS-US, 2015) and allows integrated and simultaneous work through a common platform that warrants consistent information exchange amongst stakeholders through a single parametric digital model (Aibinu & Venkatesh, 2013). BIM
implementation has enabled more efficient procesess in the AEC Industry that often translate in numerous savings and major competitiveness across the construction project lifecycle, producing considerably better infrastructures with improved stakeholder satisfaction (Kreider & Messner, 2013).
Moreover, the adoption of new methodologies, workflows and software, has led to the development of new management roles. BIM Manager is one example of this statement. According to Eastman et al. (2011) Model managers carry out two basic roles: inside their company, they provide software support services; whereas that, “at the project level, they work with project teams to update the building model, guarantee origin, orientation, naming and format consistency, and to coordinate the exchange of model components with internal design groups and external designers and engineers.” (Eastman, Teicholz, Sacks, & Liston, 2011).
Although the BIM concept is almost universal, its implementation and usage is highly dependent on organizational culture (Khosrowshahi & Arayici, 2012). Therefore it can be argued that as different contextual conditions affect organizational culture, it also affects BIM implementation and there is a need to understand this process in each individual framework. The research reported in this article intends to stablish the progress towards BIM implementation in the Colombian AEC industry. The aim is to provide a wide picture of the current situation and to offer recommendations that could enhance a widespread BIM adoption in the country. It also delivers a baseline for public and private organisations to make informed decisions in BIM adoption. This research consolidates diverse opinions and facts that paves the way for a national BIM implementation strategy.
1.1.
Current worldwide approval of BIM in the Industry
The literature contains several international experiences that show increased global attention from the construction sector on this topic. Moreover, given the fact that the global construction market is expected to grow by US$8 trillion by 2030, and to that point, Colombian construction market, US$26 billion (Banrep, 2016) , to almost double (Global Construction 2030, 2016), the Colombian AEC Industry definitely must become a much more effective and efficient industry and take the greatest advantage of technological advances and industrial developments aiming to supply what the population requires.
The level of implementation of BIM and its maturity differs from country to country. Definitely, the biggest driver to BIM implementation in different countries is due to Government-led initiatives, such as, the USA, through the General Services Administration‘s (GSA) standards continue to be leading the BIM usage and it keeps evolving rapidly (Sawhney, 2014). Additionally, the UK Government Construction Strategy just implemented the use of fully collaborative BIM on public sector projects in 2016 (Cabinet Office, 2011).Similarly, after July 1st, 2015, all plans of new building projects in Singapore with gross floor area above 5,000 m2 must be submitted in BIM format (Teo, Ofori, Tjandra, & Kim, 2016). As well, Hong Kong’s Housing Authority has set an ambitious target of using BIM in all of its new projects by the end of 2014 (Sawhney, 2014). While some European countries such as Denmark, Finland, Norway and Spain are playing an important role in the BIM adoption process, some emerging economies, such as the Middle East, China and India, are still lagging in BIM adoption (Sawhney, 2014).
In Latinamerica, the Chilean government has anounced that from 2016 will be promoting that oficial projects are developed implementing BIM following the guidelines of the british BIM mandate (Dirección de prensa Gobierno de Chile, 2015), while Peru (CAPECO, 2014) and Mexico (Jung & Lee, 2015) have shown significant progress in giving the first step towards Idustry driven BIM implementation; however, as well as in Colombia, there is a broad room for improvement in order to achieve an andvanced maturity level in terms of standardization, widespread use across the supply chain, extensive use in the construction and facility management stages, among others (Flórez, G uevara, Ozuna, & Vargas, 2013) (Botero, Puche, & Botero, 2015). The next few years will be critical for the development of BIM in Colombia. This study provides a first look at the current state of this technology in the country, and thus, tries to envision what the panorama approaches.
1.2.
Previous studies
BIM has been adopted in many countries since the early 2000s (Jung & Lee, 2015) and numerous researchers, companies and institutions have made an effort to measure the level of BIM implementation as knowing this is decisive in evaluating and solving BIM implementation troubles.
Given that these problems may have different causes throughout the countries, and undoubtedly there are intrinsic difficulties to local industries and regions, many BIM adoption studies have been focused on particular countries. For instance, The “SmartMarket Report” from McGraw Hill Construction often produces reports based on BIM adoption in different latitudes, The “National BIM Report” from the National Building Specification (NBS) focuses on the UK as a result of the BIM mandate, buildingSMART also delivers reports on different countries, Won, J., Lee, G., and Lee, C. (2009) published the paper titled “Comparative analysis of BIM adoption in Korean Construction Industry and Other countries.” And Nikkie BP Consulting, Inc. (2011). Published the article titled “Japan 2011 BIM Survey”. Similarly the
Proceedings of the VII Elagec, 16 - 17 November 2016 | Bogotá, Colombia 3 lierature collects numerous experiences and analyisis for several countries and their findings vary significantly, nontheless, after a thorough literature review, the authors did not find an article or official publication issued about Colombia’s industry adoption state.
Interestingly, most of these surveys and diagnostics have been using similar indexes, such as BIM adoption rate, the percentage of expert BIM users, and years using BIM. Despite the similarities between the indexes used in previous surveys, each survey focused mainly on a single country or an industry at a time and concluded specifically for their particular context.
2.
Objectives
The purpose of this study is to document the current status and future’s scope of BIM implementation in AEC industry in Colombia. In order to accomplish this intention, not only it was valuable to research about the current state of BIM implementation, but also to understand the mind-set of industry leaders with respect to the future of BIM in their respective companies and the national industry. Specifically, this was approached by first establishing the current state and then by centering on: (a) drivers for BIM implementation in Colombia; (b) barriers to BIM implementation in Colombia; and (c) perceived benefits of BIM implementation. Exactly, the research involved the following key aspects: (1) Magnitude of current BIM usage in Colombia: data was collected concerning to “who is using BIM” by identifying: (a) type of companies; (b) size and age of companies; (c) location of the companies; (d) places of company operations and (e) company services. (2) Context and level of BIM implementation: data was collected about their projects’ contexts using BIM and the functional aspects of BIM implementation adopted by the companies. (3) Benefits of using BIM: perceived benefits of BIM were identified from BIM users or who knew about the methodology. (4) Implementation difficulties and issues: For BIM users and those who are refusing to use BIM identify major hinders and barriers to BIM implementation. And (5) develop recommendations for increasing usage and enabling more companies to implement BIM in their projects.
3.
Methodology
An online questionnaire was used in order to collect BIM responses. The surveys were sent in spanish with plain language to 500 Colombian construction profesionals and students. The survey was divided into three main parts: (1) part A were company’s contextual questions, (2) part B were for BIM users, and (3) part C for non-BIM users. Each part contained open- ended and closed-ended questions. Also, seven follow-up semi-structured interviews of approximately 45 minutes of identified industry leaders to determine “mind-set” issues in the industry were conducted. Questions were directed at concerns relating to the research objectives expressed above.
Figure 1. Main location and location of operations of the respondents according to the Departments in the Colombian political map
The authors received 102 responses out of the 500 solicitations. Among the total responses, 26 responses were from last semester students from construction-related careers. However, for purposes of this investigation, only responses from workers in the public and private sector were considered (74%). The survey was sent twice to non-respondents. Figure 1 shows that, on the one hand, the majority of respondents (79%) are based in the center of the country (Cundinamarca). Moreover, regarding their places of operation, Cundinamarca continued to be most frequent from the list (85.1%), but, as most of them have projects in several locations, the sample considers projects in a wider set of departments. This data is biased toward the central most affluent regions and should be read carefully taking into acoount this issue.
The respondents are mostly from small size (1-50 staff) and large firms (more than 100 staff) with 55.6% and 51.4% repectively. Half of the respondents work for companies with less than 10 years on the market, 31% between 11
and 25 years; and the remaining 17.6% reported having more than 26 years of experience. This offers general idea that does not only covers longstanding traditional players.
Figure 2 and Figure 3 expose the types of services provided and the types of projects developed by the respondents’ companies. On the one hand, respondents were asked to choose all services that applied. Construction and Project Management are the main services provided by the majority of the organizations, followed by Design Coordination and Promoters. In Fact, 26,47% of all respondents stated that their companies act in the roles of promotors (owners), project managers, constructors and design coordinators; and 14.71% develop their architectural designs inhouse. This shows a high level of vertical integration among developers. On the other hand, the majority of companies develop residential projects (social and non social), however, most of them are also involved in other real state or infrastructure projects. Office buildings, education centers, malls and hotels are the main focus. There is also a high level of diversification among the companies that participated in the survey. For example, 45% of all respondents that develop residential (non social) projects, are also involved in office developments, and 65% of the respondents stated that they are involved in 3 or more types of projects.
Figure 2: Services provided Figure 3. Types of projects developed
4.
Data Analysis, Findings, and Discussion
4.1.
BIM Experience and BIM Features used by companies
4.1.1. Involvement with BIM-Based Projects
Of all respondents, 94.7% stated that they have some level of BIM awareness. Regarding the BIM experiences of the respondents, Figure 4 exposes that 59% specified that they have been involved directly in at least one BIM-based project over the last year. As shown in Figure 5, 34% of BIM users became involved with BIM within the last year, 44% in the past two years, 15% within the past 3 to 5 years and only 6% for more than 5 years. The percentage of BIM-based projects in a company tend to increase with the years of involvement. Companies’ involvement with BIM-based projects is recent but has increased over the last years. It is also interesting that at least a few companies indicated that, although neither the Colombian government nor any other Construction Association have established any BIM standard, they have made a great progress towards BIM-implementation.
Figure 4. BIM users and non-users Figure 5. Percentage of BIM projects per years of involvement with
72,1% 72,1% 50,0% 44,1% 32,4% 30,9% 25,0% 17,6% 16,2% 10,3%
0,0% 20,0% 40,0% 60,0% 80,0% Construction Project Management Design Coordination Promotor Architectural Design Specialized Consulting Auditing Structural design MEP Design Facility Management 69,1% 54,4% 52,9% 36,8% 30,9% 27,9% 25,0% 20,6% 19,1% 14,7% 14,7% 13,2% 10,3% 8,8%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Residential (Non VIS or VIP) Office buildings Social Housing (VIS and VIP) Education Centers Malls and Stores Industrial Plants Hotels Road Infrastructure Health Centers Hydraulic Infrastructure Urban Developments Sport Centers Energy Infrastructure Transportation Infrastructure 59%
41% BIM users
Proceedings of the VII Elagec, 16 - 17 November 2016 | Bogotá, Colombia 5 Respondents stated that from the BIM tools they use, traditional CAD vendors such as Autodesk, Graphisoft and Trimble are the most popular amongst users. Nonetheless, there is an evident market tilt towards Autodesk’s software: 78.6% of users indicated that they model with Revit and 33.3% do clash detection and 4D simulation with Navisworks. Only 9.5% work with ArchiCAD and 7.1% with Trimble SketchUp. During the follow-up interviews, interviewees stated that the main reason for them to choose Autodesk Revit was its market share and the natural flow of the industry from Autodesk AutoCAD to its more recent BIM software. Also, interoperability issues concern some companies and have decided to work only with Autodesk instead of migrating or working simultaneously with other software.
4.1.2. Use of 3D Models
BIM model’s usage was considered to be an important issue for this research. Respondents were given a number of different possible known uses that have been established in the literature (The Computer Integrated Construction Research Program, 2010), as well as the option to add any additional uses that they identify. Results indicated that the majority of practitioners use BIM for coordinating designs, quantity surveying, design authoring and 2D drawing production (see Figure 6). During the interview the necesity that one day licensing procedures concerning the municipal government could be done through an optimized 3D model checker instead of 2D paper-drawings was stated.
However, very few or none respondents are using the BIM models to maintenance and operation, disaster planning, prefabrication or energy analysis. It could be inferred that because of the methodology’s short time in most companies, these uses could be considered as advanced uses. Additionally, many respondents indicated that for the moment, they are using their models for visualization and with their expert’s point of views’ help, evaluate constructability. This study discovered that BIM is being practiced on medium to large size projects in Colombia and it is generally in the form of 2D and 3D collaboration rather than for integration of processes and information.
Figure 6. Percentage of BIM uses
4.2.
Use of BIM Features
4.2.1. Staff Training and Attitude
BIM users were asked about the percentage of skilled workers to work with BIM. As expected, 85.7% indicated that less than a quarter of their company is. Four respondents (9.4%) reported having between 25% and 75% skilled workers and finally, only 4.8% have indicated they have over 75%.
BIM users were asked whether their company has a BIM manager/coordinator, and a conclusive 69% of the respondents indicated that they do not, and 31% has incorporated this position on its payroll. Similarly, companies indicated that the knowledge of BIM is a not a determining factor at the recruitment process (69%), while 31% indicated that it is. During the follow-up interview one respondent pointed out that regardless of the BIM knowledge of the newly admitted, they train them on basic and advance modeling anyway so that all employees are at the same level and share the same modeling methods.
Regarding the attitudes generated by the changes, BIM users indicated that in most cases, workers felt motivated (81%) towards the new methodology and its tools. In contrast, 21.4% indicated a feeling of skepticism; however, some
0% 2% 2%
7% 11%
24% 31%
33%
44% 47%
56% 58% 58%
73%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Disaster Planning Digital Fabrication Asset Management Energy Analysis Site Analysis Engineering Analysis Phase Planning Record Model Desgin Reviews Existing Conditions Modeling Production of 2D Drawings Quantity Takeof and Cost Estimation Design Authoring 3D Coordination
indicated that their workers felt indifferent (14.3%) and some others, resigned (7.1%)1. Also, one respondent indicated
that at first some workers expressed skepticism, but after perceiving an optimization in some processes, they became motivated.
Respondents were also asked about how they consider their level of BIM expertise. Only a few consider themselves to have an advanced level (9.5%), 23.8% consider to be in at intermediate level, while 66.7% consider to be in a low level. This is an indication that the methodology and its tools are very new for the industry and that there is much work left.
It was considered important to know the training plan that BIM users have been following. At this point, just 23.8% of BIM users indicated they follow a plan, while 76.2% do not have a clear plan. During the interviews, one respondent expressed that due to bad experiences in modeling, they outsourced this process and they are focusing on learning how to appropriately implement methodologies and how to read the models. On the contrary, another respondent indicated that they have specialized training every 3 months and make internal self-training workshops. Another company trained a small group and it will be responsible for training their coworkers. As variate as the training plans are, there is a sense that continuous learning is a necesity for a BIM process to work.
4.2.2. Difficulties Encountered When Using 3D BIM
During the interviews, one respondent said that at modeling level, the lack of standardization manuals causes inadequate parameterization that leads to large errors, for example, in taking quantities off. Another respondent indicated that the most difficult point was to clarify design teams that the software is not one more drawing tool, and according to (Laakso & Kiviniemi, 2012), BIM goes beyond a simple visual representation of the building to an integrated semantic product constructed collaboratively by all participants in order to take the greatest advantage of the integration process. Likewise, a more BIM advanced respondent expressed that their collaborative work servers have collapsed only a few times; however, they have caused important delays and loss of work.
Similarly, some respondents pointed out that software development companies are evolving their products very independently, and it is generating interoperability errors that causes a great amount of rework. BIM data is intended to be readable, editable, and shared between various systems throughout the stages of the construction project and the entire lifecycle of the building (Laakso & Kiviniemi, 2012). This issue not only refers to interaction between 3D modeling software, but also with other types of software; for example, the transfer of information for Building Energy Modeling is still deficient in some cases and requires a very specific modeling process at the start to be able to transfer data (Prada-Hernandez, Rojas-Quintero, Vallejo-Borda, & Ponz-Tienda, 2015). Some of the respondents claim that they prefer to remodel the structure in different software to make analysis than to go through the process of transferring data.
4.2.3. Benefits of Using BIM Features
Respondents were asked about the benefits perceived of using BIM. A conclusive 98.6% of respondents indicated they have observed benefits from having implemented BIM. This was an open-ended and closed-eded question. Respondents had to express how strong did they agree or disagree with some proposed benefits, but they could also indicate from their own experience.
The most common benefit from Colombian companies, was an improvement in control of information; in reference to the platform for integrated information exchange through a single model. The second most common benefit was an improvement in accuracy of decision making; in one of the interviews, a company indicated that in the stage prior to design and construction they can assess different alternatives to choose the best option according to their expectations and goals, spending the same time as they usually do in this stage following their traditional methods. Another respondent indicated that they assess the constructability to choose the most appropriate construction methods in order to reduce or prevent errors, delays or cost overruns. The third most important benefit was an improvement in quality and project performance, by taking the same time they have managed to reach a better level of detail (LOD) both in design and construction.
Another benefit was collaboration increase between stakeholders. Even though respondents and interviewees indicated that Colombia is still far from fully collaborative project management, they affirmed that has been a difficult task, but they have perceived an integration among their own company with their suppliers or team members. Waste Reduction was definitely another observed advantage, but was not experienced by the majority of respondents. The most skilled with BIM tools are already acquiring the exact material quantities that their models are indicating, avoiding inaccurate 2D-based quantity takeoff and as a result, wrong budget calculations.
Last but not least, a reduction in construction costs was seen because according to one interviewee, the percentage of direct costs that covers the construction can be up to 50%. There would be compelling savings for the overall project if
Proceedings of the VII Elagec, 16 - 17 November 2016 | Bogotá, Colombia 7 specially builders realize about these benefits. Consequently, BIM implementation would boost faster within the industry. Some respondents indicated that even though most clients are not paying for implementing BIM into their projects, the benefits perceived (described above) are matching the implementation costs (software, hardware, servers and training).
4.3.
Barriers and Drivers of BIM Use
4.3.1. Barriers
According to the survey, most barriers identified worldwide to implement BIM are the same as the experienced in Colombia. However, in the country the impact and importance of them may differ in rates of importance compared to other places. On the one hand, resistance to changing standard processes ended up to be the most common reason both in the surveys and the interviews. Respondents emphasized that in Colombia, new processes, technologies and ways of working take up a few more time than in developed countries. Despite cases of studies have been presented worldwide in order to show the benefits of implementing BIM in construction projects, Colombian firms are still resisting to innovate their methodologies.
On the other hand, once a company in Colombia analyzes and studies the feasibility of implementing BIM inside their company and decides to use it, they have found later on that most of their suppliers do not use BIM or are just starting to explore its tools; as a result, the adoption process is still very slow. This also indicates that the BIM concept, tools and benefits are not yet spread enough in the country. Some respondents indicated that if the initiative does not come from companies’ executives, owners or managers, it is quite difficult to convince them to sponsor innovation since going across the learning curve can be time consuming and acquisition cost of hardware and software are very high.
Also, respondents expressed that training employees with the new software is a great challenge because national schools have both short supply and little experience teaching BIM tools and BIM management skills. Furthermore, they have also indicated that once they train their staff, they face the intrinsic risk of employee turnover. Some respondents claimed that due to the scarcity of these professionals in the industry, companies are especially appreciating the work done by these people, and are providing incentives to keep them motivated and working for them.
Finally, another great barrier in Colombia is that there is a lack of a standard and legal definition for BIM professional responsibilities. According to the study developed by Flórez et al. (2013) it was also observed that some of the requirements for implementing BIM, such as transparency, process efficiency and new decision making procedures, made the process particularly challenging for some actors in the supply chain. In addition to the difficulties experienced by the lack of standards for implementing BIM and modeling in Colombia.
4.3.2. Drivers
Besides the barriers identified above, respondents were asked about the BIM drivers in Colombia. Results show that the greatest difficulties to overcome are the challenges related to people. Primarily, fear of change is is still generating the need to have transparent, positive and realistic impacts of BIM implementation on their project’s ROI (Return Of Investment). This statement, evidently, comes from the project’s owner perspective. Then, in response to the barrier identified with respect to training, there is a clear message to the industry actors and universities, BIM modeling schools, and other educational centers: the more skilled people are to work with BIM tools in Colombia, the easier it is to lead to a widespread BIM implementation in the country.
Additionally, one respondent expressed direclty that the academy has the opportunity to establish a partnership with the AEC industry to publish a kind of " BIM newsletter in Colombia". This, in order to periodically publish real case studies, examples of best practices to maintain and improve the quality of information on models, BIM state-of-the-art in the world, national and international research results, etc. Consequently, AEC industry stakeholders would become more interested, would clarify and futher understand the BIM concept; moreover, they can recognize that a solid and well defined BIM implementation process is needed before the conversion can begin (although it needs to be periodically re-planned). Afterwards, one respondent expressed that due to an Autodesk Forum which was held abroad, his company started to inquire about the BIM benefits, and by next year they are expecting to have implemented BIM on all their projects.
Finally, 62% of BIM users have emphasized the importance of following an implementation and modeling standard to develop their projects; however, a national standard would drive more companies to implement BIM, specially to avoid inconsistencies when a project would be fully designed and developed through collaborative work. Hence, these are the
main BIM drivers identified in Colombia, further proposed solutions to apply each one of them may come up from the industry or the academy as a result of national pilot projects’ documentation or researches.
4.3.3. BIM encouragement
Respondents who were aware of BIM were also asked about who they think should encourage the use of BIM on a project. They could mark all of the given possible options. In Colombia, interestingly, most companies think that BIM implementation should be encouraged by the Project Management (90.1%); followed by the design team and the builder with 83.1 and 71.8%, respectively. Whereas the 62% indicated that the encouragement should come from the owner and about less than half of users (40.8%) consider that the Government should be taking the lead. This could be partially attributed to the fact that the great majority of BIM users indicated they work in the private sector.
However, during the follow-up interviews, some respondents indicated that in order to get a widespread BIM adoption in Colombia, the public-sector should be taking the lead. Nevertheless, they consider that the Government by itself is not going to take the first step; besides, the private sector is already ahead in BIM adoption. Therefore, Construction workers associations should approach the Government with a concrete proposal, where the diferent barriers identified before should have already had tested solutions. In contrast, another respontent indicated that this will work but will take a few more years to take place, yet, in a smaller scale, as a private they are already beginning to require their suppliers to implement BIM in order to work with them.
Moreover, smaller companies may not be benefited with stricts Governement requirements due to the elevated costs associated to the implementation. Therefore, there should be an incentive system promoted by the Government to help these companies who can not afford but want to implement BIM. For example, the Building & Construction Authority in Singapore created the BIM Fund, which provides incentives to construction firms to adopt BIM (Teo et al., 2016) in order to help them to overcome the challenge of obtaining the financial resources (BCA – Building and Construction Authority, 2015). Still, the Colombian Government together with Colciencias, have an initiative with a similar purpose. They are granting recognition to units of Research, Technological Development or Business Innovation (I+D+i) as actors of the National System of Science, Technology and SNCTI innovation so that they can directly access to tax deductions referred to in the Tax Statute (Article 158-1) (COLCIENCIAS, 2016). This is not a direct BIM funding program, but after innovate workflows inside a company, tax savings can cover the costs of having implemented BIM.
4.4.
Nonusers of BIM
4.4.1. Perception of BIM
Non BIM users were asked about why their companies have not implemented any BIM tool. The most frequent answer was that there was not a customer requirement (72.4%). Which allows inferring that to carry out a widespread BIM implementation in Colombia, cases of study and an implementation roadmap must be shown to the owners/clients. Also, most respondents and interviewees indicated that there is great potential for growth in the use of BIM, but there is still a lack of trained professionals (58.6%) and, therefore, they have to assume the costs of training their new staff, which was another reason selected also by 58.6% of the non BIM users. The vast majority of companies that indicated they knew what BIM is, but do not use it, are still young in the industry (less than 5 years); therefore, it is evident that the cost of the software and hardware represents a barrier for those companies (41.4%), coupled with the uncertainty of licensing costs given the volatility of the dollar. Some others indicated that they see no added value in its implementation (24.1%). And one respondent indicated that the BIM concept continues to be very diffuse within the industry and they are not sure about its benefits.
4.5.
Some Further Observations
Respondents who were aware of BIM were asked about their current and future BIM usage. Those who were unaware of BIM were excluded. 100% of the respondents aware of BIM predicted that in the next 10 years (i.e. by 2026) they would be using BIM. 42% said that they are likely to adopt BIM in the next year, 66% that they would be using it in two years’ time; whereas 82% forecasted to be using it in 5 year’s time. This trend shows the great significance that BIM has in Colombia where the level of awareness and the technological advances in a mature market are driving the professionals to actually adopt BIM in their day to day practices.
5.
Conclusions
As research results show, BIM level of adoption in Colombia is relatively low compared to other more developed countries. BIM maturity can be stated to be between level 0 and level 1 (BIM Industry Working Group (BIWG), 2011),
Proceedings of the VII Elagec, 16 - 17 November 2016 | Bogotá, Colombia 9 being more inclined towards level 0. Bogotá is the most advanced city in BIM implementation. There is a noticeable shift from 2D drawings to 3D visualization models, but the most important components are still lacking: integration, full collaboration and use of interoperable data. More than 98% of respondents from Colombian companies indicated that although it has been difficult, benefits were perceived after the implementation of BIM. Improved information management, improved accuracy of decision making and increased of integration among teams were the main benefits identified.
In Colombia, the main barrier identified to the adoption of new workflows and technologies is the resistance to change of the industry actors. It is highly recommended to have a clear target from the beginning and to take progressive steps towards it. Also, there must be a proliferation of the concept and use in technical designers and suppliers because it was also identified to hinder BIM implementation. There is a scarcity of professionals within the industry. It is recommended to educational institutions to modify their current program/project management courses and specializations, and include in their undergraduate and master’s level, BIM management as a new methodoloy to increase integration from the project’s conception onward. Also, there is a great need of skilled people to model and manage information directly from the models.
In order to clarify the BIM concept and how it should be succesfully implemented, an education plan among all industry actors is required, as well as successful stories socialization and good practices are also essential to promote implementation. Creation of working groups in the industry is proposed, so that there is continuous learning so mistakes can be avoided and difficulties overcomed together. Similarly, the creation of a kind of BIM Committee would result to be very useful; detached from any software developer, motivated by the need to promote the entry of industry in the management of this system, to guide this process in an orderly and scheduled manner. A better understanding of the behavior of BIM adoption among owners will lead them to require the methodology on their projects. This will facilitate raising BIM adoption rates among the rest of the industry. The need for teams to work remotely but remain connected are factors pushing the construction industry to discover new opportunities for increasing efficiency and productivity.
International experiences show that if the Government promotes BIM adoption through legislation and incentives for those who want to use it, a faster expansion would be achieved. However, this reasearch’s result suggested that the initiative must come from the private sector, who really are the ones that have experienced previous implementation difficulties. Also the academy has a significant role to play in this aspect, not only by modifying their curriculums but also by, for example, promoting sponsoring forums, seminars or standarization strategies through research. Nevertheless the absolute success would come from, as well as in BIM itself, the integration of all parties involved and addecuate articulation of knowledge, experience and capacity for action.
6.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the anonymous companies who took the time to complete the survey and those companies who granted the interviews. The authors wish also like to acknowledge the support provided by the Research Group of Engineering and Construction Management (INGECO) at Universidad de los Andes in the preparation of this paper.
7.
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