Accelerating the Implementation of BIM by Integrating the Developments Made in Knowledge Management: An Irish Construction Industry Perspective

Growth Of Bim Internationally And In Ireland

The research conducted by Bernstein et al. (2010) in assessing the proliferation of BIM application to construction projects in North America and Western Europe (UK, Germany, and France) highlighted the disparity of development of BIM in these two regions with 49% in North America compared to 36% in Western Europe. Within these headline figures a number of interesting underling results were apparent. 34% of Western Europe BIM users have in excess of 5 years’ experience of working with BIM in comparison to 18% of North American users. The strongest uptake for BIM in North America is currently among contractors at 50% whereas in Western Europe this figure is at 24% with France at 26% uptake among contractors. The research further analysed the results between UK, Germany, and France. Here it is evident that the usage is consistent across all three with between 35-38%. The aspects of BIM considered most valuable are consistent:

• 1.

  Reduced conflicts during construction;

• 2.

  Improved collective understanding of design intent;

• 3.

  Reduced changes during construction;

• 4.

  Improved overall project quality.

The future expected adaption of BIM on projects is shown as a growth area both in North America and Western Europe.

For example, in the UK in 2012 the National Building Standards (Waterhouse, 2012) presented their findings on their survey of the construction industry's attitudes towards BIM. Their findings are consistent with research (Bernstein et al., 2010) showing continued growth in awareness of BIM and in the application of BIM on projects. There was also consistency in the aspects seen as most valuable from BIM:

• 1.

  Improves visualisation;

• 2.

  Increases of coordination of construction documentation.

Redmond et al. (2012) identified the main features of BIM as its ability to share synchronised information from multiple users on a single project.