Purpose – There is a growing requirement for a rating system of building information modelling maturity (BIMM) to compare the effectiveness of modelling processes in construction projects. The literature related to BIMM contains theoretical proposals and description of their maturity models. However, the research efforts are limited and lacking substantial theoretical and empirical justifications. This paper is a unique attempt to integrate previous models by performing empirical investigations of key factors for measuring BIMM in construction projects. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A national survey was designed to extract the perception of 124 BIM-related practitioners and academicians about the conceptual model. Then, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to identify and test the key factors underlying the 27 areas. Findings – A principal component factor analysis of the collected data had suggested a five-factor model, which explained 69.839 per cent of the variance. The construct validity of the model was further tested by confirmatory factor analysis. The results indicated that all factors were important in measuring BIMM; however, compared with the factors of technology and people, more emphasis was put on the factors of process and information. Originality/value – The key value of the paper is to increase the understanding of multi-dimension nature of BIMM through empirical evidence and to provide practitioners and researchers with the insight regarding particular emphasis on the factors related to modelling process and information.

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Building Information Modeling (BIM) is facilitating a procedural change for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry to share information in all the phases of the life cycle of a building. It possesses great advantages in designing, analyzing, and documenting all physical and functional information of a building and construction project. Structural analysis is an integral part of the life cycle phases of building construction projects. The information needed for structural analysis originates from the architectural model, but the architectural model can be created without much consideration of structural analysis. Software tools used by architects and structural engineers are usually different and sustain information inconsistency and or missing information leading to software interoperability problems. As the first step towards addressing this issue, in this paper, the authors conducted a preliminary literature review in order to identify topics and trends on the BIM interoperability problem with a focus on the structural analysis domain, from both the theoretic perspective and the application perspective. Structural analysis is performed and discussed in the following sections to demonstrate interoperability problems and propose possible solutions.

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Computer technologies have great potential to improve management practices in the construction industry. However, the exchange of information during the construction phases of a facility is still primarily paper-based. This paper presents a GIS-based integrated visual database model that allows for effective use of computer technologies for communication, project documentation, and knowledge sharing throughout the life-cycle of a facility. The model allows for (1) accessing and retrieving construction information related to a certain construction element; (2) reporting and providing feedback from the field on the work progress, quality assurance, and inspection; and (3) evaluating the performance of the construction crews and generating cost and historical data for future reference. The proposed model is built using GIS as the base platform, and uses the 2D visual representation of the construction element as the least common denominator. The paper also reports the results of an initial evaluation of the model on a construction project.