A Research Review on Building Information Modeling in Construction―An Area Ripe for IS Research

Abstract

This article presents a review of the research on Building Information Modeling (BIM) in construction, with the aim of identifying areas in this domain where IS research can contribute. The concept of BIM comprises an infrastructure of IT tools supporting collaborative and integrated design, assembly, and operation of buildings. This integrated construction approach, with all stakeholders editing or retrieving information from commonly shared models, requires major changes to well-established processes, organizational roles, contractual practices, and collaborative arrangements in the construction industry. Through a review of 264 research articles on BIM, we found that this research spans a wide area of technological and organizational topics, of which many have a clear resonance to focal areas in IS research. Our analysis shows that IS, to some extent, serves as a reference discipline and that theories used in IS research are also informing contemporary BIM research. The following areas in need of further IS research were identified: studies on the relationship between BIM's functional affordance and human agency, adoption and use of BIM for inter-organizational collaboration, the influence of organizational culture on BIM practices, the capabilities of BIM for transforming industry practice, and identifying the business value of BIM. Considering that a well-established knowledge base in IS research can be drawn upon for studying these issues, combined with the exciting potential of BIM for transforming a major industry such as building construction, we conclude that BIM is an area ripe for IS research.Buildings are typically one-off products made specifically to a customer's order, and the construction is executed as project-based work. Traditionally, construction design services are delivered by multiple organizations where each party prepares a set of paper drawings covering their area of expertise. Design services to construction projects are provided by architects, structural engineers, electrical engineers, plumbing and ventilation engineers, landscape architects, construction firms, and specialized subcontractors, among others. This practice implies that, for simple construction projects, hundreds of paper drawings are produced. These paper drawings are traditionally managed and distributed by the respective contractor's site management.Virtual modeling technologies became applicable for the AEC industry in the late 1990s. At that time, the term Building Information Modeling (BIM) was coined to describe these technologies [Isikdag and Underwood, 2010a]. Moreover, Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) is a term frequently used to describe product and process Volume 31Article 10

Collaboration in BIM-based construction networks: A bibliometric-qualitative literature review

“…Anecdotal evidence in the literature e.g. , Mignone et al, 2016, Merschbrock and Munkvold, 2012, Liu et al, 2016 have referred to such a gap in the body of knowledge on collaboration in BbCNs.…”

“…These studies were reviewed individually from which none were targeting collaboration in BbCNs. Investigation of this island revealed that included studies are for the most part allocated to applications and implementation of BIM within the industry (Yalcinkaya andSingh, 2015, Merschbrock andMunkvold, 2012). As such, it could be inferred from Figure 3 that none of influential studies in BIM have targeted collaboration.…”

“…This points to the fact that influential outlets hitherto have been highly tools/technology-oriented where outlets allocated to management, professional issues, education and construction-related journals have had by far a lower share on influencing BIM research associated with collaboration. As contended by Merschbrock and Munkvold (2012) much of BIM research is driven by the technological imperative perspective.…”

Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Structural Engineering: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Literature

“…e scope of the research questions depends on the type of the study. erefore, according to Merschbrock and Munkvold [68] and Arksey and O'Malley [69], this study is a scoping study and designed to examine the available journal articles and to determine the range of spreading and usage of BIM and new trends of BIM developments in structural engineering. e research question is formulated as "What is known from the existing literature about the applications of BIM methodology and tools in structural engineering?…”

On being ‘Systematic’ in Literature Reviews in IS

“…Furthermore, some articles misattributed SLRs, conducting a traditional literature review but calling it a 'SR' without any further discussion of what they meant by this (e.g., Guillemette and Paré, 2012;Merschbrock and Munkvold, 2012).…”