Critical success factors for BIM implementation: a Malaysian case study

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aimed to identify critical success factors (CSFs) of building information modeling (BIM) implementation among architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) firms in Malaysia using quantitative statistical methods.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was conducted on the population of all AEC firms in Malaysia to rank the relative importance of 15 success factors (SFs) for BIM implementation in the firm on a 5-point Likert scale. The sampling frame consisted of all members registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) from which 184 responses were received. The distinction between SFs and CSFs was achieved by a normalized mean cutoff value. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to determine the relative groupings of the CSFs and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to examine the underlying relationships between the CSF groupings.FindingsResults of this study validated 11 previously identified CSFs for successful implementation of BIM among Malaysian AEC firms. Non-technical factors such as management, leadership and coordination were found to have higher relevance compared to technical factors such as software and hardware. Ranking analysis of the CSFs found internal coordination factors to have more importance compared to external coordination factors. PCA revealed 4 principal components (PCs) from the 11 CSFs. Together, these four PCs explain 74.3% of the variance in the data. Also, six hypothesized relationships between these groupings were supported using PLS-SEM.Research limitations/implicationsThis study found an interaction between internal and external coordination factors for the implementation of BIM. Future research could explore the dynamics of both intra- and inter-firm coordination, which may create an environment suitable for BIM implementation.Practical implicationsThis study provides Malaysian AEC firms with a general strategy on how to approach the implementation of BIM within the firm. In addition, government initiatives should focus on increasing BIM competency of graduates entering the workforce. This can be achieved through the development of a national BIM curriculum. Apart from that, the implementation of BIM requires a radical shift in the traditional building delivery process, not just simply acquiring new software and hardware.Originality/valueThis study revealed that the interactions between different firms at the industry level can influence successful implementation of BIM at the firm level. CSFs for BIM implementation at the firm level have been extensively studied. However, few studies exist which explore the inter-firm collaborations at the industry level that facilitate successful BIM implementation.

BIM implementation: an empirical validation for a four-wheel model

“…More precise characteristics of BIM commitment have been uncovered by Olugboyega and Windapo (2019), which define BIM commitment as the whole dedication of construction organisations' top management to BIM adaption, adoption, application and execution. Investigations such as Munir et al (2020) and Sinoh et al (2020) have highlighted top management commitment as a significant driving force for BIM adoption, lending support to the argument for BIM commitment as an essential component of a BIM implementation strategy. Based on this context, this study develops a hypothesis stating that BIM commitment is important for increasing the proportion of BIM adoption (Hypothesis 3).…”

Root factors limiting BIM implementation in developing countries: sampling the Turkish AEC industry

“…Unlike previous research, this study revealed the original root factor of LBE. Although the importance of BIM education has been highlighted in previous studies (Sinoh et al, 2020;Elmalı and Bayram, 2022), there is no existing research that evaluates and incorporates the lack of BIM education as a latent factor at former researches. Some previous studies (Chan et al, 2019a(Chan et al, , 2019bLiao et al, 2019) have addressed this issue within the context of training.…”

“…Although the use of BIM is rapidly increasing worldwide, it is still in its beginning phase in Turkey (Aladag et al, 2016;Simsek and Uzun, 2021) like in other developing countries. According to Antwi-Afari et al (2018), developing countries, such as India (Nanajkar, 2014;Ahuja et al, 2016), Singapore (Liao and Teo, 2017), Nigeria (Amuda-Yusuf, 2018; Olanrewaju et al, 2020;Olugboyega and Windapo, 2021), Iraq (Hatem et al, 2018), China (Zhang et al, 2020;Tu et al, 2021;Zhao and Wu, 2017;Zhou et al, 2019), Iran (Hosseini et al, 2016), Jordan (Btoush and Haron, 2017), and Malaysia (Rogers et al, 2015;Yaakob et al, 2016;Sinoh et al, 2020), the implementation of BIM is lagging. However, significant attempts have been made to investigate the limiting causes of BIM implementation and how BIM can be adapted to the construction industries in developing countries (Shahruddin et al, 2022;Sinoh et al, 2020).…”

“…The remaining studies adopted quantitative methods, composing a questionnaire with a literature review and analysing the data using descriptive statistics (Gnah and John, 2015), different ranking techniques (Chan et al, 2019a, b;Amuda-Yusuf, 2018), and hypothesis tests with few exceptions. Some scholars have used different methods, such as interpretive structural modelling (Tan et al, 2019), and structural equation modelling (Park et al, 2019;Sinoh et al, 2020). Several studies reviewed the literature to compose the questionnaire; however, a systematic review has not been conducted.…”

“…Several studies reviewed the literature to compose the questionnaire; however, a systematic review has not been conducted. Only a few studies have used systematic reviews (Sinoh et al, 2020). It is evident from this brief review that there have been several attempts at BIM studies; however, these efforts have failed to provide an extensive analysis of the root factors that limit BIM implementation.…”