EVALUATING BIM EXECUTION PLANNING ELEMENTS AND THEIR ALIGNMENT TO INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT STANDARDS

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) adoption continues to increase throughout the design and construction process. Planning for the implementation of BIM must be performed to achieve success, including defining responsibilities, performing coordination processes, and planning technologies to be implemented. A BIM Execution Plan (BEP) aids parties in the process of planning and managing a collaborative BIM process. There are already several standards developed for creating a BEP including the U.S. National BIM Standard and the ISO 19650 Part 2 standard. There are also well-developed BEP templates containing important information for supporting BIM implementation. Yet there remains a challenge of developing a current, standard list of elements that should be incorporated into a BEP at various stages of project procurement and delivery.

This research focused on developing a core list of required and optional BEP content elements based upon a detailed review of existing publications and requirements documents along with focus group meetings with industry experts. An initial detailed content analysis was performed of 17 existing guideline and requirements documents. This was followed by detailed discussions with experts in the U.S. National BIM Standard BEP Workgroup to identify the elements that should be required in a BEP at various stages. Finally, these elements were mapped to the ISO 19650 Part 2 framework and additional elements were suggested based upon this analysis.

The results of this research are a detailed analysis along with a categorical listing of specific items that are suggested to be incorporated into a U.S. BIM standard for BEPs. In total, 17 sections of the BEP are developed, 189 elements are identified, 105 elements are considered as new from the analysis and BEP WG discussions, and 84 elements were from the previous BEP version. These elements are further categorized as required or optional at three stages of project delivery, 1) the owner’s request for proposal template BEP, 2) the proposer’s response BEP, and 3) the collaborative Project BEP. At the end, 97 elements are categorized as required and 92 as optional for the collaborative Project BEP.