Designing Building Information Modeling Process and Support

Building Information Modeling (BIM) describes an object-oriented, digital representation of a building which enables interoperability and data exchange, supporting a building’s life-cycle from design to deconstruction. With BIM becoming more and more important in the industry, eliminating issues supports the collaboration between various professions such as architects, civil engineers, building scientists and facility management. This work examines data from an experiment held at the Vienna University of Technology in which groups of students developed a building using different combinations of BIM software and the BIM approach. Data was gathered using focus group interviews and questionnaires on technology acceptance and team performance and is analysed using content analysis and quantitative analysis. Results show that problems arise both with inter-disciplinary collaboration caused by deficiencies with communication and with BIM software regarding interoperability between solutions for different professions. Following the analysis, suggestions for improvement of both process and software are formulated which should help save time and costs in future BIM projects.