Introduction

The global construction industry and its market has been increasing and acting as an important factor in development by creating investment and opportunities. An industry consists of the Real estate as well as the Urban development segment and it has many sub-segments too.

The construction industry is …

The second-largest employer in India in 2017

Second largest FDI recipient sector for India in 2020-21

Industry Scenario

• By 2025, the construction market in India is expected to emerge as the third-largest globally.
• By 2025, the construction output is expected to grow on average by 7.1% each year.

The Construction Industry is expected to reach $1.4 Tn by 2025 (Source: NIPFA).

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Successful projects are often defined and reflected as, projects which have realistic planning, scheduling, ultimately which are delivered within time and budget without compromising the design and quality standards.

The introduction of BIM has been brought about due to a requirement for increased sustainability and productivity within the construction industry (BIS, 2011)

What is BIM

“Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a process that begins with creating an intelligent 3D design model and then uses that model to facilitate more efficient design and documentation, better coordination, simulation, and visualization.  

BIM can help owners and service providers improve how buildings and infrastructure are planned, designed, built and managed” (Source: Autodesk).

“BIM is essentially value creating collaboration through the entire life-cycle of an asset, underpinned by the creation, collation and exchange of shared three dimensional (3D) models and intelligent, structured data attached to them.”(What is BIM? UK Building Information Modelling Task Group, 2013)

5D BIM

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BIM is a strategic process that involves both new technology and new ways of working.5D BIM enables ease of financial decisions across the project. It has the potential to estimate and explore different scenarios related to costs in projects. 5D BIM provides automatic quantity take-offs and will give an accurate cost of the project at different stages. It also allows professionals to give instantaneous inputs whenever there is a change in the design, Then also it will give cost estimates based on the change.

Generally in the construction industry cost management is followed under effective administration and communication. With the help of 5D BIM, it’s proved that along with these, It also helps in controlling and reduction of operational costs and production expenses in order to save and make fewer expenses to the parties.

The key element to BIM is the process. If all participants are set up correctly for the alignment of BIM implementation plans, protocols, and processes, the project will be set for success.

Being a booming technology in the industry, BIM provides both challenges and opportunities.

The development and implementation of 5D BIM is gaining momentum and leading-edge project cost management technology.

Firms are starting to realize the competitive advantages by embracing this 'new-age approach to cost management. Such as cost estimation by increasing the clear communication and collaboration between multiple stakeholders.

Through automatic quantification, human error and inaccurate drawing interpretation during measurement will be eliminated. Researchers discuss that this will increase efficiency as it will avoid the time-consuming and duplicate process of estimators quantifying what designers have already produced, reporting that manual quantification can take 50 – 80% of the time during cost estimation.

Methodology

There are different parameters incorporated into BIM in the following stages.

The collection and input of building information into a 3D model.

This is the first stage, it starts with clients briefing on their requirements that leads to an initial proposal

The initial design that comply to the specified requirements

This is the second stage, it will start after the client is satisfied with the initial design and specified requirements. Quantity surveyors or cost engineers will input the information for cost estimation into the 3D model. The cost estimation is done by automating the quantification of building elements with unit price.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Project managers will create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for all types of construction activities. Since the integration is done with BIM, it can cater to a huge amount of information, with WBS containing more levels compared to a conventional system. Some of the critical factors such as construction method, human resources, material procurement, and supply will affect the project time schedule. At this stage, all the necessary information is integrated as 5D BIM (BIM 5D JETIRA006302).  

Result

5D = 3D + COST

Advantages

• Visualization
• Collaboration
• Project conceptualization
• Accurate cost estimation and Forecasting
• Detailed Quantity take-offs
• The efficiency of takeoffs during the detailed cost plan stage
• Value engineering
• Understanding cost and cost /value analysis
• Risk identification etc.
• Assistance in changing of resource and material procurement etc.

Challenges

• Software Compatibility
• A lack of software compatibility restricts the use of BIM, which may indicate that lack of interoperability is an obstacle to the use of 5D BIM.
• 5D Setup Costs, i.e. Software, Training & Hardware Costs
• To get the full potential results of BIM we must have the technical and tool knowledge with sufficient software resources. A strong training requirement associated with BIM implementation, which, although time-consuming and difficult, is considered critical to BIM’s adoption.
• Lack of Integration in the Model  
• A lack of integration in BIM models decreases the reliability and effectiveness of 5D. Where parties in the industry are said to work separately, and as a result, this also separates the information required for BIM - is thought to be a major barrier to 5D BIM implementation.
• Fragmented Nature of the Construction Industry
• The fragmented nature of the construction industry limits the potential of BIM. 5D BIM requires the collaboration, database integration, and commitment of companies to the use of BIM software, as these areas are still in a separated and fragmented state, it further limits the effectiveness of 5D BIM.

Conclusion

It is clear that the BIM implementation is a new way of working and it is rapidly developing by bringing advanced tools and technologies to the construction industry.

In this modern era the complexity of projects and processes is increasing hence we need the digital transformation and adoption of these types of technologies. Many research studies have shown that generally, the cost consultants are aware of BIM but there is an overall lack of true understanding of exactly what it is. So the researchers showed that there is still a requirement for technical, software, and BIM process training in order to work and to get the full potential benefits of BIM.