BIM and Construction Planning Research Papers (original) (raw)

A concern that project managers share is that despite the management protocols, processes, and tools contained in the Project Management Body of Knowledge® (PMBOK®), considerable resources are still spent every year correcting and adding to non-standard data needed by any or all stakeholders, team members, designers, and project owners. As well, facility and project history must be maintained A number of new tools and standards around Building Information Modelling (BIM), common data environments (CDE) and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) were just beginning to see wider use and acceptance in the Project Management community as the Fifth Edition PMBOK® was issued, thus guidance on these topics was not necessarily included explicitly. This study queried the project management community for input and probed thoughts around various external BIM guidance to develop a preliminary process to integrate Information Management (IM) tools into each of the Knowledge areas and propose to develop an Information Management Framework into the PMBOK® and its Construction Extension (CE) as a new Knowledge Area, or KA.
An online survey, paper questionnaire, and formatted interview sheet were prepared with focused questions and deployed to assess the degree of insight around several broad PM topics concerning Information Management (IM) and IM formatting compatibility. As well, respondents were asked to share any information they cared to, about what guidance or procedures they used, anecdotes on what worked well or didn’t work in practice, thoughts on BIM, CDE, and their exposure to any or all. In addition, respondents’ familiarity with existing guidance details in the PMBOK® and CE were probed and used to gauge what future work might be required to reach the end goal of adding robust support and guidance for BIM, IM, and CDE.
Data suggested the respondents felt that more IM guidance was needed and could be added to the PMBOK® and CE that a separate KA addressing process, procedure, tools, and collaborative procedures could be included and raised the possibility of modifying and updating information in existing KAs to integrate IM more explicitly. All suggested IM needed to be robustly managed from facility cradle-to-grave. Some indicated support for more inclusion of process for explicit collaboration support. As well, perceived lacks in the PMBOK® and CE with respect to Communications and records-keeping were highlighted, along with the recognition of digital tools, workspaces, and procedures as primary project criteria to keep in mind as contracts are initiated, negotiated, and executed. Finally, respondents offered anecdotes illustrating experiences on previous projects, speaking to familiarity with or to limited to the routine use of BIM, Common Data Environments (CDE), and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management. Some respondents suggested that inclusion of real-world examples of the process might be particularly useful, as well.
The study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing enough information to build a skeleton outline of best practices in digital data management, which may be used to construct a digital data management knowledge area for inclusion in the PMBOK® and its construction extension, and build a foundation for collection of examples, case studies, and process around the larger area of Information Management.