International Journals of Advanced Research in
Computer Science and Software Engineering
Research Article
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
June
2017
Describing the Role of Building Information Modelling1 and
Integrated Project Delivery2 in Iran Construction Projects
and Their Role to Solve Conventional Problems of
Construction Industry
Homa Bahmani*
Architecture and Urban Design Faculty of Shahid Beheshti University,
Iran
Rapid population increasing in Iran necessitates applying better construction methods for providing residences and
urban facilities for people. Nowadays, the old- fashioned approaches in Iran construction projects are being used
which brought difficulties for stakeholders who are beneficiaries from design and construction phase to operation
step. Using such new technologies as Building Information Modelling with regarding to local needs and current
facilities and getting help from more efficient project delivery methods like Integrated Project Delivery will make more
qualified projects. The main aim of this article is to evaluate the basic information and experience about IPD and
BIM in Iran construction industry and the abilities and strong points which can be provided by simultaneous use of
BIM and IPD. Identification and classification potential and usual difficulties in construction projects besides
recognizing BIM and IPD capabilities illustrate whether BIM and IPD will be as remedy for solving these errors or
not. The research is on the basis of literature review and a designed questionnaire which was distributed among
consultants and contractors. The final analysis of surveys has been presented in diagrams showing the role of BIM
and IPD in Iran construction industry.
Keywords— Building Information Modelling, Integrated Project Delivery, Integration management, Construction
Problems, Iran Construction Projects.
I.
INTRODUCTION
The first step is to know about BIM and IPD and their characteristics which make them desirable knowledge in
worldwide construction projects. On the other hand, studying communication management and integration management
broaden the perspective and bring us a comprehensive perception about qualified projects. Subsequently, a designed
questionnaire with help of a brochure about BIM and IPD will be research assistance tools gathering information for
analyzing. The literature review and research method will be explained in following sections.
II.
LITERATURE REVIEW
II.1.BIM& IPD:
On the basis of Auto desk report in2008, Building Information Modelling creates, manages and conducts.
Categorizing information in a special category by BIM causes information sharing, facilitate other project team members
for creative collaboration and integrating in their activities. Besides, BIM guarantees the information cohesion in an
information platform; As a result, changes will be updated automatically and match to other parts. On the other hand,
BIM has a great capability to save and store information and being accessible for future use by any special company or
industry. BIM can be considered as a strong communication bridgeamong different rules. ( Kraatz, et al., 2014)
In an ideal Building Information Modelling:
 Architectural and structural design work together as a union model; It should be whether a single model or
consisting related components.
 The model will send to contractor and construction team to subjoin professional details while the revision and
change phase.
 Working with the real model, BIM can be regulated in a manner to show the changes accruing in workshop.
 The revised model can be shared with owner and facility administrators. This model contains required
information for the building operation which has to share with operators.(Krigiel & Nies, 2008).
1
BIM
2
IPD
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
The construction industry still exhibits a low maturity in BIM use since no significant changes in the traditional
business model accompany the introduction of new tools. However, to maximize the benefits of this technology, a variety
of organizational, procedural, and technical issues are needed to be addressed. In the survey conducted by the McGraw
Hill on BIM adoption, not enough demand for BIM from clients was identified as a main factor. Strong leadership of
public clients in the US might partly explain the significant gap in BIM adoption that exists between the US and the
Canadian industries. In contrast to 30% moderate BIM users in the Canadian construction industry, US have crossed the
adoption gap with a degree of adoption of nearly 50% in 2009, viewing the adoption of BIM as an excellent return on
investment. (Porwal & Hewage, 2013).
fig1- Partnering- collaborative organization (Thomassen, 2011)
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a method ofmanaging large-scale construction and developmentprojects. It is
formal collaboration that occurs throughoutthe design, planning, and execution phases of a project.
The goals of IPD are to assist owners, designers and constructors in reducing waste, cutting costs, and improving
productivity.(Benedict D & David J, 2012)
Overcoming barriers to IPD implementation has been a recent focus of research. This research identified four major
industry barriers: legal (appropriate contract structures), financial (shared risk and reward), cultural (trust and teamwork),
andinteroperability between participants) technological).
In another research, the result shows that "honesty, Respect and good work relationships" cause to a successful IPD.
The other result indicates that not also financial incentives are not the most important factors for accelerating
collaboration, but also widespread cultural changes among people are required.(Benedict D & David J, 2012)
II.2.Obstacle for using IPD in Iran:
According to the previous (Shah Hosseini, et al., 2012) barriers for implementing IPD in Iran was indicated:
Table 1- Obstacles for Using IPD In Iran (Shah Hosseini, et al., 2012)
Description
Priority
IPD contract was not identical in Iran
1
Lack of BIM application in Iran
2
Governmental regulations and lack of the possibility of holding
tenders by traditional methods
3
Not enough trust between project stakeholders
4
Employers and contractors unfamiliarity with IPD
5
Creating a culture of cooperation between stakeholders
6
Need for strong leadership from the employer
7
The continuity of individual interests
8
Problems in Determining the target cost
9
Some differences from traditional methods include team formation protocol, process,communications, technology
use, and interplay. IPD is relatively new and not yet widely accepted within the industry. The centrepiece of an integrated
project delivery is the project team and its members. “Building upon early contributions of individual expertise, these
teams are guided by principles of trust, transparent processes, effective collaboration, open information sharing, and team
success tied to project success, shared risk and reward, value-based decision making, and utilization of full technological
capabilities and support”.(Benedict D & David J, 2012).
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
Figure 2- Relationship between project phases, stages of project integration implementation and BIM's multi-dimensional
modelling (Bahmani, 2017)
In Figure 2, the phases of project implementation were aligned with the process of integrated project design. In this
part, all parts of the project integrated design have been overlapped with four main project phases including: conception,
development, implementation and conclusion indicating integration at all stages of the project. Continuous BIM entrance
in integrated design phases was evaluated in each level. This figure illustrates the facilitator role of BIM while using IPD
which could bring about more integration(Bahmani, 2017)
Table 2- BIM support to achieve IPD characteristics (Azhar, et al., 2014)
IPD Characteristics Supported
BIM Properties
CDMC, JDVG
Consistency and accuracy ofdata
CDMC, JDVG
Design visualization
SRR,JDVG
Ease of quantity takeoff
EIKP,JDVG,MPC
Multi-user collaboration
CDMC,SRR,JDVG
Energy efficiency and sustainability
CDMC, JDVG,SRR
Reporting
EIKP: Involving the team including designer, constructor and trade contractors’ right from the beginning of the project
to help the owners to crystallize the project’s goals and objectives from very early on and collaborate throughout the
project.
SRR: Participating team members mutually shares the benefit of achieving project targets and simultaneously bears the
risk of missing the targeted cost (schedule and quality)
MPC: The parties sign a single integrated agreement that clearly sets defines the role and responsibilities of all team
members.
CDMC: The parties need to agree upon a clear and specific set of criteria for decision-making and control of project,
which can be established according to the owner’s goal for the project.
LWKP: Contracted parties waive any claim amongst themselves except for in the instance of a willful default to
reinforce the sense of unity and a collaborative environment.
JDVG: Owner, with the help of the project team clearly defines achievable goals and benchmarks for measuring them.
Risk and rewards are associated with achieving the set targets(Azhar, et al., 2014).
II.3.Project Communication Planning and Integration management:
To understand the requirements of aproject communication plan, two needs should be known: the need to understand
what the project would require from its communication system and the need to know what communication methods and
communication styles might be used to effectively address these requirements. The ways to promote communication are
to ensure that reports reach members in time; to make use of planned times when members gather and speak; and to
ensure that communication records are available for team members. Poor communication during projects affects the
schedule, the cost, the safety of workers and the project quality. Improved communication by the project manager may
lead to less failure, innovation and technical solutions, positively influencing the quality and leading to better decision
making.(Zulch, 2014).
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
CommunicationCharacteristics are:
 Systems don’t integrate, people do. The individual and project team members, working with an external
contingent of support people and stakeholders, are the beginning of integration. The way people who work in a
project environment think about their roles, responsibilities, and tasks creates the conditions for integration.
Integration thinking means that as people perform their functions; their behaviours reflect an awareness of
impacts on other team members and on other product components, and most importantly on the customer’s
satisfaction with the outcome.
 Forward integration means that communication and connection is focused forward on producing deliverables
and creating customer satisfaction, not necessarily to bring a project back to its original plan.
 Top management builds the culture and mechanisms for successful connection and integration, involving
extensive coordination by a centralized program and project management function that works to avoid
disconnected efforts throughout the enterprise.
 Integration means integrity. There is a connection between integrity, e.g., producing what you promise and
doing it in a professional and ethical way, and integration, making sure required connections occur at the right
time. The outcome, product, or service has integrity because it is integrated.
 Accountability requires integration; new requirements, including the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, demand top
management fiscal accountability, making financial and work performance integration imperative.
 Integration begins at the business level. New forces require a new way of thinking about business itself, business
strategy and operations, projects, and markets. These forces come about from developing changes in the
landscape of business management, most notably at the global level; integration now occurs across
geographical, economic, political, and system boundaries as never before.
 The “regime” of business, the whole business enterprise system, is also changing as more and more middle and
small businesses surface and disappear with the tides of business fortune. How does a business organization,
designed as it is to grow and profit through serving customers, assure that it plays in the regime of business
fairly and with integrity? Such a business plays by the rules not just to avoid regulatory and government
interference, but because the business equates success with integrity.(Bruce, 2006).
Figure3- assessment of BIM effects on integration among project technologies (Bahmani, 2017)
In fig 3, the role of BIM on system integrity used in the project life cycle is examined. As described in the literature,
multidirectional BIM modeling capabilities at each level which can add a new dimension to the previous level is
conducive for the promotion of BIM applications. This capability enhancement will continue to the levels of project
implementation, facility management and maintenance leading to integration of the technology used in the project
(traditionally employer, designer and contractor), which is itself part of the model (Bahmani, 2017).
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this research, for gathering information, such methods as using library resources, having interview with
Industrial Experts and codifying questionnaires have been used to reach the research's goals. The special objective of the
research is assessing the role of BIM in IPD with the approach of communication management and project integration
management. Furthermore,BIM impact factor and IPD (as two strong tools) on communication facilitating and project
integration (as two significant fields in PMBOK)can be evaluated throughout distributing questionnaires among the
target statistical sample.
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
III.1. Explanation concerning questionnaire design:
The designed questionnaire follows subsequent objectives beside the research main goals:

Trading audiences' familiarity and their usage of BIM and IPD concepts.

Identifying the resources and benefits of BIM and integrated of project delivery system.

Feasibility study of BIM and IPD application and their barriers and benefits.
For this purpose, the questionnaire was classified to four parts:

First section including respondents' general information and experiments i.e. education, age, work position and
so forth.

Second part is consist questions about level of BIM and IPD utilization in respondents' organizations and
potential reasons for weather using them or not.

In 3th part, respondents will respond to questions about the most important happenings in project designing and
construction. These questions designed on the basis of literature reviewwill be evaluated by Likert scale.

4th section involves with questions about benefits of BIM and IPD utilization both separately and
simultaneously. Respondents can make multi choices in this set.
III.2. Statisticalsample:
Regarding to the research goals for evaluating the level of BIM and IPD application, first Statistical group includes
consultants and contractors whose major related to Buildings, oil and gas, damping and road construction.
Because of lack of audience, information about the research topic, a brochure was designed both to introduce these
young topics to target organizations and identify companies who are familiar with BIM and IPD. With help of Iran
Consultant Engineers, Construction Contractor Syndicate and the Association of Iran Project Management, twelve items
seems to be familiar with BIM and IPD throughout the brochure distribution; Unfortunately, only five completed
questionnaires received from them.The inadequate number of completed questionnaires despite of widespread brochure
distribution, few projects managed with BIM and IPD and the previous researches done by other authors presented that
there are still no uses of the BIMin the Iran manufacturing industry, however, there are few projects applying BIM soft
wares, BIM knowledge and its utilization in Iran is tyro. Besides, there are only a few organizations using IPD.
In next step, academic professors and informed people were target statistical group for being asked to complete
questionnaires. Finally, 26 completed questionnaires gathered for next phase, data analyzing.
IV. DATA ANALYZING
IV.1. Responders'Organizations and Individuals Characteristics:
26 percent of responders were from consultant companies, 25 percent were from contractor organizations and
academic professors and informed people was the rest of responders. Most of the responders have experience In Building
category whose duty is expert. The responders' work experience was about five to ten years and most of them gained
master degree showing their deep knowledge in construction field.
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
IV.2. The level of responders' familiarity with research's topics & basic concepts of BIM and IPD:
In this section, the level of audiences' familiarity with the research topics was assessed. The following diagram
shows the responders answer about their familiar with BIM. On the basis of the Figure 8, 29 percent announced that they
have knowledge about BIM; however, the level of their familiarity should be regarded in a lower place because of the
incorrect template thinking among industrial experts. This template focuses on BIM only as softwares reflecting the
unbecoming conception about BIM.
The main point about IPD presented in Figure 9 is lack of documented executive experience.
Figure 10 shows good familiarity among responders about PMBOK 3. The logical reason is their work experience as
project management experts.
3
Project Management Body Of Knowledge
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
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The remarkable point which can be inferenced from literature review is huge use of Design- Bid- Build4 approach in
Iran construction industry.
In the other section, responders provide reasons for the high frequency project delivery system in their organization.
The most important factor for choosing Design- Bid- Build approach was nominated as its long history in Iran, sufficient
information and extensive experience in this field. This reasons should be regarded as obstacles for applying IPD.
The noticeable point is about high frequency of CAD utilization in Iran construction industry. Its high usage in
organizations and ease of use is the important reason for its common use preventing BIM to be as an adaptive and new
technology.
4
DBB
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Despite of the responders' announcement about their knowledge of BIM, the results shows that the level of BIM
utilization at their organization is low.
The other section provides some information about common problems in design and construction phases. Building
components interfacing during designing is one of the problems coming from lack of communication among designing
groups and using separate softwares in different design phases.
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On the other hand, occurring conflicts because of shortage of documentation and failure to register change orders is
the other widespread difficulty demanding to be managed. The original cause of this error is contingent on absence of
documentation system, disability of organization information systems and applying out of service softwares.
Figure 18 shows that creating "As Built Plans" is not a usual method for productivity management and maintenance
across the lifecycle. Usual soft wares inefficiency should be nominated as one of the mainreason for lack of generating as
built plans. On the other hand, regarding to a prevalent perspective about construction projects, project team members
believe that with the completion of construction phase, the project life cycle will be finished.
The other widespread error refers to lack of integrity of soft wares. Disruptions made during the projects on the basis
of unrelated soft wares were ranked as a common problem. Utilizing an information sharing software can solve this
problem.
50% of responders believe that group communication reduction because of lack of process simulations owning to
generating various perceptions about the project's outcomes. Lack of process simulations is the result of soft wares'
weakness.
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A group of people mentioned that in some cases lack of coordination meetings and review process may cause a
project failure. Team Members separately working from designing to construction phases which is prevalent in
traditional delivery methods of projects reduces people communications.
A high percentage of the respondents believe that applying BIM and IPD simultaneously will cause synergy between
them.
Figure 23 shows that team members' early participation in project (reduction in communication problems) is the
most important advantage of IPD. Reducing the time and cost of completing the project are the other advantages of using
IPD
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Bahmani International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)
Preventing errors during project implementation was mentioned as the main advantage of BIM. The other group of
responders believes that accurate visualization of detailed plans and drawings, design integration and ease of facility
management throughout the project life cycle are the other advantageous of applying BIM at organizations
The most significant mutual function of BIM and IPD was ranked as increased coordination and integrity in the
implementation of the project.
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V. CONCLUSION
The most used project delivery method in Iran construction industry is Design- Bid- Build. The widespread use of
this method, enough knowledge and information about this approach were the responders' reasons for voting to DBB.
Furthermore, widespread application of DBB should be regarded as a fundamental obstacle for using IPD.
The most used software in construction is Auto CAD. The vast using of Auto CAD prevents new soft wares advent
such as BIM. Encouraging experts to apply high-tech technologies like BIM will eliminate the potential barriers of using
BIM.
The high frequency problems like construction components' interfering during design phase, conflicts happened due
to weak documentation system, low usage of as built plans for productivity managing and maintenance throughout the
life cycle of the building, disruption of project progress due to the lack of integration of project soft wares, reduced
communication and the existence of various interpretations of the project due to the lack of simulation of operations
during the design process, project failure due to the lack of coordination meetings and the evaluation of the process are
the gaps of old design manufacturing soft wares and traditional delivery methods of projects. From the other side, these
are the most important reasons for applying BIM and IPD in Iran construction projects. As a result, BIM and IPD
collaboration will be a solution for common executive problems in Iran construction industry.
The high percentage of people's opinions about the advantageous of BIM with IPD can be used as a mechanism to
provide suitable pattern for construction projects. The views of respondents concluded that the most important aspect of
the synergy of BIM and IPD can enhance coordination and consistency in implementation of the project.
BIM's most important benefits are preventing errors during project implementation, accurate visualization of precise
designs and drawings, design integration and ease of facility management throughout the life cycle.On the other hand, the
better exchange of communication also improves the relationships between the project team members. The most
important benefits of using the integrated project delivery system are the early collaboration of project people (reducing
the coordination problems between the members), reducing the time and cost of completing the project. Therefore, it can
be inferred that the simultaneous use of the IPD and the BIM can be a way to reduce time, cost, improve communication
and reduce hostile relationships in projects.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I acknowledge all authors whose work gave knowledge to us. Thanks a lot.
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