Proceedings

MediaCityUK

10-12 June 2015

229

ID 003

BIM Client Maturity: Literature Review

A. Dakhil1, M. Alshawi2, and J. Underwood3

1,2University of Salford, UK

Email: a.j.dakhil@edu.salford.ac.uk

Abstract

The term BIM represents different things to different people, which starts with tools and

technology, and ends with a process. Therefore, there have been quite a number of models used

to evaluate the BIM implementation maturity in recent years. Each model has its own targets,

but mainly these various maturity models and scoring systems tend to fall into two basic

categories. The first category focuses on how to evaluate a particular project against BIM. The

second category would take the entire organisation as its target to assess. Through a literature

review, this paper investigated all the existing BIM maturity models that could be used to

evaluate client organisation inside the UK. This paper concludes that the available BIM

maturity models can be used to assess UK clients against BIM maturity but essentially it needs

to be connected to the UK standards as a first step.

Keyword:

BIM, Client, Maturity, Organisation, UK

1. Introduction

Generally, maturity is defined as the state of being fully developed (Collins dictionary, 2015).

Therefore, to become fully developed in something is not easy to achieve; you must pass a set

of evolutionary stages until reaching the desired level of sophistication. In particular, recent

developments in the construction industry explain its interest in the maturity models as it

increasingly seeks to manage organisational change (Nesensohn et al, 2013). It has been widely

recognised that maturity models support organisations with benefits when implementing a

change or improvement strategy (Amaratunga & Baldry, 2002).

One type of change that the organisations in the UK construction industry are seeking to manage

is the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM). The Government

Construction Strategy published by the Cabinet Office in 2011 announced the Government’s

intention to require collaborative 3D BIM on its projects by 2016. Since then it has received a

significant amount of attention from both practitioners and academics, which is evident through

the amount of publications available on the topic. BIM is a very broad term that describes the

process of creating digital information about a building or asset (such as a bridge, highway,

tunnel and so on).

The range of levels that this form of modelling can take is described as maturity levels (WIKI,

08 Oct 2014). Therefore, BIM maturity represents the quality, repeatability and degrees of

excellence in delivering a BIM model (Succar, 2010). There are a growing number of BIM

maturity evaluation models (Chen, Dib, & Cox, 2012; B Giel & Issa, 2012; Mom & Hsieh,

2012; Succar, 2010). All these evaluation models are intended to measure BIM maturity for

organisation, projects, or individuals. Client organisation has magnificent importance in the

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BIM implementation process by stimulating the innovation to achieve crucial BIM benefits

(Gann & Salter, 2000; Harty, 2005; Kulatunga, Kulatunga, Amaratunga, & Haigh, 2011;

Manley, 2006; Miller, 2009).This research will aim to compare the available models in order

to find out which is suitable for measuring BIM maturity of client organisation.

2. Research methodology

The literature review method was adopted to identify journal articles, books, reports, and

websites that describe and investigate the use of BIM maturity in the construction industry,

published in referenced journals, conference proceedings and other scholarly publications.

Initially, a comprehensive literature search based on the keywords search method was

conducted using the Scopus, SCI and Google Scholar. The search keywords included BIM

maturity, BIM performance measurements in construction, etc. Papers with these specific terms

included in the title, abstract or keywords were selected as possible publications. Then, a more

intensive and complete search was then conducted with the support of the search engines.

Articles (journal and conference) and review papers were included. Finally, only nine BIM

maturity methods were found in literature and included in this article.

3. Maturity Models

Building Information Modelling Maturity (BIMM) represents a ranking system including all

the important areas of an effective modelling process to deliver the expected BIM

product/service (Succar, 2010). Industry practitioners and academics developed several models

for evaluating BIM implementation and performance in the architecture, engineering and

construction (AEC) industry (Brittany Giel & Issa, 2013; Succar, 2010). These models could

be classified into two main categories according to their target in the evaluation process

(Brittany Giel & Issa, 2013). The first one, project assessment models (PAM) which rates the

maturity of asset projects based on use of different competences. The second category,

organisation assessment model (OAM) measures the maturity of organisations who are

implementing BIM in their process as shown in the fig (1).

While this research aims to find the maturity method most suitable to assess client organisation,

only OAMs will be covered in the comparison process. Table (1) represents each model’s

characteristics. From table (1) it could be concluded that from 8-maturity assessment methods

available in the literature, only four models could be used to assess client organisation against

BIM maturity. These models are Succar’s BIMMI, IU,s BIM proficiency matrix, CIC research

programs owner matrix, and Owner BIMCAT model. All these models will be investigated in

order to find out the suitability of these models to measure client BIM maturity inside the UK.

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Figure 1. Existing BIM maturity assessment Methods

Fig .2.BIM maturity matrix components (Succar, 2010)

BIM Maturity Models

PAMs

NBIMs’ ICMM

CIFE’s BIM Scorecard

UK iBIM

OAMs

Succar’sBIMMI

TNO’s BIM QuickScan

Vico’s BIM Score

IU’s BIM Proficiency

Matrix

CIC Research Program’s

Owner Matrix

Owner's BIMCAT

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Table 1: The summary of BIM maturity evaluation model.

Model Characteristics Succar’s BIMMI TNO’s BIM QuickScan

Vico’s BIM Score IU’s BIM Proficiency Matrix

CIC Research Program’s Owner Matrix

Owner’s BIMCAT

The beneficiary Designers, Contractors, and Clients

Designers, Contractors

Designers, Contractors, and Clients

Designers, Contractors

Clients Clients

Number of maturity levels

5 Percentage of 100 5 4 6 6 (Competence levels)

Key elements and category

Technology

Process

Policy

Strategic

Organization

Resources Partners

Mentality

Culture

Education

Information flow

Open standards Tools

Planning

Adoptions

Technology

Performance

Physical accuracy of the model

IPD methodology

Calculation mentality

Location awareness

Content creation

Construction data

As-Built modelling

FM data richness

Strategy

Uses

Process

Information

Infrastructure

Personal

Operational

Strategic

Administrative

Evaluation Method Multi-method Self-online evaluation

Multi-method Evaluate stakeholder’s competence.

Self-evaluation Self-evaluation

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From the table (1), it could be seen that only four of the six models are suitable to be used to

assess client organisation against BIM maturity. In the following sections, these models will be

investigated in detail to find out their suitability to UK client organisation.

4. Succar’s BIM Maturity Matrix (BMMI)

Succar developed a BIM Maturity Matrix that offers a comprehensive evaluation framework

based on technology, process, and policy (Chen et al., 2012). His model is suitable for different

organisation types and size using five maturity levels based on 12 Key Maturity Areas (KMAs).

As shown in figures (2&3). One of the main concepts proposed by Succar is the difference

between BIM capability and BIM maturity across organisations and the different capability

stages that organisations work through on their BIM implementation roadmap. In addition to

that, he defines BIM capability as “the ability to perform a task or deliver a BIM

service/product” whereas, BIM maturity might refer to “the quality, repeatability, and degree

of excellence with which BIM services are executed (Brittany Giel & Issa, 2013; Succar, 2010)

Unfortunately, some areas of information management are not covered in the competency sets,

though data usage, storage, and exchanges are included (Chen et al., 2012). In addition to that,

if this model is used to evaluate the client organisation in particular, the evaluation system needs

to be modified according to the privacy of the client organisations from the rest of the

organisations through the benefits and requirements of the BIM implementation process.

Fig .3.BIM maturity matrix components (Succar, 2010)

5. Vico’s BIM Score

In recent years, many software vendors within the construction industry have been developing

new services that are helping their clients to evaluate their organisation’s BIM maturity that

may help them to compare themselves against their competitors. One of the leading venders in

that field is VICO, Inc(Brittany Giel & Issa, 2013; Kam, Senaratna, Xiao, & McKinney, 2013).

Vico offers a special BIM Scorecard that allows any organisation to evaluate their current

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solutions for clash detection, scheduling, and estimating in terms of three aspects:

functionality/capability, best practices, and enterprise integration as shown in figure (4).

The limitation of this model to the clash detection, scheduling, and estimating is the only main

weakness of it, where BIM can be used in many areas throughout the project life cycle. In

addition, the differences between the organisations (Designer, Contractors, and Client) in terms

of the goal of using BIM as well as the requirements for implementing BIM in their process, is

not clearly defined in the evaluation system. All these weaknesses will lead to this model being

considered suitable for general evaluation only, without any suggestions for improvement.

Fig .4.BIM maturity VDC scorecard components (Kam et al., 2013)

6. CIC Research Program’s Owner Matrix

The Building Information Modelling (BIM) Planning Guide for Facility Owners V2.0 was

released in 2013 to support project teams by directing them through a planning process for BIM

implementation. A fundamental principle of the planning procedure was to highlight the need

for facility owners to understand and communicate their goals for implementing BIM

throughout the lifecycle of the asset. This guide contains 6 key BIM planning elements. In

addition, it provides a simple description for each of the maturity levels identified within the

planning elements. The level of maturity starts with zero (0), which represents non-existence

or non-use of that element within the organization, and continues to level five (5) in which the

planning element is optimized (State, 2012) as shown in figure (5).

This model is considered as one of the most effective evaluation models for evaluating client

organisation BIM maturity. The only thing that needs to be done is to adjust UK standards with

this model.

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Fig .5. BIM Planning Guide for Facility Owners (State, 2012)

7. Owner’s BIMCAT

The owner’s BIMCAT has been divided into three main competence categories: operational,

strategic, and administrative. Each of these categories is also split into sub-branches as shown

in the figure (6). This model mainly covers most of the key evaluation criteria, even including

the geometric requirements that have not been mentioned in the other models. This model which

was developed by Giel and Isaa in 2013 has 6 competency levels.

The huge number of details that need to be evaluated, where most of this information may be

incomprehensible to the infant BIM client, has affected the high quality of the model. The

simplicity of the other models is absent here which prevents clients assessing their organisation

in most comprehensive way.

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Fig .6. BIMCAT maturity model components (Brittany Giel & Issa, 2013)

8. UK BIM Maturity Model

Bew and Richards (2008)developed the UK BIM maturity model. Since it was first developed,

the BIM Maturity Model has established itself as the main component of a UK BIM

implementation strategy (Succar, 2015). Recently, it is impossible to talk about other UK-

centric construction industry strategies (e.g. Soft Landings), workflows (e.g. RIBA Plan of

Work), roles (e.g. Information Manager), and protocols (e.g. UK’s version of COBie ) without

including this model (Succar, 2015). It has four main levels as defined below:

Level 0: is the use of unmanaged CAD,

Level 1: is managed CAD in 2D or 3D format where the company engaged industry

standards within the process such as BS1192 with commercial data and is managed by

stand-alone finance and a cost management package,

Level 2: is managed 3D environment held in separate discipline tools with parametric

data and commercial data and managed by Enterprise Resource Planning. During this

stage, integration occurs on the basis of proprietary interface or bespoke middleware,

Level 3: is a fully open interoperable process and data integration enabled by IFC. Named

as integrated BIM, the data and information are managed by a collaborative model

server.

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Fig .7. The UK maturity Model (Bew & Richards, 2008)

This model is very simple and can be easily understood by most of the stakeholders.

Organisations’ compliance with the specifications listed within the model represents the

measuring system of the maturity. This philosophy in maturity measurement cannot measure

organisational performance or market maturity (Succar, 2015). This model can only be used in

the UK due to the correlation between the maturity level and UK (Local) standards only.

9. Conclusion

From what has been explained in previous sections, it can be concluded that the existing BIM

maturity models available in literature can be used in the UK. However, there are a set of

amendments that must be performed on these models to make them easy to use for the client

organisation inside the UK. One of the main important amendments is establishing a strong link

between the client BIM maturity model and the BIM UK standards, for example PAS1192-

2&3&4. This link will increase the extent to which the client will accept the use of the model,

as well as aiding the understanding of the model.

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