A conceptual approach to track design changes within a multi-disciplinary building information modeling environment

Abstract

Successful management of design changes is critical for the efficient delivery of construction projects. Building information modeling (BIM) is envisioned to play an important role in integrating design, construction and facility management processes through coordinated changes throughout the project life-cycle. BIM currently provides significant benefits in coordinating changes across different views in a single model, and identifying conflicts between different discipline-specific models. However, current BIM tools provide limited support in managing changes across several discipline-specific models. This paper describes an approach to represent, coordinate, and track changes within a collaborative multi-disciplinary BIM environment. This approach was informed by a detailed case study of a large, complex, fast-tracked BIM project where we investigated numerous design changes, analyzed change management processes, and evaluated existing BIM tools. Our approach characterizes design changes in an ontology to represent changed component attributes, dependencies between components, and change impacts. It explores different types of dependencies amongst different design changes and describes how a graph-based approach and dependency matrix could assist with automating the propagation and impact of changes in a BIM-based project delivery process.Résumé : Il est essentiel de gérer au mieux les modifications de conception pour pouvoir mener efficacement à leur terme les projets de construction. La modélisation des données du bâtiment (Building Information Modeling ou BIM) est destinée à jouer un rôle important en intégrant dans un seul système les processus de conception, de construction et de gestion d'installations par l'intermédiaire de modifications coordonnées tout au long du cycle de vie d'un projet. La BIM présente de gros avantages, car elle permet de coordonner les modifications par le biais de vues différentes dans un modèle unique et de repérer les conflits entre divers modèles propres à des disciplines particulières. Cependant, les outils BIM actuels apportent peu d'aide à la gestion des modifications dans plusieurs modèles spécifiques à des disciplines particulières. Le présent article décrit une méthode de représentation, de coordination et de suivi des modifications dans un environnement BIM collaboratif et pluridisciplinaire. Cette méthode a été mise au point à l'aide d'une étude de cas approfondie portant sur un projet BIM de grande envergure, complexe, mené de manière accélérée et au cours duquel nous avons examiné un grand nombre de modifications de conception, analysé des processus de gestion des modifications et évalué les outils BIM existants. Notre méthode caractérise les modifications de conception sous la forme d'une ontologie visant à représenter les attributs des composants modifiés, les dépendances entre composants et les effets des modifications. Elle explore également différents types de dépendances parmi diverses modifications de conception et décrit comment une approche graphique et une m...

Evolution in the Intellectual Structure of Bim Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

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A Building Information Modeling (BIM)-Integrated System for Evaluating the Impact of Change Orders

“…Previous research works related to BIM for construction claim management are as follows. Design change tracking encompassed creating an add-in utilizing Revit.NET API [15] and using Solibri Model Checker [10]. The model checker has also been extended for specific purposes such as spatial requirement checking [29] and regulation compliance checking [30].…”

“…Recent studies show that advanced technologies played an essential role in improving the traditional practice. The graphical approach for evaluating the impacts of change orders such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) is still limited even though a number of previous studies confirmed that BIM can assist in tracking design changes across multi-disciplinary [10], contributing to successful construction projects [11].…”

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“…Lee et al [22] proposed a framework for measuring the impacts of Change Orders in construction projects and used it as a pre-risk assessment tool. Different researchers used Building Information Modelling for the management of design changes [23,24]. Isaac and Navon [25] developed a model that facilitates an automatic identification of the possible consequences of changes when they are first proposed, before their implementation in the design and planning of the project.…”