Analysis of Skills Needs for Future Architecture Graduates of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Malaysia: A Thematic Review Paper

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has become an essential tool for improving construction methods in delivering projects. Yet, much BIM-related expertise is needed to achieve the performance quality of the projects. The Malaysian Construction Industry Transformation Plan (CITP) 2016-2020 under the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) highlights that the government is beginning to follow the BIM for level 2 by 2020. The move was to improve the adoption and implementation of BIM among the practitioners in the construction industry. The government initiatives have raised the importance of BIM skills and knowledge among practitioners to facilitate successful implementation of BIM-related projects. This paper reports the findings of a thematic review analysis of skills that need to be harnessed from architecture graduates in preparing them to undertake BIM-related projects. Publications from 2010-2020 were analysed by means of a thematic review. Findings from the code-to-document review using ATLAS.ti 8 identified the BIM skills needed from an employee. This paper contributes to analysing the BIM skills indicated from the published papers hence the avenue for future studies on BIM graduates' preparation prior to entering the labour market in Malaysia.

Thematic Analysis to Measure Social Anxiety among Students

“…Furthermore, thematic analysis is a flexible research method that can be used when other qualitative methods may not be suitable for the proposed work. The process of conducting a thematic analysis for a literature review typically involves several steps (Fadzil, Taib, & Ishak, 2021). First, researchers must define the specific theme or topic they wish to explore.…”

A Multivariate Analysis of the Variables Impacting the Level of BIM Expertise of Professionals in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industries of the Developing World Using Nonparametric Tests

“…Different studies have tried to classify BIM skills into different groups. A review by [11] classified the BIM skills that a professional can possess under technical and nontechnical BIM skills. Technical expertise refers to a person's ability to use BIM software tools and their knowledge of digital tools and the BIM standards [21,22].…”

“…According to [4], BIM skills can be divided into three categories: (a) soft skills, which refer to interpersonal and interpersonal communication abilities; (b) BIM-technical skills, which deal with the use of modeling and related software, BIM standards and frameworks, technical aspects of information exchange and management and (c) discipline-specific skills, which deal with the understanding of project, practice and construction processes and methods. It is important to note that, according to past studies on BIM expertise, software skills (technical) are the most preferred BIM skills that a professional can acquire [11]. Despite this fact, different professionals have stated that these skills are the least important and are useless without discipline-specific skills and soft skills [4].…”

“…Proven impacts of BIM inclusion in the curriculum of different departments in academia include: (1) the production of high-quality drawings and generated images, (2) the provision of a new career path for two students to pursue as students had rapid training and employment offers from the BIM divisions of all the major construction corporations searching for qualified students in this field, (3) accelerated sketching and rendering production, (4) more original and imaginative responses to engineering issues from students of civil engineering and (5) the development of novel, project-specific library features to facilitate modeling and simulation [20]. Numerous researchers have concluded that the shortage of BIM professionals with the necessary training is the primary obstacle to the adoption of BIM in the AEC sector [11]. Intensive BIM training integrated into university curricula can help graduates better comprehend the BIM process, enhancing their understanding of the technology and processes [102].…”

“…While the Finnish AEC sector leads the world in terms of BIM adoption, BIM adoption across the rest of Europe is largely similar to that of the US sector in that BIM is used by various businesses and projects, although it is still largely dispersed and poorly integrated [10]. Many government initiatives around the world have increased the significance of BIM expertise and knowledge among practitioners to support the efficient execution of BIM-related projects [11]. While many construction projects in the developed world are gradually implementing BIM, its implementation in the developing world is hampered by numerous challenges [12], with the lack of BIM expertise by professionals as a major hurdle [13][14][15][16][17].…”