We have already seen in previous chapters the potential benefits that BIM can bring to projects, and as a consequence, to Project Manager’s workflow. This section explains the gathering of data that proves that this potential benefits are actually materialising when BIM is being applied to real world projects. Because of the resources and time frame available for this dissertation, it was impossible to get those results from primary data. For this reason the author chose to get the needed data from secondary sources which are easily available on the internet.
The topic of BIM has already been studied by many scholars (Aouad et. Al., 2006; Manaula, 2008; Succar, 2009; Lee, 2008); by professional groups (BSI, 2010; McGraw-Hill, 2008, 2009, 2010a and 2010b); and of course, by software vendors (Autodesk, 2007; Bentley, 2003). Of all of the above mentioned references and many others, the studies by McGraw-Hill provide a greater amount of data about the status of BIM in North America (McGraw-Hill, 2008) and in Europe (McGraw-Hill, 2010a). The latter study has its focus on UK, France and Germany. Unfortunately, no data about the status of BIM in Spain has been found, so any specific reference to this country on this research will rely for on the primary data gathered from the questionnaires that will be further explained on the following section.
Additionally to these two studies, several case studies mentioned in other papers where compiled and the data of these case studies was organized to get an overall picture of what are the real benefits that BIM is actually providing to practitioners. This data was later on compared with the a priori stated benefits of BIM (Figure 2.2 and Table 2.1) to analyze how accurate these potential benefits are and in which areas BIM is not yet being used or perceived as a useful tool. The benefits extracted from the case studies were translated into the Project Management KPI compiled in Table 3.1, to be able to quantify which KPIs benefited the most from the implementation of BIM.
All data obtained from the above mentioned secondary sources is organized and explained in Chapter 4 of this research. Links and relationships between the information gather from secondary and primary sources will be also drawn. The gathering of primary data is explained in the following section.
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