Possible utilization of BIM in the production phase of construction projects : BIM in work preparations at Skanska Sweden AB

Sammanfattning: Construction organizations have had to increase their productivity and make the project process, from conceptual design to handing over, more efficient in order to increase their profit margins. The Information Technology (IT) industry has developed new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions and tools which aim to support construction organizations in projects in order for them to achieve their goals of reduced project costs, increased project control and increased productivity. An ICT tool that, during recent years, has grown to potentially create a new paradigm within the construction industry is Building Information Modeling (BIM). But as the construction industry has shown it cannot absorb new technological innovations as fast as the market responds, the entire industry has hereby been perceived as conservative and slow in adoption of BIM throughout the whole project lifecycle. An interesting contradiction is why there has been such slow adoption of BIM when improved productivity and effectiveness is a prerequisite for increased profit margins. The evaluation of this contradiction formed the basis for this thesis. In compliance with the construction company Skanska Sweden AB, for which this research has been conducted, a decision was made to evaluate this problem with focus on how BIM can be used in the production phase of construction projects and how it can be aligned to production processes to increase productivity. A specific production process, work preparations, was chosen to be evaluated as an example of what obstacles there are of implementing BIM and how BIM can be of value in the production phase. To answer this questions a literature study in combination with empirical observations through qualitative interviews was performed. The literature study was conducted in the areas of communication, ICT and BIM. The qualitative study consisted of interviews with personnel from the central organization of Skanska and with production personnel from four different projects. The findings revealed that there are several obstacles with implementing BIM in the production phase and that an organizational induced iterative improvement process is imperative to assure effective BIM diffusion and hence an increased BIM maturity level in the production environment. Furthermore, the research shows that the BIM maturity level will set the standard for how well BIM can be used as a tool to support production processes. Moreover, our research has resulted in a three-step model which provides recommendations how Skanska and other construction organizations gradually can increase their BIM maturity level in the production phase and thereby utilize BIM in production processes such as work preparations.