BIM and the small construction firm: a critical perspective

ABSTRACT

The need for technological and administrative innovation is a recurrent theme in the UK construction-reform agenda, but generic improvement recipes are beginning to give way to a more focused prescription: building information modelling (BIM). The current strategy is to mandate the use of BIM for government projects as a way of integrating the design, construction and operation of publicly procured buildings. This aspiration represents a partial turn away from a focus on managerialist agendas towards a belief in the power of digital practices to achieve the aspiration of integrated working, collaboration and innovation, a trend that is being reflected globally in relation to both national and firm-level policy interventions. This paper subjects this so-called ‘BIM revolution’ to critical scrutiny. By drawing on theories of the digital divide, a critical discourse is developed around the ways in which political reform agendas centred on BIM might not stimulate innovation on a wider scale, but could act to disenfranchise small firms that are unable (or unwilling) to engage with them. This critical analysis presents important new research questions around the technocratic optimism that pervades the current reform discourse, the trajectory of industry development that it creates and the policy process itself.

KEYWORDS:

• building information modelling (BIM)
• critical discourse
• digital divide
• digital technologies
• policy formation
• policy implementation
• policy process
• public policy
• small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engineering Project Organization Conference (EPOC) 2015. The authors are grateful to the conference referees for their insightful comments and suggestions in developing the arguments set out here, as well as to the referees and editors of this special issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Andrew Dainty http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9317-1356

Roine Leiringer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9037-7220

Scott Fernie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3000-0998

Chris Harty http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4988-6247

Notes

1 According to the BIM Task Group, BIM can be categorized according to maturity levels. Level 1 is simply the use of a managed computer-aided design (CAD) environment. Level 2, which the UK Government mandate requires, is a 3D environment with cross-disciplinary integration based on proprietary interfaces, i.e. the integration is at the level of exchange formats rather than the tools used by each part of the supply chain. Level 3 is seen as a fully open, compliant and interoperable single-shared environment.