Allocating BIM Service Cost—A Taiwan Experience

Abstract

Benefits of BIM application in building construction projects have been reported by many previous researchers, but very few works were done for the guideline of estimating and allocating of the costs of various BIM uses. Without such a guideline, it is difficult for the owner to determine and budget the selected BIM uses. To meet this need, this paper presents a case study on the estimating and allocating the costs of BIM service based on the 25 BIM Uses defined in the ‘Taiwan BIM Guide’ developed by the Architecture and Building Research Institute (ABRI), Ministry of the Interior (MOI), Taiwan, for implementation of BIM by local construction industry. Appropriate portfolio of BIM Uses should consider the limitation of available resources and specific project characteristics. Only the priority of the 25 BIM Uses need to be selected and budgeted. To estimate and allocate required costs for various BIM uses, the current study proposes a method to determine the relative requirements of costs for different BIM uses by surveying the BIM practitioners from the 10 public social housing projects owned by the Taoyuan City Government using an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. A BIM use cost allocation guideline is provided as a reference to the BIM practitioners to determine the required costs for different BIM Uses. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Budapest University of Technology and Economics & Diamond Congress Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Creative Construction Conference 2019.