Contract administration practices on building information modelling (BIM)-based construction project – an exploratory study

Purpose The era of digital construction, including building information modelling (BIM), has placed a high demand for a seamless collaboration of people, technology and processes in meeting a project delivery. The project actors involved in a BIM process must ensure compliance with all regulations and contractual requirements from inception. While many studies have disclosed the various contractual implications arising from BIM implementation, little has been examined on the current state of BIM in contract administration practice, particularly in the Malaysian construction industry. This study aims to explore the current state of BIM implementation with specific reference to a design-and-build construction project. Design/methodology/approach The exploratory case study involved the construction of a public complex. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the project actors, and document analysis was performed on the project’s contractual guidelines to derive the findings. Findings Findings from the thematic analysis revealed the following five sequences of activities that guided the contract administration practices, particularly during the pre-contract and post-contract stages of a BIM-based construction project: project inception, tendering phase, detailed design, construction and preparation for the handing over phase. Most of the activities were conducted to deliver the final BIM outputs successfully. Nevertheless, some shortcomings were noted in the project monitoring, the validation process of the BIM deliverables and the BIM players’ competency level in fulfilling the specified BIM contractual requirements. Practical implications The study contributes to a practical understanding of how BIM can affect project administration and how a public client can improve contractual risk allocation in future BIM implementation. Originality/value This paper discloses the current practices of contract administration to better understand the impacts of BIM management during the pre-contract and post-contract stages of a BIM-based construction project.