How to extract the IFC Files contained on a Tekla TBP Package

Tekla TBP Package extracting is easy using this workflow
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
I recently received a BIM model for review (It was mainly intended for the Structural consultant to validate what the Metal Structure subcontractor was going to fabricate) and wanted to access the individual IFC files. My idea, because we were having some discussions about the total cost and extra KG of steel that a project change meant, was to import the IFC files into Revit and be able to create a schedule to obtain the total weight of the metal structure. The problem was I could not open the TBP file in revit. Of course someone had figured it out first so I followed these steps and it worked perfectly.
So the trick is to install a program that can open the TBP file and extract its contents. IN this case, using 7-zip, works perfectly. You install the program, then open the TBP file. Inside the 7-zip interface you can browse the folder structure until you find the IFC files and extract them. Worked perfect!.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.3. – Secondary Data Summary

An exhaustive research was done to find the 35 case studies that served us as a basis to analyze the influence of BIM in real life construction projects.
The sample of projects was not homogeneous, with half of the case studies being projects build in United States (Table 4.4). This is probably due to the higher penetration rates of BIM in USA compared to Europe (Figure 1.2) and a higher number of scholars and professional bodies publishing articles about the subject on the west side of the Atlantic ocean. Regardless of this, 35 case studies are an important sample, and the results and finding obtained are relevant to analyze the role of BIM as a PM Tool.

Table 4.4 Case Study Count per Country
Country	Number of Case Study Projects	Percentage
USA	18	51,43%
UK	8	22,86%
France	2	5,71%
Canada	2	5,71%
Israel	2	5,71%
Germany	1	2,86%
China	1	2,86%
Middle East	1	2,86%
Total	35	100%

As it has been mentioned before, this part of the research was aimed to find in which ways BIM can help delivering construction projects based on the KPIs defined on table 3.1. The results show that Cost, Time, Communication, Coordination and Quality are the KPIs more positively affected by the implementation of BIM.
The same results show that the challenges and negative effects of BIM implementation are relatively few, and most of them are focused on software or hardware issues. We suggest that these problems and challenges could be solved with a wider implementation of BIM in all firms involved in the project, with better training for all employees involved and with stakeholders getting used to working in a new way. Further studies might be needed once BIM has more penetration in the industry to analyze if these challenges are actually easy to overcome.
Lastly, the a priori list of 10 reasons for PM to be BIM proficient (Allison, 2010) are here briefly compared with the results and findings of the case study research (Table 4.5) to analyze if what BIM lobbyist are saying about the potentials of BIM is actually being found in real life projects.

Table 4.5 Benefits of BIM for PM in the case studies
A priori benefit (after Allison, 2010)	Benefits in case study literature?	Example
Organize the project schedule and budget	Yes	project management team used 4D models to discover several conflicts in the schedule which were not discovered in the CPM-based Gantt chart (Haymaker and Fischer, 2001)
Work well with the Design Team	Yes	The design team was also able to share some information to help facilitate coordination. ( McGraw-Hill, 2010a)
Hiring and controlling the Subcontractors	Yes	Subcontractors were more knowledgeable about the project as they have been involved sooner and are resolving issues in the design and detailing stage that would typically come up in the field. (Khanzode et al. , 2008)
RFIs and Change Orders	Yes	37% reduction in coordination RFIs and a 32% reduction in coordination change orders (McGraw-Hill, 2009)
Optimize the Owner’s experience and satisfaction	Yes	savings of $9M and 6 months to the owner due to the use of the BIM / VDC tools and a collaborative project delivery approach (Khanzode et al., 2008)
Project closeout	No	The later phases of a project, such as closeout or operations and maintenance, are not seen as valuable opportunities for BIM by any users, including owners. (McGraw-Hill, 2009)
Profit margin	Yes	Engineers see BIM saving time and money. For them the analysis is simple: less problems equals more profit (…) profitability increased as a result of using BIM. (McGraw-Hill, 2009)
Progressive Owners are mandating BIM on their projects:	Yes	Half of owners (48%) say that BIM’s impact on the overall project outcome is a high benefit (...) increasingly, contractors are mandating BIM from key trades and owners are demanding it from entire teams. (McGraw-Hill, 2009)
PM Firm Growth	Yes	Leveraging BIM capability to win new business was reported as the top internal business benefit (McGraw-Hill, 2009)

The comparison shows that the a priori benefits of using BIM for Project Managers are actually being found in real life case studies. Only the benefits related to project closeout are not being yet perceived by users or owners. BIM benefits are thus not just theoretical and moreover, they are perceived by many stakeholders. Project Managers who are not pushing for BIM use in their projects should be aware of these benefits having real positive effects, and consider in which projects they could consider the potential implementation of BIM.
All the insights that we obtained from this secondary data gathering and analysis will be compared on chapter 6 with the information collected from primary sources. The results from these primary sources will be described and analyzed in the following chapter.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.9 – Software Issues

As mentioned previously, the Procurement KPI on table 3.1 was replaced by the Software Issues KPI
on Table 4.1 and Table 4.2. This doesn’t mean that BIM cannot help on procurement or present certain challenges related to this KPI, but since the projects showed no reference to it and many to software issues, this replacement was thought to show more valuable information.

Table 4.3 Software Issues due to BIM implementation (see Annex IV)
Project	Software Issue	Source
Walt Disney Concert Hall	Inconsistencies and lack of data on the 3D model	Haymaker and Fischer, 2001
Eagle Ridge	Technical difficulties were encountered that made it necessary to make ‘manual’ adjustments to the drawings produced automatically	Kaner et al., 2008
Expeditionary Hospital	Information Transfer Bottlenecks	Manning and Messner, 2008
	Lack of Parametric Content
	Unfamiliarity of BIM’s breadth of ability and associated experience of application in programming
Precast Shelter	modelling issues that arose from ignorance of the right modelling practices	Kaner et al., 2008
Cascadia Center	not all the data could be interchanged	McGraw-Hill, 2010b
US Food and Drug Administration Headquarters	large projects pushed the limit of the software	McGraw-Hill, 2010b

20% of the projects presented software issues. This is a relatively high number, although analyzing the type of software issues (Table 4.3) one can see that these issues could be easily solved with more training of the personnel and better development of interoperability standards and practices as well as having all stakeholders using BIM in the projects.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.8 – BIM influence on Organization

Several case studies were collected from existing literature to analyze in which areas the application of BIM had improved aspects of the projects studied.
The organization improvement KPI is the only one that showed equal number of positive and negative mentions, as well as equal number of projects. The negative effects were based on the project team not knowing how to better organize the team to take advantage of BIM (CMG Medical Office Building – Khanzode et al., 2008) or the frustrations for not all the stakeholders embracing fully the integrated approach (Cascadia Center – McGraw-Hill, 2010b). On the other hand, positive effects included “improved team building” at the Walt Disney Concert Hall project (Haymaker and Fischer, 2001) or “added capabilities that architects at the firm did not previously have” at the Maximilianeum Expansion (McGraw-Hill, 2010a). These effects on Organization seem to have a positive effect that surpasses easily the negative effects mentioned on the previous paragraph.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.7 – BIM influence on Scope

The use of BIM helped clarify project Scope to some or all stakeholders involved in at least 3 of the case studies.
Most of the benefits were seen coming from the 3D visualization capacity of implementing BIM. This is probably one of the reasons this was not mentioned more often, since traditional 3D modelling tools not using BIM processes already help on scope clarification. It is relevant though to note that no negative effects were mentioned in any of the projects.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.6 – BIM influence on Risk

The amount of positive mentions of the implementation of BIM on negative risk reduction or control reached 8, with 17.14% of the projects having more positive mentions than negative ones (Table 4.2). Some construction companies saw “BIM as a way to drive the risk out of its bid” (Texas A&M Health Science Center – McGraw-Hill, 2009) and for others BIM reduced risk by allowing “better informed decisions” (US Food and Drug Administration Headquarters – McGraw-Hill, 2010b). The negative risk perception on BIM came from the need of “upfront investment for the modelling of the project to win the bid” (Texas A&M Health Science Center – McGraw-Hill, 2009) that could have not been recovered should the company have lost the bid or the need to clarify certain “model ownership issues for liability reasons” (Research 2 – McGraw-Hill, 2009). These negative perceptions could be eliminated or reduced if BIM became mainstream in AEC projects.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.5 – BIM influence on Quality

Table 4.2 shows Quality as another KPI were only positive effects were perceived. On 12 projects (34.29%) there were 13 mentions of benefits on Quality from implementing BIM. The type of benefits came from design and documentation quality aspects like “more accurate design” (Audubon Center – McGraw-Hill, 2010b) or “higher-quality [...] deliverables” (Sutter Health Medical Center – McGraw-Hill, 2009). Another very important effect of BIM implementation was that it allowed or helped sustainable design and construction like in the “improved Daylighting analysis” of the SF Public Utilities Commission (McGraw-Hill, 2010b); the “greener building” and cost savings “in many of the green elements” in the Shanghai Tower (McGraw-Hill, 2010b) or the “more sustainable construction process” at the Palomar Medical Center (McGraw-Hill, 2010b).

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.4 – BIM influence on Coordination

Coordination (or Integration) Improvement was mentioned 14 times. 12 of the projects had more positive than negative mentions on Coordination due to the implementation of BIM. These positive effects were typically due to the use of clash detection only possible by the use of BIM or due to eliminated coordination sessions thanks to the automatic coordination and improved workflow that the BIM Model allowed. Some of the positive effects on coordination might come from the application if integrated design strategies used in the case studies, such as Integrated Project Delivery [IPD]. According to some of the case studies (Palomar Medical Center –McGraw-Hill, 2010b) “BIM facilitated the integrated design approach“, so the benefits of the Integrated Design approach can ultimately be seen as a consequence of BIM implementation. There were some challenges and negative effects due to the use of BIM. They were mentioned 7 times, although only on 3 of the projects there were more negative than positive effects of BIM on coordination. Sometimes the “lack of understanding of interoperability limitations and abilities” (Expeditionary Hospital – Manning and Messner, 2008) posed problems. When the project was too big, software issues caused by the program not being able to handle so much information forced the creations of multiple models “to be able to work on the project” (US Food and Drug Administration Headquarters – McGraw-Hill, 2010b). The last point is a software issue, but because of the problems of coordination that it cause was considered as a negative effect on this KPI.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.3 – BIM influence on Communication

The effects of BIM on communication found in all of the 35 case studies were always positive. Communication improvements were mentioned 15 times in 13 of the 35 case studies (37.14% of the projects). Some of benefits on communication were “information exchange saving up to 50% of effort” (Palace Exchange – BSI, 2010); “information is a lot easier to find compared to traditional 2D drawings” (CMG Medical Office Building – Khanzode et al., 2008) ; or “better communicate changes with the owner” (Esean Children’s Hospital – McGraw-Hill, 2010a).
No negative effects or challenges affecting Communication were mentioned. This shows that this KPI is probably the one in which BIM is having an easier implementation, no stakeholders are mentioning any negative effects on it.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.2 – BIM influence on Time/Schedule

The second KPI with higher positive effect results of using BIM is “Time reduction or Control”. The effect of using BIM showed a positive effect on 34% of the projects (12 out of 35).
This KPI was mentioned with positive connotations 17 times. The following are some examples of these positive effects: “project was two months ahead of schedule” and “significant time savings once the construction model took shape” (Research 2 – McGraw-Hill, 2009) or “without [BIM], it would have taken two months to design this scheme, and we were able to do it in a couple of weeks” (Aylesbury Crown Court – McGraw-Hill, 2010a).
The negative effects on time from the case studies are again much less than the positive ones. They were only mentioned 4 times and only 3 projects mentioned more negative effects on time than positive ones. These negative effects were generally related to extra time needed for “creating the initial model” (Festival Place - BSI, 2010) or “restructuring the drawings” (Palace Exchange – BSI, 2010). All 4 mentions to negative effects of BIM on time, were actually related to extra time needed to model the project or rework that needed to be done due to converting the project from traditional CAD standards to a BIM platform.

While the time savings influenced the overall project duration and had positive effects on the schedule’s critical path, time increases were often related to extra modelling time or converting drawings into a model. This is a clear sign that the positive effects on time are much more important than the negative ones. It also means that adopting BIM tools from the beginning of projects and by all stakeholders has the potential to minimize the negative effects on time. Overall, the effects on time were beneficial.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2.1 – BIM influence on Cost

The results show clearly that the “Cost Reduction or Control” is the KPI that more often was seen as receiving a positive effect of using BIM. Cost reduction or control benefits were mentioned in 29 occasions. 21 of the case studies, a 60%, showed positive effects on cost from using BIM. The cost reduction or control mentions are of significant value, with some of the most relevant being sentences like “Cost savings of 9.8% of project costs” (Endeavour House – BSI, 2010); “savings of around 9% (est) realized in the construction phase” (Festival Place – BSI, 2010); “no change orders originating from field conflicts” (Dickinson School of law – Leicht and Messner, 2008) or “minimize staffing of the project” (Esean Children’s Hospital – McGraw-Hill, 2010a).
On the other hand, the same KPI was mentioned with negative connotations 6 times in the case studies. In two of the projects, i.e. 5.71 % of them, negative effects on cost were mentioned more times than positive effects. The nature of these costs was generally less relevant than the positive ones. Some examples include “CAD rework cost £20–30k” (St Helens and Knowsley PFI – BSI, 2010) or “invest in computer upgrades, training of its staff and technical support” (University Campus Suffolk – McGraw-Hill, 2010a).
Overall, data from case studies show that the negative effects from using BIM are much less and generally less relevant than the positive effects of implementing BIM tools and processes. Some of this extra costs, such as CAD rework, training or computer upgrades, are costs that can be reduced or eliminating by implementing BIM from the beginning of projects or simply by the fact that once people are trained and computers upgraded those costs will not appear in a firm anymore.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.2 Findings from the Case Studies

It is important to highlight here that the approach taken to quantify the number of projects in which a KPI had positive effects was conservative in nature. In some case study projects, a KPI was mentioned once in a positive manner and once in a negative manner. In that case, that project was not counted as one where that KPI had positive effects (or negative) regardless of which effect (the positive or the negative) was more relevant. This can be easily understood with an example. On the CMG Medical Office Building, described by Khanzode et al. (2008) the Coordination KPI was counted once as positive for the “improved workflow due to the use of 3D/4D models” and once as negative for the uncertainty of “How should the coordination process be structured and managed?”. Although it seems from these two quotes that the positive effects of using BIM in terms of coordination were more important than the challenges created, the project was not counted as one were coordination had positive effects. The same criteria were applied for all projects and KPI to create table 4.2, and are the basis for the following description of each KPI.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4.1 Results from Case Studies

Several case studies were collected from existing literature to analyze in which areas the application of BIM had improved aspects of the projects studied.
The literature on each case study was carefully read and analyzed and those aspects regarding the benefits and problems or challenges of implementing BIM where collected.
The total number of case studies gathered was 35. The total number was not previously defined, but as relevant case studies were found, they were added to the research until the timeframe of this dissertation didn’t allow more of them to be found and analyzed. The author of this research is confident that the number of case studies used is big enough to extract conclusions.
After each positive and negative aspect of the implementation of BIM had been collected for each case study, these were translated into the key performance KPI described on Table 3.1 and based on the PMBOK Knowledge Areas. It is relevant to mention here that this translation was not always easy. Some benefits or challenges were difficult to translate to one of the KPI. The results and numbers given on Table 4.1 should be seen as based on the authors’ perception and experience. For more details on the exact translation from the information found on the literature into the KPI the reader should refer to the table compiled in Annex IV of this dissertation.
One of the recurring challenges mentioned on the implementation of BIM found in several case studies were Software Related Issues. Amongst others, there were “information transfer bottlenecks” or “lack of parametric content” (Manning and Messner, 2008), “technical difficulties” or “modelling issues” (Kaner et al., 2009) and “3D modelling inconsistencies” (Haymaker and Fischer, 2001). These Software issues were very specific to the Software packages or expertise of the stakeholders, so in an attempt to keep these very specific negative effects clearly separated, a new KPI [Software] was created.
After translating all benefits and challenges of the BIM implementation into the KPI of Table 3.1, none of these were found to fit in the last category “Procurement Help”. It is for this reason that Table 4.1, which shows the summary of the results obtained in each case study, does not show this category.
The projects on Table 4.1 are organized using the added score for each of them (positive indicators minus negative indicators). This is not an attempt to find which one is the best BIM case study but to organize the projects in a way that the reader can see in which case studies it is possible to find more positive aspects of the implementation of BIM. The numbers on the score column should not be seen as an indicator of how successful or unsuccessful those case study projects were, but simply as how many KPI were mentioned positively or negatively. For example, the case study of the Cascadia Center (McGraw-Hill 2010b) shows a score of -3. This means that 3 aspects of the use of BIM related to the Coordination, Organization and Software KPI were mentioned as challenging or causing difficulties, but it doesn’t mean that the use of BIM had negative effects.

To allow better analysis and understanding, the different positive and negative aspects found in each project were separated in two different columns. For each KPI, the approach taken on this step was to count separately the positive and negative values, rather than to give a total score for each one (positive minus negative count). With this approach, it was possible to see which KPI appeared more times as a positive factor and which ones appeared as challenges or problems of the implementation of BIM. Following this approach, a second table was created (Table 4.2) with the results obtained from the case studies. This table allowed us to organize the different KPI according to the times each was mentioned as a positive factor. The table also shows the times and number of projects the KPIs were mentioned as a challenge or negative factor due to the use of BIM. This table was also the basis for the following section, were the results are described and findings on each KPI are analyzed.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 4. – Secondary Data Results and Findings

Following the methodology explained in the previous chapter, primary and secondary data needed for the research was gathered. This chapter will show the results and findings derived from the collection of secondary data. Following the same order as the previous chapter and the overall sequence of this research, the results from secondary data will be explained first, continuing on Chapter 5 with the results from the primary data obtained through survey questionnaires sent following the process explained on figure 3.2.
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Presentation of the Spanish BIM Users Guide

Video Presentation of the Spanish BIM Guide Sponsored by BuildingSMart Spanish Chapter
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
Last October 7th I helped present the first Spanish BIM Guide based on the Finnish Common BIM Requirements 2012. If you understnad Spanish and want to know a bit about this guide, take a look at the video below.

The Spanish BIM Guide or "Guía de Usuarios BIM" can be downloaded from BuildingSmart Spanish Chapter.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 3.2.2 - Primary Data

Questionnaires were used to gather primary data. The type of primary data necessary for this research was both of quantitative and qualitative matter. The questionnaires were divided in 6 pages, and written both in English (Annex I) and Spanish (Annex II) to be sure that the low level of knowledge of the English language in Spain (Europapress, 2010) was not a reason for getting less answers from this country. This translation required an extra effort but was seen as a key step, since as we have mentioned on the previous section of this chapter, no reliable secondary data was found regarding the penetration of BIM in Spain in any publication.

A preliminary version of the questionnaires was sent to some test respondents to ensure that the questionnaires were easily understandable and to get some feedback on the type of questions and length of the questionnaires. The feedback received forced the author to simplify and shorten some parts of the questionnaire as well as to state more clearly what the purpose of the survey was and what would be the benefits for the respondents by answering the questions.

The initial page was an introductory page to the questionnaire and to the subject of BIM, to ensure that even those who had no knowledge of what BIM is had a basic understanding of why this topic was being studied.

The second page was intended to collect information regarding the profile of the respondent and the company he/she worked for. Basic information about country, gender age and job type was asked to have a basis to compare the different respondent’s profile. The type and size of the company was also requested. Regarding the size of the company, the definition of the European Commission for micro, small and medium sized companies was used (European Commission, 2009).

Page three wanted to get a basic overview of the attitude of the respondent towards ICT. The author of this dissertation considered this point important to be able to compare the respondent’s attitude towards a more general topic like ICT and the implementation of new processes with their attitude towards the more specific subject of BIM.


The next page, page four, intended to get a basic understanding of the software expertise of the respondent, to know if their opinions about the topic were based on own experience or just on intuition. At the end of page four, a question asking if the respondent had any experience using BIM was used to redirect those who had no experience directly to page six. This way, page five that consisted of questions that only respondents who had used BIM should answer was skipped by those who had never used BIM.

The final page was meant to collect some qualitative information on the views of the respondents about BIM, its usefulness and the challenges that make BIM implementation difficult. Overall feedback about the topic and the questionnaires was requested and the possibility to receive the results via email was offered.

The questionnaires were created using the free platform Google Documents (available at http://docs.google.com). This platform allows the easy creation of survey forms and the results are automatically placed on a spreadsheet that can be exported to Excel or to other statistical analysis programs. The choice of this platform was based on the previous successful use of this platform by the author and on a cost basis. Other online survey applications were analysed, but the chosen one was seen as the most convenient due to its zero costs, ease of use and author’s previous experience with it.

To reach the highest possible number of respondents, the author used all free online means available to him to spread the questionnaires to the maximum number of professionals of the AEC Industry. The questionnaires were sent per email to all the author’s contacts that work on AEC related fields. Additionally, the questionnaires were posted on AEC related online forums and professional groups of the professional networking site “LinkedIn” and, lastly, the author posted a link to the questionnaires on his website (www.cadaddict.com).

The author website is a blog styled website that since 2007 has been publishing articles related to the AEC Industry, with special focus on AEC Software tools. With around 800 visitors per day, the website has a quite diverse audience in terms of locations, and most of its readers are from AEC related fields, this was seen as a great opportunity to reach a great number of unknown professionals who could have some valuable insights for this research. The results shown in chapter 4 prove that using this platform was of great relevance due to the number of responses that came from this source.

A list of all used means of spreading the questionnaires amongst AEC Industry professionals is detailed on figure 3.2. This combined methodology, as it will be further explained on the Results and Findings Chapter, has the advantage of reaching a much wider audience. The problem encountered with this combined methodology was that it was almost impossible to get accurate response rate numbers; it is not clear to how many potential respondents did the questionnaires reach. To try to get an estimate of the response rate, the author used a hyperlink tracking service. This type of service, allows tracking the number of people who click on certain link, and thus it allows knowing how many people showed interest in the questionnaires and reaching the starting page. Although this is not the traditional method for calculation the response rates, since it is impossible to know otherwise how many people saw the link or received an email, all response rate estimations will based on this methodology. The estimation of the response rate as well as further details on the methodology used to track it will be explained in detail in the following chapter.
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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 3.2.1 - Secondary Data

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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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 3.2 - Data Collection

The necessary data was gathered in the following way. A combination of qualitative and quantitative data was gathered.n Primary data was gathered from questionnaires and secondary data was collected from available sources. The data was analysed to test the starting research hypothesis as part of the deductive approach, then the observations from primary data were used to formulate a theory on “How BIM can help PMs” and to propose further research topics relevant to this dissertation. The results of both the collection of primary and secondary data are explained on the Results and Findings chapter of this dissertation.

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MT - Using BIM as a PM Tool: 3.1.2- Inductive Approach

The second part of the research question “How can BIM help Project Managers succeed in delivering complex construction projects" required a complete different approach. In this case an inductive approach was more adequate, because we were trying to come with a theory from a series of observations and from own experience. For this part, it was important to find out what were the expectations of AEC practitioners and their readiness to commit to a new technology and new processes. The opinion of construction professionals on how BIM can help AEC professionals to better deliver complex projects was also necessary.

Questionnaires (Annex I and II) were designed to gather data regarding the perception of construction professionals of BIM. These questionnaires, later explained in more detail, were the base to come up with the list of ways in which BIM can help the delivery of complex construction projects. For this part of the research both the primary data gathered from this questionnaires and the secondary data gathered from several sources were the corner stone that would allow the author to come up with a theory of how BIM can help Project Managers. At the same time, all this primary and secondary data was used to fulfil the 4 research objectives, which are here listed again.

1. To identify in which aspects is BIM implementation showing more benefits for the delivery of construction projects
2. To compare the benefits of BIM with the role of the Project Manager
3. To define which role should the Project Manager assume within the BIM framework.
4. To analyze the existing challenges for BIM implementation and estimate future developments that might mitigate these challenges.

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