BIM in EPC industry. A cost of non-quality approach for building information modeling benefits quantification and return on investment

Since construction projects are becoming much more complex and difficult to manage, more than half exceed their agreed time schedule and costs. Attempts to solve these problems lead Construction Industry to the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM), an Information Technology characterized by new technologies, processes and policies. Because of its benefits on project performances, BIM has received a lot of attention from universities, construction industries and government institutions all over the world. Despite that, a relevant and accepted calculation methodology to properly evaluate BIM’s benefits has not been established yet and this has led to mixed perspective and opinions of the benefits of BIM, creating a general misunderstanding on the expected outcomes of this Information Technology. The purpose of this work is to create and validate a baseline for BIM benefits calculation that allows a better visualization of results thanks to its objective analysis. Improved BIM benefits visualization results in abatement of barriers such as resistance to change, lack of knowledge and comprehension with respect to BIM. Since BIM performances are influenced by Company Capability and Maturity, some benefits might be hidden behind low levels of these two parameters and this study wants to take into consideration also these aspects of BIM. A Case Study approach will be performed in an EPC Company in order to measure time and cost savings due to BIM coupling metrics coming from literature and Company procedures. Metrics must be characterized by well-defined properties so that every Company who wants to conduct this analysis can do it following a solid baseline. Identifying steps, features and risks using the two different approaches of radical and incremental innovation, this study has also the final goal of proposing an implementation strategy for an EPC Contractor.