Building Information Modelling (BIM) implementation for highway project from consultant’s perspectives in Malaysia

Abstract

In today’s world, Building Information Modelling (BIM) is not a new term in the construction industry. Although BIM has been adopted in the AEC industry for a few decades now, the BIM implementation cultivation pace between developed countries and developing countries such as many European which considered as BIM leaders and some Asian countries has still shown significant differences. In Malaysia, there are several remarkable building projects with BIM utilization but very limited in road and highways project. Despite BIM capabilities in facilitating designers during design stage, BIM implementation are still considered unfavourable within the highway design consultants in Malaysia. Many firms seem reluctant to migrate from their traditional 2D drafting centric design process to BIM design process due to several reasons such as high cost in software investment, inadequate knowledge and expertise on BIM and lack of promotion from the government or relevant authority. Although BIM can benefit the project throughout its life-cycle from preliminary to operation and maintenance stage, the coordination and integration during design stage can contributes to positive impacts in progressing towards efficient construction documentation and construction stage. BIM 3D integrated modelling during design stage (conceptual and detailed design) are deemed to facilitate a highway project in terms of optimization through early visualization, design for constructability, road safety enhancement, reduce error and time consumption during construction and early clash detection. Therefore, this paper is intended to gather preliminary outlooks and views from the present practitioners in the highway industry on challenges encounters by consultants using the current traditional design practices, BIM capabilities in transforming the current design approach and BIM adoption barriers in Malaysian highway industry. Series of interviews were conducted with the professionals involved in highway projects especially during the design stage and based on the findings from the interviews conducted, all highway design consultants from various disciplines are aware on how BIM can tackle the challenges of current traditional design practice with 3D modelling approach and collaborative working environment. Although the results showed that highway consultants are willing to migrate to BIM workflow, cost and lack of expertise, urges from government and understanding on BIM are among barriers which hinder the BIM adoption in highway industry.