Building Info Modeling Adoption Surges

The adoption of building information modeling in North American construction industry has increased from 28 percent in 2007 to 71 percent in 2012, according to research by McGraw Hill.

BIM is a digital representation of a planned building’s physical and functional characteristics. Using BIM allows architects, engineers, contractors and other construction professionals involved in the project to predict and model many of a building’s future attributes including its environmental footprint and lifecycle costs.

Some 74 percent of contractors in North America now use BIM, surpassing the proportion of architects, which stands at 70 percent, according to The Business Value of BIM in North America. Some 67 percent of engineers in North America use BIM, the report says.

The western US is the North American region with the highest rate of BIM adoption, with 77 percent of construction professionals using BIM in that area, but regional differences are narrowing. Adoption in the Northeastern US has jumped from 38 percent in 2009 to 66 percent 2012.

About 90 percent of large and medium-to-large organizations are engaged with BIM compared to less 49 percent of small ones, the report says.

Some 62 percent of all BIM users see a positive return on investment from the technology, although this is not even across firm types or firms’ engagement level with the technology. Some 74 percent of contractors see a positive return on investment compared to only 37 percent of engineers, the report says.

The report recommends that architects using BIM should focus on the longer-term benefits of using BIM such as productivity and repeat business. This will help architects improve their return on investment, the report says.

Engineers should demand content from manufacturers that is more searchable in a bid to improve their productivity and reduce their investment costs, the report says.

According to a report released last year by Pike Research the market for BIM services reached $1.8 billion in 2012 and will reach almost $6.5 billion in 2020. Growth in the early years of Pike Research’s forecast period will be relatively higher in the leading regions of  Western Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. In the regions that lag behind, higher growth rate won’t be seen another four to five years.

Do you use BIM in your work? What do you see as the benefits or drawbacks? Please tell us in the comments section below.