Building Information Modeling - Literature review Example

? Building Information Modeling Building Information Modeling BIM involves the creation and management of construction data throughout the construction lifecycle. Building and building companies throughout the world service BIM to describe geometrical, spatial relationships, light analyses, geographic information, quantities and properties of building components. There are many advantages of BIM which include enabling its implementers to overcome the problem of poor design, which may arise, into substandard construction materials. BIM encompasses different views from the building model, arranged in an automatically consistent manner. In addition, BIM considers mistakes that would be made in making estimates for building materials, making it a valid process in the building and construction industry throughout the world. In Building and construction sectors, BIM refers to the digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of structures. In designing a BIM plan, factors such as increase in prices of materials which can inhibit the construction process management. This explains why BIM continues to be a thorough process in the construction sector. Making out estimates of building materials owes to factors such as in prices of materials or having uncertainties in making estimates. However, BIM enables companies avoid such problems as making out estimates by drawing plans, which include provisions, in case there are any constraints encountered during construction. BIM builds a digital format which appears as if it is being made physically. Currently, the UK government advocates for the use of BIM in delivering cost effective solutions in delivery of infrastructure across all sectors, including Telecommunication companies. However, in spite of this advocacy by the UK government, mobile telecommunication companies do not think it a requirement. Therefore, it becomes so crucial especially at this moment of intense agitation by the government, to adopt BIM among companies, as a way of seeking ways to implement the program. How about companies like Telecommunications where the system does not give primary consideration? GallifordTry is one of the unique construction and building companies found in the UK. The company has business units, “which provide infrastructure, transportation services” such as Turnkey- a program involving surveying/site acquisition, design, body and wealth management of client network infrastructure, to UK mobile telecommunication companies, in particular 02, Vodafone, and Orange. Vodafone is a global mobile telecommunication with headquarters in the UK. It is also the largest global telecommunications company basing on its revenues, and the world’s second largest after china mobile. 02 on the other hand, is UK’s leading mobile handset provider and broadband, offering the best phone, sim only and broad band deals. Orange is the fifth telecommunication company in the world, also found in the UK, but with proper headquarters in France. The three telecommunication companies, namely; orange, Vodafone and 02, are clients to GallifordTry Buildinmg and Construction Company. According to GallifordTry, Telecommunication companies do not show interest in the BIM process, yet it is cost effective in service delivery. On this note, Galliford, as a partner institution believes that it can affect the implementation of BIM in telecommunication companies. 2. Hypothesis Galliford can affect the implementation of BIM among Telecommunication sectors in the UK and gain a competitive advantage over other sectors in the UK government The theorem above is being needed to be checked alongside the following objectives; (a) To identify reasons why Telecommunication sectors such as 02, Vodafone and Orange do not take BIM as a prerequisite, in spite of it being an endorsement of the UK government (b)To determine whether, among the Telecommunication companies, are some outstanding individuals who would like to take part in implementing BIM program (c)To determine the strengths and weaknesses of implementing BIM among Telecommunication infrastructure sectors in the UK (d) To enable clients in the Telecommunication Infrastructure sector to benefit from the BIM program which among other benefits brings about cost effectiveness in delivering infrastructure service (e)To gain a competitive advantage in the Telecommunication infrastructure sector through implementation of BIM (f)To increase the impact of GallifordTry among Telecommunication infrastructure sectors (g)To show support government initiatives by GallifordTry through implementing its advocated for programs among client institutions 3. Research Methods Primary Data benefits from the following sources; (a) An Employee in a Telecommunication infrastructure sector such as managers/personnel, and staff members such as accountants, project managers, etc who are expecting to provide information on the reasons for not having much money for BIM, and related ideas (b) Institutions that show strong support for BIM and can ably describe the specific relevancies of BIM and how it works so that such information can in turn be transmitted to client companies in the Telecommunication sector. (c) UK government officials in the Construction authority are obliged to give more information concerning the process of implementing BIM (d) Review of documents for Telecommunication companies so as to understand the situation before implementation and how it can occur after implementation of BIM so as to determine the strengths and weaknesses 4. Ways of accessing the primary sources of information Primary data are a series of ideas to be gathered afresh or for the first time. The primary sources of information for this implementation plan will be expected to be as follows. An independent committee shall be established to assist in planning for the project. This committee shall consist of one member from each consumer sector and others from GallifordTry staff. Through this committee, every suggestion made about the programs or future activities is going to be approved or rejected, accordingly. The committee shall draft, and pas issues to be considered in the research process. These issues will arise from objectives stated above. This is because the committee, being an amalgam of many individuals from different societies, will create a platform whereby weaknesses and strengths in the issue will be talked about. The researcher will draft an action plan and its copies will be distributed to the committee for review, and making of suggestions as a way of improvement in its design. The action plan will include a period of doing this exercise, and clearly define activities and specific periods of time they are being implemented. In addition, representatives from consumer companies, especially the Telecommunication sectors, where implementation of BIM will take place when invited to draft an action plan. The researcher will compile a list of key respondents and use it to review by other committee members, who will be randomly selected from target communities, i.e. Respondents from UK government building sector, representatives from client companies and others from companies with strong votes for BIM. A grant proposal involving travel expenses, feeding, rooms and other necessary expenses will be drafted and submitted to the established committee for approval. Some issues will be included following consultations from technocrats. Approved members to participate in the process/project will be invited into a place to share views about the key issues of concern, including the necessary tools to investigations; i.e. there will be sharing about who should be interviewed or who should be engaged with questionnaires. This will simplify the process of investigations because representatives from societies to be engaged shall describe the departments where specific tools should be used. Appropriate tools will be designed and enough copies made for distribution to key respondents. Preparations will then be made to determine traveling and, in this respect, participants in the application shall first approach the UK department of the building to petition for permission also examine the process of implementing the BIM program in UK. This means that papers containing management plans about BIM initiative will be provided to us as a basis of understanding as well as a sign of government commitment to the spread of the program. Following this, documents from UK management construction industry will be reviewed and designed in the simplest way of communicating to target institutions. Telecommunication institutions will then be approached and informed in advance of two weeks before starting. This will be a sign of creating enough periods of convenience for us. After the age of two weeks, visits will be started following the action plan made for each day. Programs will be run in sessions depending on conveniences of respondents. A pre-survey will be made facilitate the number of respondents in each sector to be investigated and to determine the number of females and males to be engaged. This will be done to avoid being gender biased. This will also be done to determine appropriate samples, which are gender, responsive and representative of the population targeted. Strategies will be laid in such a way that respondents will not be exposed to any form of either physical or mental anguish. This will be ensured through operating in line with rules and regulations described to be followed during issue of consent in target societies. In difficult communities to undertake, local residents will be used as a variety of influences counterparts to provide required information. However, hatred of respondents, if any, will be checked through taming them or retreating. Necessary documents will be sought from relevant departments and employees. These will promote awareness of existing policies in service delivery and making necessary comparisons so that in performance strengths and weaknesses will be established. Finally, it is expected that where web-based investigations will be connected, some of the information will be acquired through online exchange of ideas. In this respect, the affected parties need to do web-based tools to help. Amidst the above steps, pertinent information will be accessed and organized according to the objectives stated. 5. Research Methods considered being suitable for achieving the objectives above; Before establishing the methods expected to be used, this program is expected to be assessed quantitatively both in terms of delivery of influencing BIM and competitive advantage. In other words, this program implementation will first focus group of people who are interested and subsequently wish to what extent it has GallifordTry has obtained a competitive advantage. Besides, applications of quantitative data collection methods move hand in hand with testing hypotheses derived from theory or being able to determine the size of a phenomenon of interest. In this case, quantitative data collection methods are used to determine the project as well as an area of interest that Galliford Try people can gain a competitive advantage through influencing implementation of BIM among Telecommunication infra\structure sectors where it is not taken as an absolute priority. Two methods are expected to be applied to achieve the stated objectives. That is; Questionnaires and Interviews. Interviews and questionnaires are widely acknowledged as appropriate methods while processing quantitative data. This can be justified by their strengths as stated in the following explanation. 6. Questionnaires Questionnaires are defined as an asset of survey questions organized to extract data from a given population. 7. Advantages in using questionnaires Questionnaires can be used in making quantitative investigations because they are sent to a large number of people at a time, saving the researcher’s life and change, Leedy & Ormrod, (2001). According to Leedy and Ormrod, other research methods such as interviews are perceived to be costly in terms of time and investment expenditures. This is because they encroach on the respondent’s life as he or she is required to listen to the researcher and in so doing, a need for compensating interviewee’s account arises. Leedy and Ormrod identify two forms of questionnaires that is to say Paper pencil and web-based questionnaires. In paper-pencil questionnaires, researchers design questions and distribute them to respondents, give them certain and then restore them. Leedy and Ormrod realize that people are more accurate when responding to paper-pencil questionnaires regarding controversial issues because their responses are anonymous. On the other hand, Web-based-questionnaires are a new technique involving the use of internet based research. In web-based questionnaires, questionnaires are in real form, and a respondent design san email containing questionnaires that they are required to fill in their views. It is said to be a quick and les accurate method of data way though it excludes people who do not have computers. The researcher however, expects to use both types of questionnaires in the implementing BIM program among the Telecommunication infrastructure companies/sectors. Researchers have identified that questionnaires have advantages and disadvantages, and it is so crucial to consider both before implementing the BIM program. This is because there is a possibility of borrowing the information from other researchers about ways of overcoming weaknesses of the research methods in order t ignore constraints in obtaining the designed objectives. 8. Advantages of Questionnaires John, M. (1999) verifies the following as advantages of using questionnaires Questionnaires are organized according to the objectives of learning and thus operate in a standardized way. According to John, when writing questionnaires, a number of questions is formulated under each objective of the research which enables the investigator to be goal oriented and to avoid obtaining irrelevant information. In relation with the BIM program, John’s expertise will be borrowed and used to obtain, design related questions so as to save time that would be wasted in obtaining irrelevant information. In other words, the questionnaires to be used will be real focused. It is quite easy/quick to collect data using questionnaires simply because it establishes a specified period of time when the data/responses are needed to facilitate data collection. In addition, respondents can freely express their views about difficult issues that would seem quite difficult during open chat sessions or other methods. This is because, an individual, or in this case, a respondent shall have occasion to analyze the questionnaires during their convenient time without any interference from an outside environment. 9. Weaknesses of Questionnaires According to John, (1999), questionnaires include the following disadvantages; Questionnaires are said to have a bit of occurring after an event has taken place when participants have forgotten some key issues. However, for this case, BIM is just a new program initiated by the UK government and it still has an ongoing advocacy. Therefore, this limitation may not be applicable in implementing BIM among Telecommunication infrastructure sectors. In fact, it is not even a little late because respondents shall be told the importance of BIM before even implementing it. This makes it a pristine program and neglect cannot be accounted for in this case. Questions which make up, questionnaires are identified not to have established meaning as it would be for interviews. In other words, it is believed that individual respondents may interpret questions differently; hence making it not standardized method of data collection. John however, sells the idea of piloting questions on a small group of respondents to partially solve the problem of not being standardized. In regard to Implementation of BIM, questionnaires shall be used to selected individuals. Indeed it will be done to respondents’ convenience, hence ignoring the weakness of not being standardized in understanding. In addition, BIM program does exist, and GallifordTry program implementers want to take the necessary information to respondents so that they have a similar interpretation. In website-based questionnaires, for instance, an explanation on the BIM, about its relevance will be addressed t respondents before the questions. Open ended questions commonly used in questionnaires have been identified to produce large amounts of information which may take time to process. Contrary to this, however, StartPac, (2011) argues that questionnaires are so severe, and respondents at times, may need to empower the answers but have no way. The only restriction they think is by finding enough space where they ca clearly articulate their views properly. We apply a small piece of what would be answered. However, this can be limited by limiting the spaces available for expressing responses as John suggests. Combining StartPac and John’s identifications, this program shall ensure that accurate questions to the required objectives of investigations will be asked. In addition, not too much time shall be left for respondents so that issues shall not be exaggerated. Another weakness that John advances on the use of questionnaires is the fact that respondents may not be able to answer some questionnaires with a belief that they can be penalized for disclosing some information that would be restricted. Secondly, there may not e possibility of accessing personal information in spite its importance. The implementation of the BIM program is being concerned this limitation can be cited among respondents of workers in employee sectors who may hesitate to give responses assuming that their bosses may punish them. As John suggests, this weakness shall be limited in two ways. One is that thing asked shall not include demands for personal issues. If some information is so crucial to ask, Questions shall not need mentioning initials, or if they do, they shall not appear in publications expected to be made. Secondly, through questionnaires, respondents is being informed that there will not be any disclosure of confidential information and that investigators shall be liable to risks accruing from disclosure of information which entails confidentiality. Startpac, (2011) unfolds that there is a mistake in using questionnaires which require a variety of low response rates, i.e. it is possible that respondents will decline to meet some of the questionnaires which may affect the confidence level in the findings. The failure to respond questionnaires or returning questions with short responses may be required to several factors that need to be checked. These include; asking tough questions to know just by using a lot of technical language, asking many questions which may not, modify the respondent to gain time answering all of them, and losing questionnaires especially when it comes to respondents who have busy schedules and can simply remove the questionnaires among a stack of documents such that, by the fact that it is not of much priority, it can not easily be traced. As far as this research is concerned, questionnaires, both webs based and, written is being organized such a way that few questions shall be asked and such questions shall be so precise and shall include the use of standard sentences to explain. The simplicity of English to be used shall be tested by distributing the questionnaires to different individuals for making checks. Another weakness of questionnaires advanced by StartPac is that it is possible to have other respondents other than the target ones. This is simply because there is not correct contact with respondents and if it is there, a researcher cannot decide whether it is the right person filling in the questions because the job is done in his/her absence. In a nutshell, the researcher expects to generate questionnaires which are relatively free from avoidable challenges in order to obtain relevant information for the program. 10. Interviews Interviews refer to a purpose driven conversation involving a writer and a respondent who have come together to discuss issues, (Frey & Oishi, 1995). In an interview, an interviewer asks prepared questions and, a respondent answers them appropriately. Interviews are being done to gain information about a particular topic. There are two structures of interview questions, that is to, say structured or closed and unstructured or open-ended interviews. Interviews can be made either between person to person and, or person to a lot of people. Oral interviews involve one person asking a lot of people, (Jensen & jankowski, 1991). This research shall appoint the person to person interview way to gather required information as stated in the objectives and a structured set of interview. In a structured interview, respondents are being given questions of investigations t review before the date of interview. This is being done to allow respondents get enough preparations for interviews in terms of required materials. 11. The advantages of using interviews are as follows; They are so helpful especially to people who do not know how to read and communicate using questionnaires in answering questions. In this case, we can say that some respondents may have no time rather than not knowing to read and write. Therefore, this program shall apply interviews to respondents who will accept it helpful in answering questionnaires on the basis of the time factor or any other factors. Unlike Questionnaires are identified to be happy in such a way that they are used to communicate complex ideas. This is because there is free flow of ideas between the two sides in the interview process. It also implies that incase of trying to understand issues, either party shall feel free to make inquiries. Besides, interviews demand immediate responses and there is little choice of going without sufficient information, and in case insufficient information has been given, respondents opine to arrange another time for more conference sessions. Therefore, putting this in mind, the researcher expects to use interviews. An interview helps the examiner to provide a clear explanation of the purpose of investigations and enables respondents o ask questions of transparency which are answered promptly and appropriately to stimulate respondents/interviewees. Another advantage of structured interview to be used in the research process is that all respondents are to be asked the same questions, and this will reduce reliability measures in that the interviewee will compare responses and see contradictions as well similar ideas. In an group interview process, all respondents are being assessed using similar scales. Using structured interviews, interviewees ask one question which can lead, to another explanation. This creates a potential for an appraiser to get more information about the subject asked. The chronological order of events to the area of research is being stated in clear interaction sessions between the interviewer and the interviewee. In other words, the respondent or interviewee is being given enough time to think about the idea in question and take it as he or she feels should be addressed. Therefore through exchanging ideas, t can eve allow the researcher to find out more information that would rather be curious to him/her. 12. Disadvantages of interviews If the respondent is not compatible, information may be affected. This is because the investigator relies heavily on the data given by a respondent and he assumes that any information granted is being given by the right person and therefore, likely t correctness. Interviews are also said to be strict time consuming in a sense that the respondent only answers during his or her benefit. Investigators do not affect respondents as far as time is concerned. On the other hand, it is also time consuming on the side of the respondent because they will have to abandon all other commitments o respond to the questions. Besides, there will be a need to develop programs for use by respondents. To avoid this, StafordTry will secure interviews in such a way that respondents are informed in time of two weeks ahead of conclave hour and sound reminders will be made in between. In so doing, quite enough time will have been created for the interviews. In addition to the above point, a meeting will be seen as a need to satisfy the assessor in such a way that it is difficult to obtain a novel idea of the interviewee but remarkably easy to get a way that makes the interviewer happy. Interviews let the reporter to attend as well as monitor the interviewee. This implies that interviews also promotes adherence therefore, a comprehensive system of carrying out investigations. It requires that the interviewer becomes intense and charm of understanding the responses, which is given otherwise, they may end up considering additional information instead of the exact attitude that is relating to the right justification or objectives. Therefore, the fact that it gives support for interviewees to express their ideas and given the option of one idea leading to another it is interviews may lead to obtaining less detailed data. However, this can easily be checked by ensuring that the investigators or interviewees try as much as possible o write down n paper whatever responses interviewees send as a way of avoiding scanty minds and obtaining the right information from respondents. References John, M. (2009): Questionnaires: Advantages and Disadvantages, Evaluation CookBook, Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative Publishers Lee, G. Sacks & Eastman C. (2006): Specifying Building Object Behavior, (BOB) for Building Information Modelling System, Automation Construction Publications Eastman, C. (2009). Building Information Technology: Digital Building Lab @ Georgia Tech.Retrieved April 9, 2011, StartPac, (2011): Disadvantages of written Questionnaires Martyn Denscombe. The Good Guide for Small Scale Social Research Projects, (4th Edition) Read More