Investigation of Readiness for 4D and 5D BIM Adoption in the Australian Construction Industry

As Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an enabler that can improve productivity of a construction project by facilitating collaboration among stakeholders, there has been an effort to promote BIM adoption in Australia, and yet the Australian construction industry is remained behind in adopting the BIM capabilities related to time (4D BIM) and cost management (5D BIM). In order to identify current barriers and potential recommendations for promoting BIM uptake, this research conducted a questionnaire survey and interviews focusing on 4D and 5D BIM adoption in the Australian construction industry. Consequently, it is identified that the Australian construction industry is not fully ready to embrace 4D and 5D BIM capabilities since basic 3D BIM capability related to 3D visualization is the main usage of BIM for construction projects. As major barriers, a lack of demand from clients for BIM use and high initial costs for BIM system setup are identified. More importantly, a lack of guidance to construct an information-enriched BIM model is recognized to move forward to the next level of BIM utilization such as 4D and 5D BIM capabilities. This research serves as a stepping-stone to study further to promoting BIM uptake in the Australian construction industry.