BIM Guidelines Review for Public Post-Secondary Institutions

Despite its documented success, the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) continues to raise questions related to its implementation at an institutional level. Therefore, several institutions have produced guidelines specific to BIM to communicate their expectations in regard to BIM in their projects. However, such guidelines do not exist among Canadian post-secondary or public institutions despite the wide implementation of BIM technology. To better address the requirements of BIM usage by public post-secondary institutions, a review of existing BIM guidelines is needed. The research includes three phases: (1) assessment of existing processes; (2) a comprehensive review of twelve guidelines from institutions with various backgrounds; followed by (3) recommendations for further BIM implementation. We reach the conclusion that no one institution’s BIM guidelines are capable of fully accommodating the context and requirements of all Canadian public post - secondary institutions. Hence, a BIM guideline based on the key findings of the analyzed documents for each stage of the building lifecycle, as well as knowledge about current operations and local context, is recommended as future research. To achieve a comprehensive set of guidelines, the local construction industry should be consulted to account for existing BIM expertise; the guidelines should also incorporate important documents found in the guidelines of other institutions. Moreover, it is recommended that the future guidelines focus on the management of the BIM model for the operation and maintenance phase since this phase incurs the highest costs in a building’s lifecycle, and is the responsibility of the owner (i.e., the institution).