BIM has been implemented in China for over a decade. In recent years, with continuous support policies introduced by the central and local governments, the pace of BIM development has been remarkable. However, rapid growth has also brought about several challenges. Today, the author will discuss the current problems facing BIM development in China.
1. BIM Adoption is Not Voluntary but Imposed by Superiors
At present, most organizations adopt BIM primarily due to government mandates or directives from higher authorities. However, the true purpose behind integrating BIM is not fully understood, and there are no clear standards for budgeting BIM-related activities. This often results in inadequate funding, which prevents full implementation and reduces the effectiveness of BIM in projects—this is a major challenge across many organizations.
Additionally, evaluations show that since BIM adoption is still in its infancy across many organizations in China, the feasibility and execution of BIM frequently rely on external professional consultants or experts. While this practice is widespread, organizations should create internal professional development plans for their personnel. Such initiatives would not only improve BIM application efficiency on projects but also strengthen the organization’s overall expertise in BIM implementation.
2. Lack of Comprehensive BIM Training and Formalized Bidding Procedures
The majority of BIM-related tasks are managed by project-leading units. Although these units provide internal BIM education and training, the focus is mostly on basic BIM concepts. This limited training remains a significant obstacle for many organizations.
If organizations assign specialized professionals to participate in BIM projects and coordinate internally to form dedicated BIM teams, it would greatly enhance their overall BIM capabilities. Furthermore, when drafting BIM bidding documents, many projects simply reference documents from other projects. Since each engineering project has unique characteristics, this approach is often unsuitable and ineffective.
3. Early Stage BIM Adoption with Limited Data Utilization
Because many organizations are still in the early phase of BIM implementation, there is no clear strategy for data retention or evaluating the benefits of BIM-related data. To address this, project teams should confirm BIM’s problem-solving advantages and establish post-project evaluation mechanisms.
Such evaluations would not only assess BIM’s value but also generate documentation useful for future organizational learning. Systematically collecting and categorizing different BIM cases can help build a benchmark database, allowing other organizations to reference and learn from these examples, thus maximizing BIM’s value.
Overall, since BIM technology is usually introduced into individual projects at the initial stage, most cases lack comprehensive evaluation regarding project application and resource requirements.
4. Significant Variation in BIM Application Capabilities Among Organizations
Despite numerous BIM case studies in China, the uneven capabilities of domestic organizations and the absence of unified norms and standards have led to various implementation issues. Organizations with higher BIM maturity scores tend to have more complete BIM systems. Conversely, those with lower maturity scores often adopt BIM only to meet policy requirements without systematic integration, resulting in ineffective use of BIM benefits.
In other words, while many organizations recognize BIM’s advantages, their understanding and application mostly come from self-exploration rather than standardized guidelines.
5. Relatively Low Level of BIM Application in China
Currently, BIM adoption in China remains at an early stage. Although the public sector actively promotes BIM, many struggle to correctly integrate BIM into organizations and projects. Various organizations have proposed different promotion strategies and evaluation methods under domestic government guidance, but there is no comprehensive policy-to-implementation evaluation system.
As a result, BIM maturity levels across projects remain low, making it difficult to realize the full benefits of BIM technology. Therefore, establishing systematic BIM decision-making and evaluation processes is essential to advancing BIM adoption in China.
In conclusion, while there are still many challenges in applying BIM in China, the overall direction is promising. BIM has experienced ups and downs in China, and with the advent of Industry 4.0, we believe BIM development will continue to improve. That’s all for the current problems in BIM development in China. I hope this article has been helpful!
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