In any construction project, multiple participants are involved, including investors, construction teams, supervisors, and consultants. The investor, often called the “construction unit,” is either the project’s financier or an independent legal entity established specifically for the project. This party plays a leading role in coordinating all stakeholders and must clearly define the implementation plan for BIM (Building Information Modeling) applications.
The investor’s overall BIM implementation strategy is closely tied to the BIM goals. The plan is crafted to meet specific objectives by first identifying the relevant BIM applications, then developing appropriate BIM processes based on these applications. Information exchange and infrastructure requirements are established according to the BIM goals, selected applications, and processes. The evaluation workflow prior to BIM implementation is illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Pre-implementation evaluation of BIM
Successfully implementing BIM is not the work of a single individual, team, or participant—it requires collaboration. While investors lead the effort, all participants must work together. BIM cannot thrive in isolation; collaboration is its core essence.
Throughout the project lifecycle, the BIM model and its data must be fully interactive and updated promptly among all stakeholders. As construction progresses, the model’s detail and information depth increase significantly. This demands that each participant fulfills their responsibilities to jointly build and maintain the integrity of the BIM model and its data.
When investors lead BIM efforts, their responsibilities include document verification, rule validation, goal management, supervision, execution oversight, design coordination, and cost control. Figure 2 illustrates the ideal BIM team organizational structure in an engineering project under investor leadership.
Figure 2: Ideal BIM Team Organizational Structure Led by Investors
Additionally, investors can establish an internal BIM center tailored to their organizational needs. This center supports BIM technology application across multiple projects, manages BIM-related technical resources, and facilitates personnel training and team development. A reference organizational structure for such a BIM center is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Organizational Structure of BIM Center within the Enterprise
The purpose of forming a BIM team and establishing an internal BIM department is to enhance management efficiency through information technology. Unfortunately, many participants still treat BIM as merely an advanced CAD tool, overlooking its critical role in information management. Common challenges include misalignment between BIM application and management methods, as well as between BIM processes and workflows. These issues often stem from the absence of a suitable platform for effective BIM information exchange and coordination.
To fully unlock BIM’s potential, it is essential to ensure smooth information flow on a unified platform, with all parties actively participating and sharing data in a timely manner. This collaborative approach unleashes the full power of BIM. Figure 4 presents the technical architecture of a BIM-based collaborative management platform for engineering projects.
Figure 4: Architectural diagram of a 3D visualization project collaborative management platform
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