Analyzing the development of BIM and related cost software both domestically and internationally reveals two major issues in China’s bill of quantities pricing rules. Firstly, the current BIM-based engineering cost calculation methods differ significantly from the bill of quantities pricing rules, leading to inaccurate cost estimations. Secondly, BIM models do not fully capture the content and construction methods involved in the building process, which presents several urgent challenges that need to be addressed in BIM-based engineering cost management:
① Describing Building Component Characteristics. Current BIM-based cost models include only the geometric and physical properties of building components but lack detailed feature information such as component characteristics, construction methods, and processes. This results in an incomplete description of components. Meanwhile, China’s long-established bill of quantities pricing standards provide detailed and comprehensive classifications for various construction sub-projects. This mismatch between BIM models and pricing rules creates obstacles for effective cost management using BIM. To better leverage BIM technology for engineering cost control, it is essential to align BIM with China’s construction market practices and pricing standards, developing a list pricing model tailored to the Chinese market and integrated with BIM technology.
② Generating Engineering Quantity List Items. BIM models created by current software platforms are not systematically organized according to project component types; instead, they merely list building components individually. For example, the detailed component lists extracted from Revit models differ significantly from China’s bill of quantities because they do not consolidate similar project items. As a result, quantities extracted from existing BIM software are unsuitable for current engineering pricing methods. To realize BIM-based engineering pricing, it is necessary to combine BIM data with China’s established bill of quantities pricing models and standards, ultimately enabling automatic pricing processes.
③ Quantity Measurement and Deduction Challenges. Existing BIM software and models can extract and calculate quantities for most building components. However, due to differences in domestic calculation rules and software limitations, some engineering items cannot be accurately extracted or calculated. Additionally, certain non-physical components in construction projects cannot be recognized or measured by current software. Therefore, developing a BIM-based pricing model requires expanding the software’s application scope and revising calculation rules to accommodate such cases.
④ Standardization of Component Names and Measurement Units. Most BIM software currently used in China is foreign-developed and does not fully adapt to China’s unique market conditions and industry requirements. These tools primarily serve visualization purposes, while quantity extraction and valuation differ greatly from Chinese standards. Presently, engineering quantity lists typically include project codes, names, measurement units, feature descriptions, and quantities. To implement BIM-based engineering pricing effectively, it is imperative to integrate China’s construction market specifics and bill of quantities pricing rules. This calls for establishing a series of classification rules and standards starting from the early BIM modeling phase, enabling model standardization and semantic enrichment to expand the information dimension.
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