With the advancement and widespread adoption of BIM technology, its role in cost management continues to grow significantly. Engineering cost management firms utilize BIM primarily during key phases of construction projects: decision-making, design, contracting, and construction. Each phase benefits uniquely from the capabilities of BIM.
1. Decision-Making Stage
At this initial stage, engineering cost management companies focus on investment estimation and scheme optimization to guide informed decisions and conserve resources. By leveraging BIM technology, companies can extract relevant data from their established BIM databases to compare different project solutions. This process allows for adjusting price indicators and quantities across various schemes, which are then visually represented through 3D models. Such visualization facilitates an intuitive, convenient, and efficient selection of the most reasonable plan.
2. Design Phase
BIM technology offers significant advantages in cost control during the design phase. BIM models incorporate not only spatial and geometric information but also detailed material properties. These models can be seamlessly integrated with professional quantity calculation software, enabling automatic generation of construction quantities that comply with industry standards. This integration substantially reduces the workload of cost personnel and eliminates redundant model duplication efforts.
3. Contracting Stage
During project development, cost management firms are responsible for preparing bidding documents, setting bidding control prices, and choosing appropriate bidding strategies. Traditional bidding processes often face tight deadlines, making accurate and efficient quantity calculations challenging if done manually. With increasing architectural complexity—particularly in building nodes and exterior decorations—manual calculations are impractical. BIM technology, combined with computational software, effectively addresses these challenges by automating and streamlining the bidding quantity calculations.
4. Construction Phase
This critical phase involves transforming construction drawings into three-dimensional models based on floor plans. The focus is on project settlement, managing changes and claims, finalizing completion settlements, and handling warranty costs. Engineering cost management companies harness BIM’s modeling and visualization capabilities to quickly and clearly access quantity and cost data for each project component. Cost and quantity BIM software such as Guanglian Da and Luban capitalize on these benefits. Additionally, BIM5D enables multi-dimensional comparisons of actual, budgeted, planned costs, and contract prices throughout different stages. During final settlement, BIM’s comprehensive cost information management ensures continuous data collection and storage, which minimizes disputes arising from poor communication and guarantees smooth project completion.
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