The classification of Level of Development (LOD) holds different significance at various stages of a project. Throughout the construction process, using LOD classification effectively benefits both parties involved and fosters a collaborative, win-win relationship between the client and the contractor.
1. Early Project Stage: This phase focuses on strengthening communication, clarifying requirements, and preventing or minimizing unrealistic expectations. It involves defining deliverables and milestone information, coordinating with the BIM execution plan to ensure smooth internal data exchange, clarifying the responsibilities of all involved parties, and defining the scope and intensity of work.
2. Project Progress Stage: Here, establishing a collaborative work plan is essential, integrating model level classifications with other BIM management documents and their supporting systems. Enhanced collaboration helps reduce redundant or excessive modeling efforts, optimizes project timelines, increases process control to minimize risks, and decreases the shifting of responsibilities during project execution.
3. Project Delivery Stage: At this point, efforts focus on improving the model’s completeness and delivering more realistic results. This stage promotes better coordination and transparency between design and construction phases.
4. All Project Participants: All parties contribute to ensuring the reliability of the standardized model, negotiate unified standards, and collaboratively establish consistent enterprise practices. Using the model as a common foundation helps reduce disputes related to collaborative contracts.
However, there are some limitations in previous BIM model level classifications. In practice, requiring the BIM model’s LOD to strictly match the project stage during design and construction often forces an unnecessarily high level of detail. This approach turns LOD into a rigid benchmark for assessing the maturity of BIM adoption across enterprises, which was never the original intention behind LOD standards.
Because owners, designers, and contractors may spend excessive time and resources pursuing higher LODs beyond the actual project needs, this can cause delays without addressing the most critical issues. Therefore, developing a practical and effective LOD plan early in the project lifecycle is crucial. This ensures the BIM model delivers maximum value within the project’s time and budget constraints.
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