Planning and Design Stage
The planning and design phase has a decisive impact on overall project costs. Increasingly, project owners are calling for constrained, or “limited,” design solutions. However, many domestic design firms have not yet developed the necessary capabilities to meet this demand. Traditional 2D design methods fail to build a robust database linking design decisions with associated costs. Historical data is often inaccessible, and problem-solving relies heavily on experience, which leads to significant inaccuracies in outcomes. With the support of a BIM-based cost index library, achieving quota-based design becomes far more attainable.
Leveraging BIM to rapidly calculate and analyze engineering quantities, then comparing and controlling results against historical cost indicators through engineering feature matching, provides substantial advantages for cost management during the design phase.
Once the design is finalized, BIM models can be used to quickly generate estimates. This process verifies whether design indicators align with requirements, ensures control over total investment, and effectively fulfills the role of limit design.
Investment Decision-Making Stage
Currently, it remains challenging to establish a structured database of cost index data, organized by project type and engineering characteristics, during the engineering estimation phase. As a result, estimation accuracy is low, and it is difficult to effectively manage the full cycle of budgeting, preliminary estimates, and final settlements.
By applying BIM technology, engineering projects can be modeled from the outset. Throughout the project’s early stages and construction process, all generated economic, technical, and material information is stored directly within the BIM model. This enables the automatic analysis and compilation of detailed cost indicators for individual projects, ultimately forming an enterprise-wide BIM database or indicator library.
The use of BIM technology for data accumulation is highly efficient and facilitates the creation of large-scale databases. A database or indicator library consists of structured data closely tied to engineering features, allowing for the automatic matching and filtering of indicators. This capability results in significantly more accurate analysis.
The ability to implement real-time data retrieval and combination provides decision-making support for future development projects, making data query and utilization far more convenient. This is the core role of engineering estimation in controlling costs in later stages.
Bidding Stage
1. Rapid and Accurate Compilation of Bills of Quantities and Bidding Costs
Based on the BIM design model, construction units and bidding agencies can quickly generate a bill of quantities tailored to the specific characteristics of the project, effectively avoiding omissions and calculation errors.
By directly loading the bill of quantities into the BIM model, the construction unit can distribute the model—containing the bill of quantities—to prospective bidders when selling bidding documents, thereby ensuring the integrity of design information.
2. Unbalanced Quotation Strategy
Construction units can use BIM technology to analyze the owner’s list and apply unbalanced quotations to influence final settlement prices, potentially achieving settlement profits of 10% or more. However, most construction units have not yet widely adopted BIM software and have missed out on this opportunity.
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