An exploratory study on the building information modeling adoption in United Arab Emirates municipal projects- current status and challenges

Sustainable Construction Materials and Structural Systems Research Group, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

^* Corresponding author: svenkat@sharjah.ac.ae

Abstract

Many modern complex building projects in the public and private sectors are characterized by its poor information management which is manifested by time and cost overruns around the world. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is currently being adopted around the world with various countries mandated its implementation. In specific, the implementation of BIM is rapidly growing in developed countries such as USA, UK, Singapore and Australia, with government mandate through devising strategies and initiatives to increase the adoption. The implementation of BIM in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other developing countries lags behind due to the existence of numerous implementation barriers. This study explores the current status of BIM implementation in the UAE municipalities, further explores the people, process and technology readiness towards BIM adoption in the UAE building projects. Further the study also explores the current challenges against the BIM adoption. The study adopts a positivists approach by collecting data through questionnaires, a sample of sixty participants across the UAE municipalities from different states were selected randomly to acquire the data. The collected data is statistically analyzed to obtain the findings. The analysis results showed that there are inadequate people and process related readiness towards BIM adoption whereas the technology readiness does exist. The same also was reflected in further analysis on BIM adoption barriers as the challenges. Further the paper also discusses the possible strategies adopted around the world through literature to address the explored challenges in the study