Building Information Modelling Adoption: An Analysis of the Barriers of Implementation

The UK Government has set a target date for the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) by 2016. Despite the many benefits identified in literature there are also barriers to be overcome but there is little by way of research ranking the importance of each. To enable informed decision making during the implementation process this research provides a ranking of barriers. The study gathered information via a web-based survey from the top 74 United Kingdom based main construction contractors. The findings demonstrated that the barriers are reduced in importance after BIM adoption as the major hurdle of initial investment has been overcome reducing the “Fear” factor”. The two most important barriers to implementing BIM overall are “Scale of Culture Change Required/Lack of Flexibility” and “Lack of supply Chain Buy-in”. The low ranking awarded to “Lack of management support” and “Other Competing Initiatives” show the priority implementation is given in industry.