Economies of off-site concrete construction with BIM

Abstract

Off-site concrete construction (OSC) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) are certainly not new to the construction industry. However, current construction trends, increasing awareness in efficient construction, the emerging interest in BIM featured technologies and the growing effect of off-site concrete construction have caused many practitioners to consider more on it. The BIM technology is still not properly practiced in Sri Lankan construction industry. In spite of the benefits of off-site concrete construction method, several problems and challenges have been unsolved in this regard and it costs extra money and time to be spent. This paper analyses the problems in off-site construction and the available BIM featured solutions to overcome these challenges. The research was carried out through interviews with stakeholders with different type of contribution to the off-site construction industry. The major problems and challenges identified from the interviews have analysed with the available solutions from BIM featured technology. The results revealed that, BIM has already provided solutions for most of the problems in off-site construction. There are possibilities to solve even more issues if BIM is used with add-on features. Still some problems regarding off-site construction remain unsolved.