9 The effects of integrated BIM in processes and business models
The idea of building information modelling (BIM) was created in the mid-1970s, first under the name of building product modelling (Eastman 1975). It started to become a wider industry issue after 1995, when the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) began to develop a standard called Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), a schema and format for data exchange between different software applications used in architectural, engineering, construction, owning and operations (AECOO) activities (IAI 1995). In the first 10 years the main focus in the development of BIM was strongly on the technology. This was necessary since standardised data exchange is a mandatory precondition for an efficient BIM-based work flow between different participants – integrated BIM (iBIM) – and the development and implementation of such a standard proved to be significantly more complex than was believed at the beginning of IAI (Kiviniemi 2006; Kiviniemi et al. 2008). However, despite the still existing technical problems and limitations in data exchange (Kiviniemi 2008), the main obstacle to the deployment of iBIM in the last few years has not been the technology, but the old work processes, old business models and conservative attitudes in the industry. The traditional paper-based processes do not utilise the full potential of iBIM and the AECOO industry’s business models do not support the necessary development of the ...
