Ritu Ahuja presents her pre-PhD research on BIM and related areas

It is indeed a very proud moment for us as one of our Ph.D. scholars, Assistant Professor Ritu Ahuja, presented her Pre-Ph.D. presentation seminar to the members of Student Research Committee, Departmental Research Committee, Faculty Research Committee and post graduates of our School.

This is our first Ph.D. nearing completion that started within our School. The title of her research work is 'Investigating the intersection of BIM, lean and green paradigms in construction'.

Ritu Ahuja summarizes her thesis as follows:

Globally the built environment sector is striving to be highly efficient, quality-centered and socially-responsible. Built environment sector is an integral part of the economy and plays an important role in urbanization, industrialization and improved quality of living. The inherent challenges such as excessive material and process waste, over reliance on resources, energy usage and carbon footprint need to be addressed in order to meet the needs of the economy. It is envisioned that these challenges can be resolved by integration of Lean—Green—Building Information Modelling (BIM) paradigms. BIM as an enabler can help to identify the linkages between lean and green. It will also serve as a platform to establish an efficient and sustainable process. Reports of efforts to demonstrate the overlap separately between lean and green; BIM and lean; BIM and green concepts are available in literature. Ipso facto, with BIM as a catalyst, this research identifies the conceptual, operational and tactical connections of lean and green philosophies. The study focuses on development of a framework for BIM - based organizational capabilities which will help the AEC organizations to develop higher order capabilities. The research methodology includes quantitative as well as quantitative study and analysis with questionnaire survey, Partial Least Square (PLS-SEM), Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as the chosen techniques. Successful culmination of this study will enhance the uptake of three transformational paradigms – BIM, lean and green.

With the first Ph.D. from our institute nearing completion, we look forward to more industry specific studies being undertaken.