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The School released a research report authored by Prof. Anil Sawhney highlighting that companies are adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) to reduce construction delays and cost overruns and the usage of BIM in India is going to pick up in the near future.
The key findings of the report are:
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BIM reduces capital cost and carbon footprint from the construction by over 20%
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BIM significantly reduces project delivery timelines and cost overruns
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Despite being in experimental stage, 22% companies involved in real estate & infrastructure currently use BIM
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Over 78% companies are aware of BIM, and plan to use it in the next two to three years
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Mostly used by architecture firms, BIM is catching up fast with companies involved in the housing segment.
The report can be downloaded here.
Globally, as project delays, cost overruns and liquidity constraints continue to trouble the real estate and construction sectors, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has emerged as one of the most reliable tools to eliminate challenges and reduce the capital cost and carbon footprint by over 20 percent.
While a number of developed countries across the world have already adopted BIM to reduce project delays and cost overruns, Indian firms are fast adopting BIM, according to the findings of a recently conducted research by the RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University.
Firms involved in built environment sector in India are facing significant schedule and cost overrun on account of poor coordination, wastage of material, significant rework, and lack of information sharing etc. Keeping aside other complexities facing the sector, project delivery can be made more efficient by using technological tools. Various IT-enabled project management techniques have been introduced in the market so far.
One such tool, BIM that offers digital representation of the project during the project lifecycle, right from planning to execution of the project, is gradually picking up among Indian firms. This can significantly improve operational efficiencies leading to reduction in project time and cost overruns that the sector currently faces.
As the awareness for BIM is increasing within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sectors, around 22 per cent of the firms have already started using BIM; and over 78 per cent firms would adopt the technology in coming years, according to the findings.
While the popularity of BIM is increasing gradually, there are challenges in its usage.
Here is what the industry experts had to add while commention on the adoption of BIM in India:
"BIM holds tremendous potential for the Indian construction sector. It allows us to drive out the inefficiencies that are currently bogging the industry. Few issues remain before we see widespread use of BIM in the country. Compatibility between software platforms, availability of skilled resources, and lack of standard processes are among the major challenges deterring usage of BIM technology. Work practices currently followed by the industry are out of sync with the processes required to make BIM implementation successful. High cost of hardware and software, unavailability of process implementation guidelines and lack of support from the government are some of the other challenges that the industry is facing."
Prof. Anil Sawhney FRICS, Associate Dean and Director, School of Construction, RICS SBE, Amity University
"DLF has taken policy decision for usage of BIM on new upcoming projects. We strongly feel that BIM encourages collaboration for complete project life cycle and allows efficiency gains for all the stakeholders. Indian projects can greatly benefit by implementing a process centric approach that is driven by BIM."
Brij Nandan Yadava, Senior Vice President Projects, DLF Ltd
"CPWD is one of the very first organizations that used BIM in India since 2008-09. We have benefited using BIM in execution of complex services-intensive projects and currently using on a number of projects. I see a lot of potential benefits of BIM to construction industry. Personally I am convinced that BIM is the way forward for the Indian construction sector."
Anil K Sharma, Additional Director General, CPWD
"BIM has the potential to provide significant benefits to the indian built environment sector. But implementation of BIM requires a change in the mindset of all stakeholders, as managements of most organizations are reluctant to adopt."
Neeraj Bansal, Partner and Head of Real Estate and Construction Practice, KPMG India