Building Information Modeling: The ‘C’ in BIM

When looking at worldwide building processes today, a common and concerning pattern emerges. A large number of projects are not finished on time, exceeding the estimated costs by significant amounts, and/or are not completed with the expected quality. Even if building professionals start projects with the best of intentions they often appear to lose grip and oversight on the building process along the way. It seems that there is an increasing tendency of authorities and the public to accept a ‘first build and then fix errors’ culture as unavoidable. Taking the development and ideas behind the term BIM (Building Information Modeling) into account and accepting that the future building process will be undergoing a tremendous transformation from traditional ‘step by step’ towards ‘integrated thinking’—the article shows that next to all technology, processing and policy questions we have to focus on the participating people and the communication between them (the ‘C’-aspect). Without improved and further developed communication skills and habits future building industry will hardly be able to fulfill the demands of the complex process changes that integrated approaches like BIM are asking for. After sketching an overview of the tobe-expected changes while stepping over from traditional planning to the BIM method, the article highlights major aspects of communication requiring far more attention in order to meet the challenges the building industries are already facing or will face in the nearby future.