Enhancement of The Current Iraqi Construction Industry Performance (Time and Cost) By Building Information Modeling (BIM) Utilization

Abstract

Building information modeling is the new technological era of the new construction plan, design and construct tools and platform. The utilization of this technology has been widely recognized in developing and developed country in construction industry practitioners, and stakeholders. The construction industry performance in Iraq is undergoing a pragmatic construction shift, where projects are more complexed, and involves many stakeholders, local and international. The complexity of the project involvement tends to weaken the project performance, due to the utilization of old methods like computer aided design (CAD) methods, and critical path method (CPM), by practitioners in the Iraqi construction industry. The inadequacy in project performance in Iraq is measured by project changes and variations in its duration and cost of the project. This study aims to determine the utilization of BIM for enhancement of the current Iraqi construction industry performance mainly project duration and cost. The study is carried through a quantitative approach, where a questionnaire form is distrusted into the practitioner of the Iraqi construction industry professionals. The questionnaire form was distributed through Google form, and the gather data was analyzed through the usage of Smart-PLS version 3 software. The questionnaire analysis included the construction industry current performance, in terms of time and cost. Whereas it further studies awareness, functions, and barriers of BIM, from the perspective of professional in Iraqi construction industry, and it further included the benefits of BIM in the construction industry to the perspective of practitioner in Iraqi construction industry. A total of 382 respondents’ data was gathered and analyzed, which were practitioners in construction, engineering and architecture firms in Iraq. Based on the findings, the construction industry practitioners showed high awareness level on BIM application, where they identified the functions benefits, and along with barriers of BIM. The study showed that although the relation between BIM barriers and the construction industry had the potential of making the situation of current construction industry worse, but the benefits of BIM improved the relation between the barriers, and construction industry, by providing the influencing factors for the BIM utilization which would tend to improve the current project duration and cost in Iraqi construction industry.