Critical success competencies for the BIM implementation process : UK construction clients

Construction clients’/owners’ demand is currently being recognised as a significant motivation and drive for the construction industry to begin to transform and adopt Building Information Modelling (BIM). In addition, clients can stimulate the innovation to achieve crucial benefits from BIM. However, the implementation of BIM is prevented from being more widely accepted across the construction industry by client fears and a lack of the full understanding of the benefits of BIM, as well as the requirements needed to realise these benefits. Therefore, it is important for client organisations to develop the required competencies that support the BIM implementation process and help to achieve the desired benefits of BIM. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success competencies that facilitate clients to fulfil their roles in the BIM implementation process. Multiple holistic case studies were used as the research strategy and semi-structured interviews were employed as the principal data collection technique. Code-based content analysis and cognitive mapping were used to analyse the verbatim interview transcripts. The data analysis process was facilitated by the computer-aided software, Nvivo. Several types of competencies are identified as critical success factors that enable client organisations to lead the BIM implementation process and increase the efficiency in BIM uses within the UK. In addition, it is concluded that by adopting these competencies, client organisations can enhance their Employer Information Requirements (EIR) and improve their ability to validate the outcome BIM models. These developments will increase client opportunities to meet their desired benefits. This paper provides a contribution to the body of knowledge by identifying BIM organisational maturity competencies for UK clients and their roles in the BIM implementation process, together with establishing the relationship between them. This will enhance the importance of the BIM maturity competencies within the BIM implementation from a clients’ perspective. In addition, it will facilitate client organisations evaluating their ability to fulfil their roles through assessing the related competencies