Projects workflow in the construction industry generally starts at the office and then moves to the construction site. However, the transition phase from the office to the construction site is not that easy, because of the increasing population and the complexity of the desired structures making the calculations, modeling at the office stage, and organization within the construction site difficult to solve with traditional methods. This situation has led people to computer-aided solutions thanks to the developing and digitalizing technological developments. Technological solutions have evolved from systems that automate calculations to simulate the entire construction virtually before it is moved to the construction site. The construction site and the construction itself, which is simulated in 3D, and the information obtained through them have formed the Building Information Modeling approach, or BIM for short. BIM provides both organizing and analyzing the information obtained from the construction site and stores all of this information on the cloud systems and shares it with engineers, architects, contractors, and employers in the form of 3D parametric information. It is used to prevent possible errors that may occur during construction. Problems are more easily found and solved in BIM compared to traditional methods. In England, the BIM approach is mandatory for construction projects and many other countries have already highly accepted this approach. In this context, Building Information Modelling has several utilities but this article only covers time efficiency.
Planning the process of the project is highly crucial for saving time. One of the major elements in the planning process is preparing the timeline. In construction projects, there are several specialists from different disciplines who work together, and each of these specialists should have the timeline of the project because of their collaboration with other specialists. With BIM 360 Plan, which is a Cloud system, preparing the timeline has become simple and every specialist can reach this data anytime via BIM 360’s application. The timelines are generally Gantt charts and specialists update the timelines with each development of their work. This provides every specialist who works on the project, can follow the current stage. Communication is another factor in the planning process. From the beginning to the end, specialists communicate with each other and organize the project together. For instance, when architects draw the technical drawing of the structure, they should communicate with civil engineers because static calculations and technical drawings should be conducted simultaneously. BIM improves this communication by providing an environment for different disciplines to work on the same 3D model. Bryde et al. stated that 13 out of 35 case studies discussed 15 times about the optimization of communication (2013, p.977). This result has shown that the communication benefit of BIM is highly accepted. In brief, preparing a timeline and communication are major factors of planning that improve time efficiency.
For saving time, the problems on construction projects should be solved instantly. The solving process can be conducted by collecting the facility management data of the ongoing project. Facility management could be described as optimizing the conditions of construction projects and it improves the functionality of the environment. There are different documents from several disciplines to store data such as shop drawings and maintenance reports. BIM provides saving these documents in a Cloud system integrated with several software programs and allows specialists to update the project at any desired time. Eastman et al. mentioned that it is now possible to alter one unit of project material in 0.4 seconds, as opposed to it being done in 2 seconds (2011, p.576). As Eastman stated, with BIM’s database approach, data editing is less time-consuming than traditional database approaches. Another method of determining the problems is observing them on a 3D simulation BIM model. Generally, the problems occur from the clashing of the parts in the construction, which happens because of the technical drawings drawn by different specialists on the different models. In traditional construction projects, specialists detect the clashes by putting the technical drawings on top of each other, on a light table. However, In BIM these specialists’ drawings are combined on a 3D model and the clashes can be observed virtually. Therefore, assembly problems are prohibited which provides saving time. To conclude, BIM’s data-saving and 3D model approaches contribute to saving time efficiently.
All in all, BIM contributes to the planning process by easing the preparation of the timeline and providing effective communication. Also, BIM solves the problems that occur in the process instantly by pre-saved data collection and observing the problems on the 3D model. In the future, the BIM approach will be more common because of its benefits, and, companies adopting BIM will last longer than other companies. Therefore, especially in this digital era, companies should start to integrate their project management system with BIM to have a sustainable business model.
