Total BIM in Practice: A dynamic single source of information on the construction site

Paper in proceeding, 2022

The rapid advancement of digital technologies presents the construction industry with opportunities to change how site work is performed. Traditionally site work has been dominated by taking information from static construction documents such as 2D paper drawings. However, recently in the Nordic region a dynamic approach known as Total BIM has gained interest. Total BIM is an approach where BIM replaces 2D drawings as the contractual and legally binding construction document, cloud-based production-oriented BIM and powerful mobile BIM-viewers are used on-site. By having a dynamic single source of information site workers face new demands as they extract construction information directly from BIM themselves. Instead of using static 2D drawings they interact dynamically with BIM on mobile devices, changing the process of how work was implemented on the construction site. This paper is based on four real-life case studies, site visits, workshops and semi-structured interviews. Key digital Total BIM features are investigated that site workers use to perform the new work methods, including measuring, filtering, visualizing, communicating, checklists, and requests for information. These lead to a more dynamic construction process where the mobile BIM-viewer software becomes a central communication and management platform. This paper highlights the opportunities of working with dynamic Total BIM over static 2D drawings that can be used for implementing Total BIM strategy on the construction site. Furthermore, this paper addresses issues commonly found in state-of-the-art BIM projects and contributes practical concrete examples of on-site Total BIM use.