Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 201, 10 November 2018, Pages 358-368
Journal of Cleaner Production

Review
A review of currently applied building information modeling tools of constructions in China

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.08.037Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Collaborations of professionals and precisions in the fabrication of BIM tools have made constructions cleaner.

  • The tools are classified into three types, integrated platforms, instant services, and supplementary works.

  • Cloud data usages and interoperability of different tools need to be further explored.

Abstract

Building information modeling (BIM) is considered as a vital technology to achieve building sustainability in China. Many local companies have developed BIM assisting tools to accelerate the transformation of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry. The industry believed the use of BIM tools would increase the informatization. However, no investigations have been made to evaluate the status of the tools providing BIM service in China. This study reviewed the typical features of BIM tools in China and illustrated the workflows of some representative tools. The common tools were counted. The different building projects where the tools were used and common functions of these tools were summarized. An assessment of their performances based on eleven criteria was conducted after the illustrations. The review of the tools finds that BIM software can be classified into three types, integrated platforms, instant service services, and supplementary works based on the workflow illustrations. The collaboration of these three types would contribute to cleaner production. The assessment revealed that the aspects where these tools played a role in improving engineering efficiency and what areas were needed to be improved. Three suggestions and three potential schemes of BIM tools in construction projects are discussed at the end. Developers need to further explore the cloud data usages, and thus, collaborations of different tools can be promoted.

Introduction

BIM technology has already been known to the world. Since firstly created in 1974 (Eastman et al., 1974), studies and investments towards BIM have been supporting relative areas. Publications and journals have discussed BIM integrating other technologies for Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operation and Facility Management of building projects (Volk et al., 2014). Guidelines and standards were holistically reviewed about the adoptions of BIM technology for sustainability (Chong et al., 2016). Since the adoption of BIM technology is realized through BIM tools, the tools are developed for assessing the performances of designs, clash detection, schedule simulation, management and off-site fabrication, constructing management, facility management, and emergency response. In the meantime, BIM is also used to enhance the visualization of models for many occasions, for instance, the visibility of the signage system (Motamedi et al., 2017).

BIM software systems covering all phases of a building lifecycle have been listed and reviewed in corresponding to their functions (Abanda et al., 2015). Scholars also validated the benefits of facility management by adopting BIM-GIS-FM systems (Kang and Hong, 2015). Given its ability to provide a better comfort design and a better collaborative workflow, the various BIM tools are expected to improve the sustainability of China's AEC Industry socially, economically, and environmentally (He, 2012; He et al., 2011; SmartMarket Research Report, 2015).

Nowadays China's AEC Industry keeps challenging the limits of complexity and difficulty of projects (Ran, 2011). In 2016, the total value of the AECO Industry in China exceeds $ 285 billion according to the Accumulative total construction output value (National Data, 2016). The 13th Five-Year Plan (The Fourth Session of 12th NPC, 2016) aims to reach an annual increase of the total the Chinese AEC Industry's output by 7%. This urges the traditional AEC industry for a more effective, efficient and secure management system for the whole industry. The government points out the foundation for achieving the development is the informatization of AEC industry (MOHURD, 2016) with BIM mentioned by 28 times.

BIM is considered to be the auxiliary tool to help achieve the goal of engineering construction (MOHURD, 2016, 2003; The Fourth Session of 12th NPC, 2016). More specifically, the value of BIM is achieved through the use of BIM hardware and software. Many well-developed tools are offering BIM service, and the remaining work for local users is to learn to use them (Sheng, 2016). Since the overseas tools were incompatible with the current situations in China, experts are studying file transformation and data management based on IFC to develop Chinese BIM applications. Some of them help to prosper BIM development and the AEC Industry in China. The top two among them, GLODON and Thsware reached an annual operating revenue of 2 billion and 86 million in 2016 separately (Eastmoney, 2017; GLODON, 2016). Lubansoft has been installed on 1.5 million computers (Lubansoft, 2017). Other popular tools, such as Hongwa and Glsbim, are providing online assistance on BIM implementation. On the other hand, some of them share similar functions and only work under specific conditions (Zheng et al., 2015), which makes it difficult to choose proper tools. The value of information interactions of the model and management through the project timeline might be reduced because of choosing inappropriate tools. A large number of BIM tools and the lack of knowledge of BIM have caused barriers to the uptake of BIM (Abanda et al., 2015).

Although, studies have been made about the constructions using BIM. Cao et al. (2015) reviewed the BIM and its effectiveness in construction projects in China. No investigation has been made to evaluate the effects of the BIM tools in the projects. A vast amount of software and the tools serving similar roles are accompanied by the absence of peer-reviewed literature on BIM tools in China's AEC Industry. Therefore, there is a need to investigate and provide a comprehensive study of the adopted BIM software systems in China's AEC Industry.

For the above reasons, although some Chinese companies have benefited a lot from their tools, BIM development in China is still immature. The development of BIM tools is also incomplete. This work aims to analyze the effects on construction projects of BIM tools based on their techniques and their interoperability.

This paper conducted a mixed review of BIM tools in China in Section 3. The common tools were counted. The different building projects and common functions of these tools are summarized. Several promotions in constructions of these tools were listed. To understand the contributions and obstacles of the tools, workflow analysis based on representative BIM tools and comparative studies from the view of functions in a project timeline in Section 4. An assessment of maturity for the representative tools. Moreover, upon those, the features of the developing trends are discussed in Section 5. Suggestions for BIM tools in the future are proposed. The results of this study are useful for the BIM development in China.

Section snippets

Research methodology

This paper used a systematic approach (Greenhalgh et al., 2005). The analysis approach for reviewing literature, reports, and papers has five steps. Fig. 1 shows the research structure when reviewing.

The first step was to gather information, including collection, filtration, and analyzation of the results. Baidu search engine and CNKI database, which were reliable data sources in China, were used to collect the possible results. The keywords for searching the potential targets were “BIM tools”

Findings

Throughout the review of documents, one hundred and sixty-two (162) practices and one hundred and thirty-five (135) theoretical discussions were tabulated. The previous one involved application areas of BIM tools and their contributions in constructions, while the later one identified obstacles in the tools.

Workflows and interoperability assessment

The workflow can be classified into three categories, information models, information deliveries, and functions. Information models mean 3D building elements with spatial shape and other properties included, which is usually referring to IFC. Information deliveries here only consider whether the information is processed by the local driver or uploaded to cloud driver. Functions here refers to the modifications, calculations, and analysis of models. The functions are either integrated inside or

Discussions

The implementation processes of BIM of these tools are presented in the above illustrations. Currently, the tools are mostly upgraded from primary programs or redeveloped in existing platforms. Majority of them focus more on building design and construction management, an assessment of capability maturity is conducted to have a more direct understanding of the collaboration of these tools.

Conclusions

The study has reviewed commonly used BIM tools in constructions and in theoretical studies in China. This paper has the following contributions:

  • 1.

    This paper reviewed articles discussing BIM tools and engineering applications of BIM tools over the past seven years. The application fields and main uses of BIM software in China are summarized from the documents. From the results of the review, the effects of BIM tools on the cleaner production of constructions are mainly from the reduction material

Acknowledgments

This paper is supported by the China National Key R&D Program ‘Solutions to heating and cooling of buildings in the Yangtze river region’ (Grant No. 2016YFC0700305) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51578220). The authors are very grateful to the Natural Science Foundation of China and Hunan University Research Foundation for their support.

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