Towards BIM Guidelines in Saudi Arabia: Literature Review and Stakeholders Identification

Abstract

BIM is a graphical representation for a given engineering design, let be the structure of a building, which carries information related to 3D view, cost estimation, scheduling, and others. BIM is created and used mainly by the owner. By default, the designer, contractor, and supplier are shared and treated by all parties as an advanced medium of technical and visual communication. In the last few years, and many developed countries, BIM documents, and related legal provisions have become mandatory in construction projects contract documents by public and private owners and project stakeholders as best practice. The authors observed that although some projects in Saudi Arabia have used BIM, it is still not as widely used as it is supposed to be. It is apparent to the authors that the leap of using BIM in the Saudi Construction Industry without proper provisions in the contract documents among the construction project stakeholders will create confusion. The paper explores the current status and trend of using BIM in the construction industry and related difficulties and challenges to using BIM in Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, based on those investigated results, the paper proposes the basic guidelines for applying BIM following the situation of the national construction industry in Saudi Arabia.