Awareness of Malaysian contractors on building information modeling (BIM) contribution towards economic sustainability

Abstract

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has receive a lot of attention among researchers and industry players around the world including Malaysia. BIM have the capability to assist in understanding the development of projects and identify any potential problem in advance, prior to the construction process, hence, improve the quality of project and reduce the construction cost. As the Malaysian Government starts to encourage the implementation of BIM as well as sustainable construction, this paper aims to investigate the current awareness of Malaysian contractors towards the benefits of BIM in developing sustainable construction. Even though BIM offers a lot of benefits to the construction industry players, awareness towards the benefits of BIM especially related to the sustainability is still lacking among industry players. The data were analysed to indicate the highlighted benefits of BIM foresee by contractors that contribute to economic sustainability. The finding indicates that the level of knowledge is usually influenced by individual experience on BIM. However, awareness towards BIM benefits are varies depending on the individual or company ways in assessing the BIM implementation goals. Therefore, educating and providing realistic information to the construction industry players is needed to create a better understanding and wider exposure which align with the Government encouragement to implement BIM in the construction project.