Barriers of BIM adoption in Vietnamese contractors

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has gained a wide adoption internationally, and Vietnam is one of the following countries regarding this technology. In order to promote the adoption of BIM in the construction stage, it is necessary to identify and analyse the barriers toward BIM adoption of contractors, then find out solutions for helping them to overcome. This research aims at exploring the barriers when contractors in Vietnam adopt BIM by conducting a study among contractors in Vietnam with 5 expert interviews following by a survey with participants as professionals in the industry. The paper presents the research results which confirm the findings from the literature that, the five main groups of barriers include legal issues, financial issues, management issues, lack of qualified human resources and resistance to change to adopt BIM. However, some more detailed findings have been put out from this research, which include the costs for BIM, the different levels of management issues as barriers to BIM adoption, the need for a contract form that considers BIM as an integrated part of the construction services, not a separate service. Also, the lack of relevant regulations detailing the eligible BIM-related activities and costs is also a significant barrier. Further research can be developed from this research results to validate those detailed barriers in the broader coverage. Policies makers can also find them as references when improving the policies for BIM promotion. Moreover, contractors can refer to them when they develop their strategies with BIM.