Évaluation du niveau de développement des maquettes numériques du BIM pour les entrepreneurs spécialisés de la construction au Québec

Abstract

The construction industry is criticized for inefficient processes, frequent cost and budget overruns, and conflicting relationships among project stakeholders. Building Information Modeling (BIM), with the use of technology tools at the center of collaborative practices, seems to be the answer to all these problems. However, its recent integration in a field marked by common resistance to change pose many difficulties. In this thesis, it is question of deepening key concepts for the creation and the sharing of information: the Levels of Development (LOD) and to understand the benefits of early collaboration between designers and specialized contractors. The objective of this research is to identify the needs of specialized contractors, in terms of digital mock-ups content, to improve the processes related to BIM during the communication between the various actors and the exploitation of the models for the realization of construction. The study is conducted in two phases. A first exploratory phase consists of a series meeting with specialized contractors from various fields in order to gather and expose the issues they face, their knowledge of BIM concepts, their collaboration with other stakeholders and their expectations about designers’ digital models. From this first step, eighteen key points to explore are identified to achieve a better understanding of the processes of collaboration and digital model sharing. To provide that, the second part of the research involves discussing these key points with an architect, an engineer, a general contractor and a specialized contractor recognized for their involvement and expertise in BIM in the same discipline: mechanics, electricity, plumbing (MEP). Three significant issues are identified from these discussions: the absence of contracts adapted to the collaborative practices recommended by the BIM, the difficulty of adapting to the shift of the workload earlier in the project and the lack of BIM maturity in the Quebec construction industry. To conclude, some research prospects are proposed to fill these gaps, to identify other problems about the subject and to fill the lack of documentation, in particular at the level BIM for end users.

Date	5 Sept 2018
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Daniel Forgues (Supervisor)