Quantitative Assessment of Building Constructability Using BIM and 4D Simulation

Abstract

Despite the fact that applying constructability concepts in building designs have led to savings estimated within a range of 1% to 14% of the capital cost, the construction industry still lacks an advanced tool to assess and check for constructability implementations in designs. Therefore, the objective of this research is to propose a quantitative assessment of building constructability, which transforms the subjective assessment of constructability knowledge to a quantified value so that it is easy to analyze and improve building design. The proposed methodology uses the advancement of object oriented Building Information Model (BIM) and 4D simulation model to serve as a data repository models for the constructability assessment platform. Factors affecting constructability of building designs have been identified and relatively weighted using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique based on a questionnaire survey collected throughout the Canadian provinces. Evaluation criteria are also developed to assist the designer to evaluate the design proposals. The outcome shows that the proposed method provides the designer an accurate and faster mode in evaluating project constructability by using the parametric features from BIM and taking the advantage of spatial relationship between building components.