BIM and Risk Management. How to Manage Risks Using BIM?

Introduction

Building information modeling has long since become a vital part of the construction industry’s toolset. While it is true that not everyone uses it, the number of regular users of BIM is still massive, and plenty of users have at least a basic understanding of its general benefits.

However, a lack of understanding also prevents some companies from discovering BIM’s less-known advantages, which are not discussed very often. Risk management is one such field: it has relied heavily on manual processes for decades, but BIM can automate a significant portion of its efforts while improving accuracy and performance.

The main goal of this article is to showcase how BIM is connected to risk management and the advantages it can bring with proper implementation.

BIM in risk management

Risk management is an ongoing process in the construction industry that involves identifying and analyzing risks to prevent them from happening or to mitigate their potential drawbacks. In this context, every event affecting the project’s schedule, budget, safety, or quality is considered a risk.

Risks arise in the construction industry for many different reasons. Some of the most common reasons are material failures, weak management practices, design deficiencies, and inexperienced employees.

The primary goal of the risk management (risk mitigation) process is to minimize the consequences of risks, if not prevent them from happening in the first place. One of the biggest goals of risk management is to ensure that construction projects are completed within budget and time constraints and with no significant safety hazards.

However, the traditional approach to risk management is still primarily manual, with a heavy emphasis on the manager’s intuition. This makes it very difficult for the process to be at its peak efficiency at all times.

This is where BIM comes in. It is a comprehensive construction management process that revolves around a detailed representation of the future structure that includes all of the functional information about each element of the project. The biggest reason BIM has become so popular in recent years is its ability to significantly improve practically every facet of the project realization process.

Building information modeling can assist the risk management process in multiple ways by decreasing the number of potential errors and supporting risk analysis with up-to-date project information via a common data environment, thus reducing the potential of both time-related and resource-related risks.

Advantages BIM brings to risk management

Introducing BIM can bring multiple benefits to the risk management process, and listing every benefit separately is a long and arduous process. Instead, we will group these advantages into several categories for simplicity and accessibility.

Improved visualization

One of the most notable advantages of the BIM approach to the construction process is its ability to offer impressive digital prototyping capabilities by creating a centralized, information-rich, three-dimensional model. This model includes the locations of every wall, door, window, and other structural element and their parameters, including height, width, thickness, material, and so on.

The enhanced level of detail significantly improves the ability of risk mitigation personnel to interpret the project model, allowing them to better understand how the structure will be built. The accuracy and accessibility of a three-dimensional BIM starkly contrast with those of traditional physical 2D drawings and floor plans.

Enhanced information storage

A BIM model is not simply a feature-rich CAD model, since it can also store and share information about the building itself. Most BIM models include a detailed overview of the entire structure, including its plumbing, electrical, and mechanical elements.

The ability to track changes during different phases of construction is an even more significant advantage in hindsight, since it allows risk assessment processes to always have the most up-to-date information about the project. This significantly enhances the accuracy of these processes while also making it possible for the same information to be used as the basis for scheduling and planning operations in the future.

Improved coordination and sharing

Traditional construction projects often encounter communication issues, since communication is siloed and most stakeholders work separately. This lack of communication alone is a significant reason for many potential miscommunication risks, including errors, misunderstandings, and even project delays.

Working on the same model simultaneously is a tremendous advantage that a proper BIM solution can bring with relative ease. Each change within the model is automatically updated for all project participants, significantly reducing the number of potential clashes between project elements. Drastically reducing the chances of miscommunication is also an advantage regarding the overall number of risks within a given project.

Better accuracy for cost estimates

BIM’s accuracy and level of detail in terms of project information also facilitate far more precise cost estimates. Visualizing changes that might affect the total cost is also a massive advantage for all BIM users.

Far more detailed and accurate project estimates than were possible before offers project managers a significantly lower risk of budget overruns. Generally speaking, the accuracy of a BIM model can improve the accuracy and efficiency of practically any calculation made within the project, and this includes large-scale project simulation, which is something worth discussing separately.

Detailed simulation

Simulation capabilities are a significant advantage of BIM that can greatly enhance risk management capabilities. The sheer accuracy of the information that BIM stores and provides makes it possible to create highly accurate simulations for different scenarios, which can be used to test various risk-prone situations before the construction phase.

Simulation also enhances the capabilities of other construction experts, improving processes such as clash detection, material testing, and many others. The quality that BIM achieves with its simulations is unheard of with any traditional approach to construction, which offers many other minor advantages in addition to everything we have mentioned above.

Challenges of BIM in risk management

Introducing BIM to risk management processes brings users multiple advantages. However, some shortcomings are also worth mentioning here.

First of all, BIM is a very complex technology with many elements. Its introduction to risk management has also been rudimentary, limited to general process improvements and practically nothing else.

Many in-depth risk management integrations currently use very specific situations and environments, which makes it challenging to adapt to a broader audience due to the many moving parts of the average construction process. Additionally, a significant portion of BIM’s advantages in this area are not strictly applicable to all BIM environments due to the concept of “BIM dimensions”.

The average BIM system can be challenging to implement due to the sheer number of systems and elements it interacts with in different phases of the project. As such, BIM dimensions signify different levels of implementation of this system. They also have their own naming conventions, as well.

For example, 3D BIM involves the integration of a comprehensive BIM model of the project into work processes. 4D BIM introduces the concept of time and scheduling into the existing 3D BIM framework by adding time-related information to the model. 5D BIM, on the other hand, introduces budgeting and cost estimates to the same model.

However, implementing BIM, even at the 3D BIM level, requires a substantial investment of both time and resources. Every subsequent “dimension” is also more challenging to work with in comparison (because it also includes everything in the dimensions below it). As such, some of the more notable advantages of BIM in risk management are tied to the later phases of BIM implementation, which many companies have yet to achieve.

Risk management and project realization phases

Another valid way of looking at BIM’s influence on risk management is to review what BIM can offer at each phase of project realization. While the naming conventions differ in some cases, we use three main phases:

• Design phase
• Construction phase
• Post-construction phase

Risk management with BIM in the design phase

The use of 3D model fly-throughs and computer animation allows BIM to achieve an unprecedented level of project visualization, simplifying the process of explaining different details of the project to the client. This, in turn, leads to much more confident and informed decision-making at one of the earliest phases of construction while also improving future collaboration between the client and the construction team.

The accuracy and user-friendliness of an adequately configured BIM model can provide access to more straightforward design cost calculations, better sales and occupancy targets (for large residential structures), and so on. The ability to detect issues and clashes between project elements allows for every single design error to be spotted and resolved before the on-site construction begins, drastically reducing the risk of costly rework during construction.

The design phase is also called the pre-construction phase, and it involves a lot of preparation for the actual construction process. The introduction of BIM can also assist with time management while reducing the risk of budget overruns due to the more accurate and detailed calculation process. The chances of inaccurate costs or incorrect measurements are drastically lower with BIM than with any other legacy approach to design and construction, as well.

Risk management with BIM in the construction phase

The vast collaborative capabilities of BIM allow it to act as a veritable treasure trove of information for on-site workers, offering at least one more use case for all the info a BIM model accumulates during the design phase. This kind of information access also effectively eliminates miscommunication due to the existence of a single centralized source of information that all project participants have access to at all times.

Safety evaluations during construction can also be enhanced with the introduction of BIM, since it offers visual risk analysis capabilities which overlay the current site conditions in a convenient and accessible manner (which is also a great way of introducing new construction workers to the situation on the site). In theory,  direct access to a detailed BIM model and its elements can also lower the number of potential on-site hazards for construction workers.

Risk management with BIM in the post-construction phase

There are at least two potential use cases for a BIM model after construction. First, a BIM model can be used to compare the performance predictions made during the design and construction phases with the actual information from the building after construction. This offers a great way of reviewing efficient and inefficient areas and can potentially reduce operating costs and risks.

At the same time, the sheer level of detail that a BIM model provides significantly increases the feasibility of maintenance and improvement procedures for the structure down the line, drastically reducing the likelihood of all risks associated with these processes.

Future trends for BIM in risk management

The current implementation of BIM offers many advantages to the risk management process. Still, the technology is also being developed to this day, and the overall technological process is also in constant motion. As such, we can highlight several key areas that have the potential for improvement in the future:

• Collaboration improvements can be considered a never-ending process of trying to drive the communication process to its perfect state with no conflicts and drawbacks.
• Compliance frameworks are also something that all information-processing software has to deal with at some point, and the ability to gather massive amounts of potentially sensitive information paints a significant target on BIM software’s back.
• Implementing the newest technologies, such as big data analytics, the Internet of Things, and even AI, can potentially lead to significant improvements in multiple departments, including real-time risk analysis, predictive analytics, and more.
• Reducing the influence of the human factor is one of BIM’s more significant advantages, as it can automate many different processes in such a complex environment. Further testing of BIM systems in real-world scenarios can still improve its capabilities to a certain degree with enough information to work off of.
• Deeper integration of risk management practices with the existing BIM framework may also further improve the end result of risk mitigation efforts.

Conclusion

Risk management is crucial in the construction industry, as construction is a large and complex undertaking involving dozens of stakeholders and participants. However, most existing risk assessment methods are predominantly manual and often rely on intuition above all else.

Introducing a methodology such as building information modeling offers plenty of valuable advantages to risk management. These include improvements in accuracy and performance while also introducing advantages that are not as direct in their nature, such as improvements in coordination, the enhancement of visualization, and many others.

The use of BIM in risk management is still a relatively new initiative, and further research is necessary to determine whether BIM may bring any other advantages. Still, the existing range of advantages is substantial enough for many companies to consider using BIM in their risk management efforts, even if their current BIM implementation is not sufficient to fully reap its advantages.