Integrated system for BIM-based collaborative design

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: BIM Collaborative design Integrated design system Data exchange IFC For effective collaboration among construction project participants, the use of Building Information Model (BIM) has become more common throughout the building life cycle. However, due to the use of different BIM-based software among collaborators during the design, a variety of problems have occurred, including loss of data, difficulty in communication, and poor work efficiency. Hence, this study proposes an integrated design system for the improvement of BIM-based collaborative design. For this purpose, problems are derived based on an analysis of conventional BIM-based collaborative design. In addition, a concept for the development of the BIM-based integrated design system is established from integration methodologies. Based on 'functional integration,' 'integrated information management' and 'integrated process support,' the integrated design system is implemented through the combination of three modules: BIM Modeler, BIM Checker and BIM Server. To test the integrated design system, a case study on a hospital building design is reviewed, and improvements compared to the conventional system are examined. It appears that the proposed system can enhance design quality and productivity by providing necessary support for collaborative design in an integrated manner. As construction projects become larger and more complicated, the amount of information required dramatically increases. As a result, various problems such as difficulty in collaboration and information sharing among project participants have taken place. To solve these problems, a variety of BIM-based technologies and applications have been proposed [5,22,28,36,60]. BIM was introduced based on the concept of storing and managing various data produced throughout the building life cycle in an integrated manner [12]. The geometric and property information of building objects is modeled upon solving design errors that frequently occur during conventional paper-based design and difficulty in information exchange in the collaborative design process [27]. In BIM-based collab-orative design, therefore, it is essential to exchange design information between various participants (e.g., architects, engineers, contractors, clients, etc.) for making decisions. So far, however, participants in BIM‐based design use different software according to work type and tasks in general, resulting in data loss in the process of information exchange, and this requires unnecessary duplication of work for data restoration [44]. Consequentially, unlike the ultimate purposes of BIM, due to limits in the application of BIM, the whole design process is still separated by phases and participants, which often causes additional cost …