CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE EXISTING DEFINITIONS OF BIM DIMENSIONS ON THE EXAMPLE OF SWITZERLAND

Although the practical application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) is already widely accepted, not only in Switzerland, it is often either considered as a method or as a technology. Regrettably, often this utilization depends on the context of a person respectively a company interpreting the abbreviation. Consequently, this is accompanied by a different approach to the underlying processes, roles and procedures. A comprehensive overview of the compulsory BIM activities and the associated definitions is therefore essential – without clear and commonly agreed definitions, no unambiguous exchange between the parties concerned is conceivable as well. However, many definitions used in the Building Information Modelling sector are currently industry-based and not on a standardized or normative basis. These are amongst others the so called “Dimensions of BIM”, which are heavily used in construction projects. Unfortunately, only a few companies in the construction industry are privileged to have a complete overview of the necessary cross-firm activities needed in the BIM context and the consequences in using these project based specifications, as the industry is quite diverse in terms of digital competency maturity, availability of trained staff and the effective use of operational software. Projectrelated definitions therefore tend to be the common standard in the processing of BIM projects. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the different definitions of BIM dimensions by means of a literature search and to evaluate it from the perspective of an ordering party.