Key Drivers for BIM-Enabled Materials Management: Insights for a Sustainable Environment
Junussova T. Nadeem A. Kim J.R. Azhar S.
January 2024Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
Buildings
2024#14Issue 1
The value of Building Information Modelling (BIM) is widely discussed within all construction stages including the data-driven culture across building processes and sustainable impact in the long term. Yet, there is a need to explore the opportunities of BIM in improving construction materials management (CMM) as a core function of supply chain management. Due to the dearth of studies on BIM potential in improving CMM within the sustainability context, the authors examine the effectiveness and efficiency of BIM-enabled materials management, via three data streams: a literature review, an online survey, and interviews with subject matter experts in the field. This study aims to explore the drivers of BIM-enabled sustainable construction materials management. This is the preliminary study designed to test the initial hypotheses based on an online questionnaire application to derive tacit knowledge from industry and academic experts, followed by short interviews with respondents. Grounded in the comprehensive literature review, 24 indicators were defined for survey purposes. Preliminarily, 206 experts from 10 countries responded to the survey. The results show significant differences in the ranking of the indicators among the five factors. In developing countries, among two groups, industry sample awareness scales demonstrated lower understanding than among academic experts. Another finding relates to the significant agreement in scaling the importance of opportunities among industrial and academic sector experts. The research adds knowledge to deepen the understanding of opportunities of BIM-enabled materials management as a part of building project sustainable performance for industry policy and decision-makers. It also brings attention to the lack of sustainability awareness amongst industry experts in developing countries. Although materials constitute a solid part of any construction project cost, there is still a collaboration gap among designers, materials management, and, more broadly, supply chain management experts.
Building Information Modelling , construction materials management , sustainability
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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, Nazarbayev University, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan
McWhorter School of Building Science, Auburn University, Auburn, 36849, AL, United States
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
McWhorter School of Building Science
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026