The construction industry forms the backbone of all developing and developed economies. From commercial parks and infrastructure that attracts large organizations, to high-rise apartments that become homes for millions of people, this industry shapes the lives of everyone across the globe. However, this industry is also known to be highly inefficient, with wastage and cost overruns considered to be the norm.
BIM (Building Information Modelling) is a solution that has been designed to help organizations get over this through increased efficiency and transparency. In addition, the integration of features such as AI and Digital Twins gives organizations the power to leverage these new-age technologies to take their cost savings even higher, helping improve their profit margins.
In this blog, we’ll explore the areas of a project that drive up the cost of construction and how the BIM process can drive down those costs.
Major Cost Centers of Construction Projects
A construction project consists of an extremely large number of moving parts. Whether it’s sourcing materials from multiple vendors, ensuring that the labor force is utilized to its best, having all the heavy machinery available whenever it’s needed, or maintaining a constant flow of funds for operating expenses, keeping all these steps ticking perfectly is crucial to ensure that the project gets delivered on time. As a result, all construction projects end up with some common areas that end up inflating the construction costs of the project.
Materials
One of the most crucial aspects of any project, materials contribute the most in driving up the cost of projects. While using cheaper or fewer materials is never a good idea to save costs, one great way of achieving the same quality with reduced costs is reducing wastage. When ordering materials, accounting for potential breakages is a great idea to ensure the flow of work is not hindered by unforeseen breakages. However, since organizations are unable to calculate the exact amount of materials required, they often go above and beyond, and end up ordering a lot more than would be needed, leading to higher costs and wastage.
Labor
The component that makes any project possible, labor costs are essential to any project, and a more competent labor workforce automatically demands higher pay, leading to higher costs for higher expected quality. However, monitoring labor efficiency is a challenge, which if left unchecked, could end up inflating costs without a proportional increase in quality or speed of work.
Processes
As modern construction projects keep increasing in complexity, so do the number of stakeholders involved with these projects. As the number of stakeholders increases, so do the processes needed to keep all parties coordinated and working in sync. Since most construction organizations have not switched to using modern solutions to streamline these processes, they often end up causing significant delays in construction progress, leading to an increase in costs.
Reworking
In construction projects, the most common cause that leads to the requirement for rework is errors. Depending on the work, rework can be something as simple as replacing a few parts in case of replacement of fittings, and as complex as having to completely undo the work done previously and then re-doing all of it again, as happens during retiling.
Reducing costs with the BIM approach
Building Information Modelling is a tool that helps organizations conceptualize, design, and construct environments. Using BIM, organizations can foresee potential issues and plan ahead of time.
Material Planning
BIM gives organizations and procurement managers the ability to visualize their projects right down to the most minuscule detail. This allows organizations to calculate the exact amount of materials and order accordingly, hence minimizing waste and reducing costs.
Labour Productivity
Keeping track of a large workforce can be extremely complicated, with managers having to take reports from multiple supervisors to stay on top of keeping everyone productive. BIM provides a singular platform from which to monitor the productivity of your entire workforce, letting you make adjustments to improve efficiency.
Efficient Processes
Whether it’s keeping everyone on the same page or getting approval from the respective higher-ups, BIM helps you streamline all communication and internal processes, helping reduce many delays and reduce costs significantly.
Reduces Reworking
With the ability to visualize your projects in 3D, and the pattern recognition capabilities of AI, construction organizations can minimize errors during the construction process, eliminating the need for rework and reducing unnecessary costs.
BIM with Digile
Digile offers BIM solutions for our clients, enabling them to experience higher levels of efficiency, productivity, and transparency, with lower costs. We work alongside the project teams of our clients, covering all aspects of digital delivery, right from design review to detailed BIM management. Learn how we helped Lebuhraya Borneo Utara optimize their operations using BIM. We follow a thorough 5 step process to ensure that our clients experience the best of BIM. Learn more about how Digile can help your organization benefit from our BIM.
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