Abstract
Although there are many discussions of the legal implications of BIM, none of the studies provides a comprehensive review of the legal issues associated with BIM; nor do they evaluate the solutions currently available to address the issues. This paper aims to provide a critical review of the legal issues arising from using BIM and of their associated solutions. A systematic review was conducted of fifty-five (55) journal articles and conference papers published from 2007 to 2017 to identify the legal issues. The identified legal issues were then analysed in relation to the solutions provided by the construction industry. The results of the study revealed that (1) an alternative project delivery approach that does not modify the original orientation of the design-bid-build procurement structure is required to deliver BIM effectively. (2) The potential change in the standard of care for project participants due to additional roles required in delivering BIM needs further investigation. (3) The roles for auditing a BIM delivery system must be included in the contracts to ensure the quality and compliance of BIM deliverables. The study not only reviews the legal issues associated with BIM, but more importantly, it also offers significant insights for future research.
Highlights
Building information modelling (BIM) has become prominent as a significant element of operations in many construction projects (Ku & Taiebat, 2011)
The legal issues were classified into four categories, namely, (1) incompatibility of procurement systems with BIM, (2) liabilities, (3) model ownership and intellectual property rights (IPR) and (4) unclear rights and responsibilities
In the design-bid-build procurement system, does the architect remain the leading designer in the collaboration platform? Who shall be responsible for design quality? Who shall ensure that all deviations are resolved and that the model is reliable? How are the responsibilities and input-output workflows of project participants determined if they are involved simultaneously in the process (Sebastian, 2010)? For BIM uses such as automatically detecting changes in the other disciplines and responses to the owned design software, none of the designers checked the information before it is incorporated into the model
Summary
Building information modelling (BIM) has become prominent as a significant element of operations in many construction projects (Ku & Taiebat, 2011). It has proven one of the most effective computing tools for establishing and managing digital information over a project life cycle. BIM will not deliver significant improvement in existing procurement prac-. None of the conducted studies have compiled existing studies or comprehensively reviewed the legal issues discussed
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