Abstract
Knowledge is the resource that contributes the most to an organisation’s competitiveness. Construction projects usually introduce project teams from different disciplines. Hence, knowledge in projects is complex and difficult to manage. To efficiently manage knowledge in projects, various strategies and tools have been applied over the years to support knowledge management (KM). Building information modelling (BIM) is a technology that has recently gained a lot of attention in the construction industry. The main feature of BIM is object-oriented and parametric modelling with the functions of dynamic visualisation, life cycle simulation, early analysis, coordination and collaborative working. Many studies have explored the functions of BIM mainly at the information level. However, only a few studies have considered the management of knowledge in a BIM environment. To fill this knowledge gap, this study explored the potential and expectation of a BIM-based system for early collaboration among contractor, facility management (FM) and design teams in the design stage. This study chose semi-structured interview as the main method to collect qualitative information. A total of 30 experts working in the construction industry were interviewed. On the basis of the analysis results of the collected information, a discussion was presented on how BIM can facilitate KM activities and relieve KM challenges. Therefore, the discussion focused on the requirements and expectations of the integrated KM system in a BIM environment that can facilitate the early involvement of construction contractors and the FM team into the design stage. This study also provides a new research direction for the transformation of research focus from BIM to building knowledge modelling. This paper is the revised version of the paper that has been published in the proceedings of the Creative Construction Conference 2018 (Wang et al., 2018).
Highlights
Knowledge is the most critical resource for any organisation to maintain its competitiveness, and organisations in the construction industry are no exception (Ofek and Sarvary, 2002)
4 Findings and discussion 4.1 Early contractor involvement (ECI) and EFMI in the current construction industry The interview results indicate that the interviewees agree that the contractors should be involved before the start of the design drawing rather than during the design process
A few interviewees suggested that subcontractors should be considered during the ECI process because they have substantial knowledge of technical details, and their knowledge is considerably targeted to such specific aspects
Summary
Knowledge is the most critical resource for any organisation to maintain its competitiveness, and organisations in the construction industry are no exception (Ofek and Sarvary, 2002). The widely accepted way to define knowledge is to distinguish data, information and knowledge. According to Dretske (1983), data are raw and unstructured symbols, whereas information is organised and processed data with a meaning. Quigley and Debons (1999) further distinguished information and knowledge by defining information as a source applied to answer ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ questions, whereas knowledge is mainly used to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Data, information and knowledge should be arranged in three different hierarchies, in which data are at the bottom and knowledge is at the top
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