Abstract
As an effective way to reduce costs and increase efficiency of EPC projects, BIM technology has drawn a lot of attention in numerous countries. Existing studies have failed to reveal the BIM decision-making mechanisms of owners and general contractors in EPC projects in a dynamic method. This study investigates the underlying logic of the collaboration application of BIM by analyzing the dynamic behaviors of owners and general contractors based on evolutionary game model. The results show that the most effective suggestions to promote the BIM collaboration application in EPC projects are “increasing the proportion of BIM application initially strategies,” “increasing incremental revenue of BIM collaborative application,” “reducing costs of BIM collaboration application,” “avoiding excessive hitchhiking,” and “establishing reasonable reward and punishment mechanism.” On the basis of numerical simulation to illustrate the influence of the different initial strategies and parameters on the final decision in different situations, five solutions were proposed for the effective BIM collaboration application between owners and general contractors. This article can facilitate researchers pondering the dynamics of collaboration among stakeholders in projects, and it can also facilitate participants picking up proper strategies for improved collaboration.
Highlights
Several challenges are restricting the development of the construction industry, such as low profit, enormous consumption of resources, massive waste, and low productivity [1]. e combination of Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) and building informatization is a solution that can be implemented so as to mitigate these challenges.e EPC model allows general contractors to control projects design, procurement, construction and provide specialized and commercialized services [2], which has become the most popular project delivery strategy for industrialized construction [3]. e EPC mode effectively solves the mutual restriction and disconnection of design, procurement, and construction under other delivery modes, which is contributing to the overall planning and coordinated operation of the entire project
Effective collaboration between owners and general contractors could be valuable in proving the level of Building Information Modeling (BIM) application
The evolution path of synergistic behavior and the influence of parameter changes on the evolution of the system were analyzed. e results showed that (1) the initial proportion of the selection strategy affects the evolution direction, speed, and result of the system; (2) the benefits of the collaborative application of BIM are positively correlated with the behavioral strategies of both parties, and the cost of BIM application is negatively correlated with the behavioral strategies of both parties; (3) unilateral enjoyment of the spillover effect would lead each parties to the trial of noncooperation; (4) appropriate reward and penalty system can make the system evolve to the ideal state quicker
Summary
Several challenges are restricting the development of the construction industry, such as low profit, enormous consumption of resources, massive waste, and low productivity [1]. e combination of Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) and building informatization is a solution that can be implemented so as to mitigate these challenges. Based on BIM collaborative management platform, the data and construction plans are integrated and shared effectively in EPC projects. Ere are many participants in the EPC project, including owners, general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and other stakeholders, whose decisions would be critical in affecting the actual results of BIM adoption and application. For BIM application, the owners expect to obtain high-quality engineering products through BIM with a relatively reasonable investment; the general contractors aim to complete the project with the help of BIM at low cost. Ere have been no studies in the context of EPC that consider responses of owners and general contractors to BIM application using two-population evolutionary game. This work investigates the dynamic collaboration decision process of owners and general contractors, which played a positive role in advancing the management efficiency and level of the projects. Evolutionary game theory can be extended to explore the collaboration between other BIMrelated stakeholders
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