- Title
- Management framework for building information modelling enabled integrated design process for retail store in Australia: a phenomenological study
- Creator
- Gandhi, Shalini
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Motivation: Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a set of technologies, processes and policies enabling multiple stakeholders to collaboratively design, construct and operate a facility such as retail buildings and other building types. Several studies report monetary, resources, time, accuracy and life-cycle management benefits of BIM adoption in construction projects around the world for all building types including retail buildings. Theoretically, BIM should enable major improvements to design processes and final building products. BIM enables the construction of buildings of high quality, fast project delivery, and low cost compared to those constructed using traditional approaches. Despite the benefits of BIM adoption, there is limited investigation reporting BIM adoption in the design process of retail supermarket stores. Retail supermarket stores are sales-driven building types with frequent design changes and building upgrades in a fast-paced competitive environment. BIM has capabilities to assist the requirements of such design processes and life-cycle management requirements. Numerous challenges are attributed to BIM adoption by industry and academia. Full deployment of BIM has been hindered by traditional work processes, business models, and attributes, including the inherent fragmentation of the industry. Studies report that the Australian AEC industry is lagging behind in integrated BIM adoption compared to Scandinavian countries, UK and U.S. However, the underlaying reasons have not yet been explored and these studies do not specifically relate to retail buildings. The lack of evidence of investigation in this research area represents a number of knowledge gaps each warranting a focused investigation by domain researchers. Problems: This study isolates gaps in BIM implementation in the design of retail supermarket buildings to address BIM adoption in the Australian architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. This has not yet been explored thoroughly. Indeed, there are few academic studies about the Australian retail design sector. Furthermore, the design processes, multi-hierarchical departments, participating teams, design stages and approval processes remain undocumented. The overlays between BIM and retail design processes have not been thoroughly investigated. There is limited evidence of studies being undertaken in a rigorous manner relating to BIM-enabled integrated design process and management tools for enhanced collaboration of multi-layered departments within an organisation for retail design. As a result, the barriers to BIM adoption in the Australian AEC industry in the retail sector have not been clarified. Approaches to address these barriers have not yet been identified. Methodology: Using a phenomenological approach this empirical study investigates the BIM-enabled practices that are currently used in the Australian AEC industry for retail buildings. Fifty-four comprehensive interviews and focus group interviews with 15 participants were conducted with experienced industry professionals who are experts in their fields to inform the findings of the study. In so doing, the vital factors affecting BIM adoption were identified. Ambiguities surrounding BIM adoption in Australian AEC industry were clarified. Further, this research has developed a BIM Management Framework as a proposal to improve the implementation of BIM for integrated design processes (IDP) for retail buildings. The study is separated into three phases: Phase I – Literature review and Pilot interviews; Phase II – Main study including two cycles of interviews to support the development of solution; Phase III – Focus group interviews to verify the outcomes. Each phase introduces a part of the proposed solution or further develops a previous one. Results: The major factor identified for slow BIM adoption is the lack of a BIM management framework that addresses the technological, process and policy based challenges in integrated design process. The study identifies overlaps between BIM and the retail domain and exposes their relationships via literature. Empirical research has identified the challenges that distinguish the fields in the two domains. A BIM framework for adoption in the retail industry has been developed. The framework is based on the three fields (technology, process and policy) which represent the main fields underlying the BIM and retail domain. These support the development of a functional BIM Management framework. The framework is equipped with additional tools to facilitate BIM assessment, information exchange, data workflows, data hierarchies, file exchange policies, protocols, and technological communication maps. These enable design development of processes across organisations and project teams. Implications: The theoretical contribution of the thesis is that it addresses a holistic view of the knowledge problem at hand. The framework has been developed through empirical research and documents current processes in the Australian AEC industry. The study contributes to expanding the existing literature in the research area through a developed BIM management framework. The study also introduces several practicable knowledge tools to facilitate BIM adoption, implementation and performance improvement. It delivers a BIM management framework which enables BIM implementation for the design of retail stores. The study presents a rich, unified yet multi-layered framework supported with information exchange, communication and process coordination tools, enhanced with visual representations. To summarise, by combining several research strategies, paradigms and methods, this study (1) generates several new conceptual structures (e.g., frameworks, roadmaps) which collectively clarify the knowledge fields underlying BIM and the retail design domain; and (2) develops a set of workflows and tools that facilitate BIM adoption and performance improvement. Collectively, the research phases form a cohesive knowledge structure that generates a BIM management framework which has the capacity to be developed for other domains (such as commercial buildings, residential and other building types) for successful BIM adoption and implementation.
- Subject
- BIM; retail stores; management framework; Australia
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1514270
- Identifier
- uon:56839
- Rights
- Copyright 2021 Shalini Gandhi
- Language
- eng
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