BIM Support in the Tendering Phase of Infrastructure Projects

Although the construction industry has been adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) for at least two decades, many of its concepts, practices and standards were created for and are now consolidated on building projects. Therefore, in order to use BIM methodology in infrastructure projects, it is frequently necessary to resort to some adaptation. Recently, there has been an increasing interest on the application of BIM to infrastructure, which has its own complexities and particularities. Infrastructure may imply very diverse kinds of structures like tunnels, dams, airports, highways, among others, each potentially requiring a different BIM-based approach, as the challenges arising on each one are not the same. On the other hand, even for building projects, studies related to the application of BIM in the bidding stage are still few. The aim of this article is to clarify, through a literature review and analysis, how BIM can be used to support the tendering process of infrastructure projects. The findings show that BIM can be used in the bidding stage of infrastructure projects to improve communication between stakeholders, reduce (or even eliminate) error-prone tasks and rework, generate accurate quantity take-offs and automate time-consuming activities during this usually time-pressed phase. BIM implementation can also be of great value as it can support risk identification and reduction by minimizing misinterpretation of schedules and design, as well as contributing to better constructability analysis, sub-contractor coordination, facilitating communication and supporting the risk analysis, leading to more reliable and accurate offers to the owner.