A Creative Proposal for Dispute Systems Design for Construction Projects Employing BIM

Building information modeling (BIM) causes a fundamental change in the way participants in a construction project interact with each other, requiring new and significant levels of collaboration, information sharing, and coordination from the inception of a construction project through its completion. All participants in the BIM process are required to sign a common legal document, a BIM protocol that establishes the obligations of the parties, both technical and legal, for the modeling process. The environment created by BIM provides the opportunity for a significant advance in the design of dispute resolution systems for construction projects. This paper proposes expanding the savings and efficiencies inherent in the BIM approach to dispute resolution through the adoption of a new legal document, a comprehensive, uniform, project-specific dispute resolution plan addendum, for all participants in a BIM project. The author also proposes key concepts and terms for such an addendum. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.