Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption challenges for contractor's organisations in Malaysia

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is known as a tool for collaboration among construction organisations in generating and managing data across the construction lifecycle. Despite from the advantages of engaged from BIM (i.e; reduce the number of clashes within the construction process, improve the building visualization, and shorten the planning period), most of the contractor's organisations are still hesitant to deploy the technology. The aim of this paper is to comprehend the challenges in adopting BIM across project phases. A semi-structured interview was conducted through eight respondents from contractor's organisations which adopt BIM. The interview data were recorded and analysed using ATLAS.ti software. As a result, the finding demonstrated eight (8) substantial challenges in adopting BIM including staff resistance, selection of software and hardware, lack of knowledge an information of BIM, lack of data of return on investment of BIM, implementation cost and benefits, lack of demands from the clients, lack of supply chain buy-in, and lack of standards-policy makers. Meanwhile, another ten (10) challenges for instance training and education, culture change, ownership and intellectual property, contractual agreement, authenticity, product liabilities risks, legal uncertainties and affection to the business environment are remarked as least challenges revealed by the participants. In spite, two (2) additional challenges which are not mentioned by the previous researchers were disclosed by the participants which are trustworthiness and organisation's politic. On this balance, all the challenges grouped into six major elements; people, software and hardware, cost, product, standard, and others. Thus, it is expected that the finding shall bring significant and knowledge for the construction practices to understand the challenges in adopting BIM across construction projects.