Requirements for cloud-based BIM governance solutions to facilitate team collaboration in construction projects

Construction projects involve multidisciplinary and multi-actor collaborations that generate massive amounts of data over their lifecycle. Data are often sensitive and embody rights, ownership, and intellectual property of the creator. Managing project information raises concerns about security, inconsistency, and loss of data. Conventional approach of dealing with the complexities of data management involves the adoption of BIM-based solutions that lack suitable means for the governance of collaboration, and access and archival of managed data. To overcome the limitations of BIM, cloud-based governance solutions have been suggested as a way forward. However, there is a lack of understanding of construction Information and Communication Technology (ICT) practices from the perspectives of data management and governance. This paper aims to fill this gap: first, by exploring barriers related to BIM adoption and collaboration practices, in particular, issues related to data management and governance that can potentially be ameliorated with cloud technologies, and second, by identifying key requirements for cloud-based BIM governance solutions. A structured questionnaire was conducted among informed construction practitioners in this study. The findings reveal several barriers to BIM adoption alongside ICT and collaboration issues with an urgent need to develop a BIM governance solution underpinned by cloud technology. Further, a number of important requirements for developing BIM governance solutions have been identified.