A Quantitative Investigation into how Building Information Modelling has Affected the Transfer of Information on Construction Projects

A request for information (RFI) on a construction project is a written formal procedure initiated by the contractor seeking additional information or clarification for issues related to design, contract documents and even construction elements. Response times to RFIs and other queries are typical key performance indicators (KPI’s) on a construction project. As a result, slow RFI response times are considered to be poor performance metrics which can cause disruption and even delays to the project schedule. Building Information Modelling (BIM) enables collaborative creation and management of information on a construction project and across the entire project lifecycle. This paper investigates if the transfer of information and collaboration between all project participants improve as a direct result of BIM by examining the number of RFIs submitted and RFI processing efficiency on a BIM level 1 project. The main goal for this paper is to provide a benchmark set of results for analysis on the progression of BIM and the RFI process in the future. Although research has been carried out on the RFI process and its effect on project efficiency, little or no research has specifically evaluated effects on RFI processing efficiency as a direct result of BIM. The quantitative results of this paper found that the implementation of BIM on a construction project reduced the total number of RFIs issued per million euro of award contract. However, average and median response times for single party and multi-party RFIs saw no direct improvements. The poor punctuality and processing efficiency performance of multi-party RFIs, highlight that although there was an overall reduction in the number of RFIs submitted, issues with collaboration and coordination between project stakeholders still exist.