The construction industry has shown, for a long time, characteristics of a craft activity, as it did not explore the new techniques that allowed the progress of other industrial sectors, and made possible significant increases in productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. This paradigm shows that there is a need to industrialize the construction, in other words, the construction activity should become an integrated project, oriented by working methods where the planning and organization prevail. The main cause for these weak performances is the difficulty to visualize the production flow, and the poor transmission of information between the different stakeholders involved in a construction project. The use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) methodology by architects and design engineers in their strategic planning, will optimize the visualization and detail of the process, will support the planning and activities’ coordination and will drive to an effective collaboration between owner, architects/ designers and contractors during all projects’ lifecycle. A BIM model involves and integrates the entire construction industry and manages the information throughout the buildings’ life cycle. Unlike a simple 3D model, the BIM model contains much more information about the features and materials of a building. It is a 3D digital database, in which its unique features allows the representation and simulation of the buildings’ behavior and the management of all its elements. This information may include areas and volumes, thermal properties, rooms’ descriptions, prices, product information, finishing’s maps, representation of all MEP systems and much more.

BIM gave rise to an unprecedented potential collaboration between architecture and engineering. With smart work processes based on virtual models, errors in coordination activities can be practically reduced to zero.

The implementation of the BIM methodology to a project, depending on the levels of implementation, may lead to a reduction between 10 to 25% of project / construction’s cost.