Ideally, Building Information Modeling brings a wealth of information into one model, making it easier to identify design discrepancies, avoid conflicts between systems, monitor progress and speed up changes.

However, several obstacles prevent project teams from implementing BIM on a wider scale. Mark Sawyer, president, CEO and co-founder of Vico Software, recently blogged about the challenges of implementing BIM.

For starters, every team member has a specialized area of expertise, and no one is going to tell anyone else how to do the job. It would be out of the question, for instance, to expect a mechanical subcontractor to work based on someone else’s model.

“[O]ne model can suffice….but it seldom does today,” Sawyer said. “Why? Too many parties with too little shared expertise and near-zero economic crossover. In other words, disparate functions, disparate knowledge sets, and disparate P&L’s.” (P&L stands for Profit and Loss.)

But this shouldn’t stop the general contractor from aiming to create a model that encompasses as much information as possible, Sawyer said. It would keep the general contractor informed, and it can be helpful to the subcontractors as well -- if they choose to use it. (If anything, it will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and maybe even lead to fully implementing BIM.)

Jim Bostic, an owner’s representative for the St. Joseph Health System, commented on a different, but common, problem -- a reluctance to try something new. “Most owners and/or their representatives lack the required understanding of the total BIM process, and it's human nature to [a]void the things that are new and unknown to you," he said.

It seems this is the underlying cause of several obstacles that come with implementing BIM. In the discussion that resulted from Sawyer’s blog, professionals representing various parts of the construction process debated whether BIM needs to start with the owner or the general contractor.

There is also a trust issue that stems from this fear of the unknown. Arno Blickling, who works for Globe-PM, said, “We obviously question each other's information sets -- which is a way of practicing quality assurance and risk management -- and prefer to work with methods (and software) that are established in our own companies.”

In short, as Sawyers points out, implementing BIM is very much a matter of politics. And while the nuances of a contract can often lead to these problems, it would still be worth having a team meeting to talk about BIM. Of course, it can’t end there. Successfully implementing BIM requires constant communication among team members. That way, everyone can be sure that model changes are correct, useful and made known to the whole team. Otherwise, the problems of distrust and uncertainty will only arise again.