DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM) IN FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA

1.1Background of Study

Building has evolved through many centuries from dwelling in caves to skyscrapers and recently to intelligent structures that can smartly respond to stimuli in its environment (Azhar, 2010). This view was corroborated by Kiviniemi, Fischer and Bazjanac (2005) that building practice has also undergone a great deal of metamorphosis in response to the dynamic nature of human needs and development. Hence, the submission of Grillo (2010) that building design and construction are processes which traditionally involve several professionals collaborating for relatively short periods to develop a facility for use over a long period. However, most of the building designs have failed to meet user’s requirements and functionality leading to inefficiencies in terms of performance of the construction industry.

However, construction industry has been noted for lagging behind other industries in terms of project delivery for the past decade (Eastman, Teicholtz, Sacks and Liston, 2008). This could be adduced to non-collaborative efforts of stakeholders and the fragmented nature of the building processes. This view was in line with Sommerville, Craig and McCarney (2004) that the construction industry is highly inefficient and relies heavily on traditional means of delivering its products and services. Furtherance to this assertion, the report of the study undertaken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, 2004) in America assessed the cost of these inefficiencies. The study revealed that the price of new construction was increased by $6.12 per square meter due to inefficiencies within the industry.

However, in 2004, a study was carried out by Lean Construction Institute suggested that as much as 57% of time, efforts and material investment in construction projects does not add value to the final product delivery in comparison to a figure of only 26% in the manufacturing industry.

Moreover, project owners are becoming increasingly focused on deriving more value on their investment; they are aware of the consequences of late delivery, low productivity issues, technological advancement and the demand changes. Furtherance to this concern the Construction Users Round Table (CURT, 2007) generated two white papers urging significant changes throughout the construction processes and recommended the need for consideration of new methods of building project delivery.Many building owners as well as other institutions and corporate organizations shared these frustrations associated with the traditional methods of construction. This is evident in the increase in the number of projects completed using alternative delivery methods. This implied that building owners are dissatisfied with the traditional Design-Bid-Build process. This view was corroborated by CURT (2007) on the difficulties experienced on typical projects as artifacts of a construction process fraught by lack of cooperation and poor information integration. The submission highlighted typical problems as design errors, omissions, inefficiencies, coordination problems, cost overruns, delay and productivity loses. The study attributed historical reasons for this dysfunctionality to be multiplicity of participants with conflicting interests, incompatible cultures among team members and limited access to timely information.

Tam, Tam, Zeng and Ng (2007) submitted that building process can be grouped into three major phases as: the conception/design phase, construction phase and operation or user phase. The conception/design phase could be described as the period when most of the decisions that influence

the performance of the building are conceptualized; the construction phase represents the actualization stage when the capital cost of construction is incurred; and the operation or user phase account for the greatest proportion of time period of the building life span relative to earlier two phases. These phases resulted into the fragmentation of the construction industry. This fragmentation process inhibits widespread change in the building industry. However, Building Information Modeling (BIM) technique replaces this fragmented process with an interdisciplinary approach that consolidates the team efforts (Bernstein and Pittman, 2005).

Tertiary institutions are the third tier of educational system in Nigeria. It is the highest level of education for the development of human capital resources through high level manpower training as contained in the Nigerian Policy on Education (Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council; NERDC, 2004). However, Ofide and Jimoh (2010) noted the consistent increase in the population of students on a yearly basis. The study stressed the need to ensure that higher institutional buildings perform not only optimally but are functional throughout their life- cycles.

Olatunji, Aghimien, and Oke (2016) noted that the appearance of these buildings and infrastructure have implication on the performance of the institution as a citadel of learning. The study posited the need for a high level of maintenance culture in tertiary institutions in Nigeria so that its buildings and infrastructure can perform its function efficiently and effectively. The Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities (CNANU, 2012) reported the inadequacy, dilapidated, over-stretched and improvised state of physical facilities for teaching and learning in the South West universities in Nigeria. This assertion underscores the need for tertiary institutional buildings in Nigeria to adopt the policies and practices of building information modeling into building and infrastructural development.

Moreover the costs of financing higher education coupled with dwindling national income according to Bogoro (2015) poses a great challenge for sustainability of high quality higher education in the country. Construction projects by nature are capital intensive. To meet its infrastructural needs, Nigeria will have to invest $33billion dollar (5.95 trillion naira) annually for the next thirty (30) years (Tsokar, 2015). The National Planning Commission (NPC) projects that a sum of 60 billion US dollars would be required for the next five (5) years to drive the national economic development plan of the country. This submission was attested to by Afolayan (2015) that a sum of #522,206,727,294.11 was invested in funding tertiary education in Nigeria between 2009 to 2013 through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). The fund was expended on project development, academic staff training, library development and other high impact projects. Within the same period of report, another sum of #94,129,527,348 was released to federal universities through National University Commission (NUC) for Direct Teaching and Laboratory Cost (DTLC) and for Teaching and Research Equipment (T&RE). This report does not only attest to the high capital outlay required in funding higher institutions in Nigeria. It brings to the fore the need to judiciously utilize the financial resources through the adoption and implementation of BIM principles.

The construction industry is a fragmented sector and it functions in an environment that is full of uncertainty and fast changing in its knowledge management as documented by (Dave and Koskela, 2009). There is always the need for organizations to move in the direction of new knowledge to improve various businesses in the construction industry. However, this does not depict the reality of the state of buildings in the South West Nigeria Federal Universities that were procured through conventional traditional methods.

Summarily, BIM allows multi-disciplinary information to be superimposed within one framework, such that it creates an opportunity for sustainable development and performance analysis throughout the project lifecycle. Therefore, this study intended to appraise the prevalence of BIM with a view to developing a framework for effective public building projects delivery in Nigeria.