Empirical approach to identify operational critical success factors for BIM projects

Architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) organizations must adopt building information modeling (BIM) technology, define workflows, and develop internal policies to deliver BIM projects successfully. AECO projects are known as BIM projects when BIM is used during such projects. Organizations must identify project objectives, critical success factors (CSFs), and operational critical success factors (OCSFs); set performance measures; and perform assessments to verify if they are progressing toward success. OCSFs are the factors that can drive the CSFs such that operational issues are well resolved by the project stakeholders. There are several BIM standards and guidelines to appropriately diffuse BIM technology and workflows. However, there are few holistic approaches to identify OCSFs. To meet this necessity, a step-by-step procedure is proposed with an empirical approach to define project objectives, CSFs, and OCSFs. The framework of influencing factors (IFs) is developed by organizing the wide range of IFs from the literature. As a case study, the proposed approach is used to identify OCSFs for Taiwanese BIM projects. It is not only generally applicable to identify OCSFs in other countries, but also capable of helping a small team of BIM experts to identify OCSFs. The developed framework of IFs can be adjusted to fit the needs of design, construction, and operation organizations by retaining the necessary factor groups in the framework.