Assessment of BIM Use in the Early Stages of Implementation

The construction companies have achieved different levels of BIM use and in some developed countries, it is very advanced. Traditionally, the use of BIM has been evaluated by maturity models; however, it does not provide an integral evaluation of BIM use. BIM Use Assessment (BUA) was proposed as a tool to satisfy this need, it is based on the evaluation of several states that compose necessary characteristics to perform each BIM use successfully. BUA was applied to measure projects that have BIM advanced use in Colombia, Chile, and Spain. However, there is none an integral evaluation in the early stages of BIM use. Therefore, the objective of this research was to evaluate the incipient BIM use. Accordingly, 23 private Ecuadorian projects, were evaluated using BUA. As expected, the analyzed projects have lower levels than the other projects evaluated by BUA. The high percentage of projects were at the levels that require the appropriate use of 3D models, and the collaboration issues were common deficiencies. This research results could be used in the development of strategies to reduce mistakes; thus, leading to an agile BIM implementation.