Building Information Modeling Integrated With Electronic Commerce Material Procurement and Supplier Performance Management System

This paper describes an innovative approach to the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and electronic commerce (e-commerce) in a material procurement process for improved design-construction integration. The paper includes the present applications, benefits, limitations and barriers to e-commerce and BIM in material procurement processes, compares the present commercial BIM based and non-BIM based quantity takeoff and cost estimating software, and identifies potential benefits of integrating BIM and e-commerce software solutions for construction quantity takeoff, cost estimating and procurement processes. The authors propose a framework for integrating BIM for quantity takeoff and cost estimating applications with e-commerce solutions for material procurement and supplier performance evaluation. The paper presents a proposed solution to link BIM-derived data with RS Means unit price cost data to generate accurate cost estimating reports, one weight coefficient-based model to evaluate the performance of material suppliers, and a preliminary version of corresponding BIM-based application integrated with e-commerce software system.