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Article

CMBAS Tool for Assessing BIM Adoption Status in Construction Markets: Application for Egypt

by
Marwa A. Tahseen
1,2,
Tarek M. Hassan
2,*,
Hesham Bassioni
3 and
Karen B. Blay
2
1
Construction and Building Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Technology, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), B2401 Smart Village, Giza 12577, Egypt
2
School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK
3
Construction and Building Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Technology, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), Alexandria 1029, Egypt
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Buildings 2023, 13(10), 2475; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102475
Submission received: 19 August 2023 / Revised: 13 September 2023 / Accepted: 26 September 2023 / Published: 29 September 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Construction Management, and Computers & Digitization)
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Abstract

:
Countless efforts were conducted worldwide to obtain the BIM position of markets. Yet, a gap in the contemporary literature to comprehensively assess construction markets’ BIM adoption status (CMBAS) exists. A comprehensive assessment will assist decisionmakers in making insightful decisions regarding the wide adoption of BIM in order to make appropriate strategic decisions. The authors designed a tool to detect the BIM adoption status of construction markets comprehensively to ensure a complete understanding of CMBAS when designing BIM initiatives. The tool was applied to Egypt as an example of a developing market and verified and validated through experts’ reviews. A comparative analysis was performed to benchmark the BIM status of this market throughout the years. Appropriate research methods, sampling techniques, and descriptive and inferential analyses were deployed. It was concluded that BIM professionals in Egypt can play an essential role in spreading BIM to the construction market. The market is changing from the use of AutoCAD 2D to other BIM tools; however, more than half the market reached high BIM levels mostly through self-training, particularly with the deficiency of relevant university courses. A CMBAS tool will facilitate benchmarking BIM status among countries to assist in closing technological gaps with the evolving digital transformation.

1. Introduction

Countries worldwide understand the importance of assessing their construction markets’ BIM adoption status (CMBAS), as failing to have a big picture of the actual CMBAS would lead to inappropriate design of BIM strategic initiatives (guidelines, roadmaps, policies, standards, etc.). CMBAS is assessed by conducting BIM surveys or using an existing BIM tool. Nevertheless, deficiencies exist in current BIM adoption status assessments, due to significant variation in the comprehensiveness of BIM surveys and the absence of a unified BIM tool which can effectively perform the assessment process.

1.1. Using BIM Surveys to Detect CMBAS

Different countries mainly assess its CMBAS using questionnaire surveys, as it is the easiest, most practical, and most understandable method; in addition, it can reach a large number of different stakeholders, which means a high coverage of all participants in the construction industry. Yet, the survey structure and the questions’ comprehensiveness vary from one survey to the other, meaning that each survey lacks the measurement of some fields (refer to Table 1). For instance, in the surveys conducted in the USA, the UK, Canada and Australia, more than ten different areas were assessed (awareness with BIM tools, BIM level reached, etc.). However, in some other countries, only one area was assessed. The incomprehensive design of the questionnaires led to an incomplete vision and knowledge with BIM practices in construction markets, and accordingly, it fails to reflect the actual comprehensive of CMBAS.
Furthermore, though BIM surveys are the most practical way to determine CMBAS, the variance in the surveys’ structure made each country assess its CMBAS from different perspectives, making it difficult to compare and benchmark between these countries’ CMBASs. Benchmarking BIM practices in countries is a necessity due to the present digital transformation and widespread international collaboration. This is why gaps in BIM practices between countries need to be highlighted and successfully resolved.

1.2. Using BIM Models to Detect CMBAS

There exists a lack in the contemporary literature of ability to assess countries’ CMBAS and compare their BIM maturity [6]. On the contrary, there exists various research that assessed BIM maturity or competency on the organization, project or even individuals’ scale. Kassem et al. (2013) listed some of these attempts [6].
In an attempt to assess CMBAS, Kassem et al. (2013) proposed an approach which totally relied on comparing the number of noteworthy BIM publications (NBPs) (guides, protocols, mandates, etc.) issued by countries [6]. The problem of relying on NBPs was that the effectiveness of the NBP was not taken in consideration: some countries may issue only one document and yet reach a better BIM maturity level than others who issued a lot, but still have a lower maturity level. Moreover, this approach does not rely on the real applicability of BIM and industry practitioners’ review. Furthermore, it does not reflect the actual country’s CMBAS, and so, it cannot help in developing and designing policies taken by decisionmakers to improve markets’ BIM implementations.
Another important attempt was made by Succar and Kassem (2015) to measure CMBAS. They proposed the assessment of markets’ BIM maturity through the application of five models [34]. Their research was a powerful one, yet it cannot be widely used, as it is not simple enough to be efficiently applied without experts. Moreover, BIM barriers and challenges were not considered in these models, which are vital to be contemplated when designing BIM strategic documents. Additionally, it does not involve a large number of different market stakeholders in the study (like the use of the survey method).
Thus, there exists a need for a standardized tool that is easy to use to facilitate the uniform and comprehensive assessment of CMBAS. This tool should represent a guideline for the areas that must be covered when designing a BIM questionnaire to assess CMBAS. Therefore, a tool named the CMBAS tool (Construction Markets’ BIM Adoption Status Tool) was designed to fulfill this aim. This research was conducted to explain the CMBAS tool and practically apply it to assess the BIM status of a developing construction market. Additionally, the results are compared to other studies conducted in this developing country to benchmark BIM status throughout years.
The main research questions behind this research are the following: what is the literature which we can build on to develop our proposed tool? What are the scientific and research methods to be used for tool development? How can the tool be validated or applied in the field? The following sections will address these questions.

2. Literature Review

2.1. BIM Initiatives Worldwide

Various BIM strategic actions (guidelines, plans, policies, protocols, standards, handbooks, roadmaps, and mandates) were designed to enhance countries’ BIM uptake. Some countries set plans leading to the mandate of BIM, while others established standards, guidelines, or handbooks to facilitate BIM implementation. Examples of these BIM initiatives, on the country level, are illustrated in Table 2. Their design is based on the status of BIM and specific needs of different markets. Therefore, the thorough assessment of CMBAS will dramatically affect the accuracy and effectiveness of the designed strategic action.
Furthermore, different adoption and maturity models were designed to measure BIM maturity at the project and organizational levels. Examples for these models are seen in the efforts of [46,48,50,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67]. However, rare studies were conducted to assess BIM maturity on the level of countries’ construction markets [6]. The works of Kassem and Succar (2017) and Kassem et al. (2013) are the most prevailing to measure BIM diffusion and maturity on the market scale [6,8].
Finally, much work was conducted to benchmark BIM status worldwide, which is reflected in the work of [7,68,69,70,71]. With the increased digital transformation in the construction industry and international collaboration, benchmarking countries’ BIM status has become a crucial issue. However, data about CMBAS should be available to correctly perform this process.
This emphasizes the need to standardize the comprehensive assessment of CMBAS.
As a way of validation of the tool after its design, the tool will be applied to the Egyptian construction market as a case study; hence, a brief overview about Egypt as well as a summary of the BIM status in Egypt will be illustrated in the following subsections.

2.2. The Nature of the Egyptian Construction Industry

The Egyptian construction industry is characterized by being highly dynamic. After many years of recession, the industry has seen a boom since the 1980s moving towards the 2010s, with a growth of about 9% in 2015, and 8% in 2016 [72,73]. Investments in the Egyptian construction industry are mainly from the private sector, with a range from 75% in 2015 to 60% in 2016 [74]. Also, the total investments in 2016 in the construction sector increased three times more than the value in 2015 [74]. Government projects represent 50–80% of the projects in Egypt—half of which is financed by foreign entities, while the other half is locally financed [75].
The development in the Egyptian construction industry does not enclose residential projects only: there exist other mega infrastructure projects, energy projects, utility projects, and construction projects for leisure and tourist developments [76].
Globally from the active projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the share of the Egyptian market is $435.9 billion, so Egypt is the third largest market in the MENA area. The government is marketing for foreign investments in Egypt and has organized an exhibition named ‘The Big 5 Construct Egypt’ every year since 2018 [77,78,79,80].
In order to be able to collect these investments and attract foreign investors, the government issued a new law in May 2017 in which tax incentives are given to investors in addition to liberalizing the foreign exchange system; they also implemented a value-added tax system [80].
Concerning the construction materials industry, Egypt became the top of the Middle East countries in manufacturing reinforced steel and cement [81]. Also, there are more than 20 cement factories present in Egypt with an annual production of 50 million tons in 2014 and 58 million tons in 2017 [76,81].

2.3. BIM in Egypt

BIM started in Egypt in the educational sector, where different papers were published throughout the years since 2010. It was apparent that research in Egypt was classified into two categories: applicable papers that apply a certain BIM concept to the Egyptian construction industry and survey papers that measure the degree of BIM implementation in Egypt.
Concerning the applicable papers, the work of Marzouk et al., 2010; Elbeltagi et al., 2014; Marzouk and Abdelaty, 2014; Marzouk and Zaher, 2015; Nour et al., 2015; Marzouk et al., 2016; Nour, 2016; and Marzouk and Othman, 2017, were noticeable [82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89].
However, for survey papers exploring BIM implementation in Egypt, there existed six sources [2,9,31,33,90,91,92]. However, each survey focused on certain areas, lacking to reflect the overall image of BIM status in the Egyptian construction industry. That is why, here, the proposed tool is applied to the Egyptian Construction market, and the results are illustrated in the following section. Afterwards, results were compared to these previous survey papers’ results in an attempt to benchmark BIM in Egypt throughout the years.

3. Methodology

The paper methodology is visually illustrated in Figure 1. The systematic literature review method and the line of argument meta-ethnography synthesis analysis method were used to gather and refine resources needed for the CMBAS tool construction. Then, these resources were synthesized and aggregated to form the CMBAS tool’s dimensions, indicators, and guidance keys (five dimensions and nineteen indicators and several guidance keys were suggested). Afterwards, the CMBAS Tool was verified and validated through experts’ reviews.
Before applying the tool, the desktop review method was used to collect information about Egypt, which is the developing country in which the tool is to be applied to its construction market. BIM research performed in Egypt and its BIM status were discussed in the previous section, including different surveys previously launched to assess the Egyptian market’s BIM adoption status.
Subsequently, the tool was applied through a quantitative research method (questionnaire survey). The questionnaire survey was designed to cover all five dimensions and nineteen indicators suggested in the CMBAS Tool. Also, the guidance keys proposed in the tool were considered in the design. For the data collection process, nonprobability sampling techniques (purposive judgmental sampling, self-selection sampling, and snowball sampling) were utilized to collect the required sample size. For the data analysis process, the Microsoft Excel program and the SPSS program were used to perform the descriptive and inferential analyses. The utilized tests are the following internal consistency tests: Cronbach’s alpha value, Mann–Whitney, paired Mann–Whitney, Kruskal Wallis, Chi squared, Phi, and Cramer’s V tests). The output from this step was the comprehensive assessment of the Egyptian CMBAS by using the CMBAS Tool.
Furthermore, after collecting data about BIM surveys conducted in Egypt and conducting a new survey using the CMBAS tool, BIM status over years was benchmarked in the Egyptian construction market. The comparative analysis technique was used to perform the benchmarking study. Finally, conclusions and further work were determined.

4. The Development of the Construction Markets’ BIM Adoption Status Tool (CMBAS Tool)

4.1. Research Methods Used to Develop the CMBAS Tool

The systematic literature review method [93,94,95,96,97,98] was used to gather surveys conducted worldwide to assess CMBAS. The application of the systematic literature review method in this research is briefly explained in Table 3 (based on the work of Xiao and Watson (2019) [93]).
Around 65 resources were concluded after conducting the systematic literature review method’s phases (some of these resources are [2,5,8,9,14,16,21,22,24,25,26,29,30,33,69,91,99,100,101,102]). When studying these resources, it was found that different surveys were conducted worldwide to assess construction markets’ status; however, there existed a great variation between these surveys: some measured fourteen areas while others only measured two or three areas. Furthermore, each area studied was not often measured with the same criteria, making it difficult to compare between countries’ CMBASs.
Afterwards, using the line of argument meta-ethnography synthesis analysis method, all areas present in the studied surveys were aggregated, studied, summarized, and consolidated into the Construction Market BIM Adoption Status Tool (CMBAS tool).
The meta-ethnography synthesis analysis method was introduced by Noblit and Hare (1988) as a replacement to the meta-analysis method [103,104]. Meta-ethnography represents different techniques used to synthesize qualitative data, through aggregating different studies to develop innovative interpretations [103,105,106]. One of the meta-ethnography types is the “lines of argument synthesis (LOA)”, where different resources are studied and accumulated together to give a bigger picture of the subject under study: in other words, a whole picture is built out of different scattered parts. So, different sources form the parts of the new synthesized whole [103,104,105,106].
There are seven phases that the meta-ethnography synthesis method should follow to achieve comprehensive results as illustrated in Figure 2 (adapted from [104]). Using the line of argument, the meta-ethnography synthesis method type enabled the synthesis of different dimensions, indicators, and guidance criteria used to assess CMBAS. These data have been aggregated to design the CMBAS tool, enabling BIM adoption status assessment of construction markets.

4.2. CMBAS Tool Composition

The CMBAS tool is composed of five dimensions: BIM awareness, BIM maturity, BIM drivers, BIM barriers, and university curricula. These dimensions could be measured through the assessment of nineteen indicators: seven indicators are used to measure the first dimension (BIM awareness), another seven indicators are used to measure the second dimension (BIM maturity), three indicators are used to measure the third dimension (BIM drivers), and one indicator is used to measure each of the last two dimensions (BIM barriers and university curricula). Some guidance keys are illustrated to describe some indicators. Figure 3 represents an illustration of the CMBAS tool’s dimensions, indicators, and some guidance keys. The use of the CMBAS tool will enable the comprehensive assessment of any CMBAS and will also enable the benchmarking of BIM status among different construction markets.

5. CMBAS Tool Verification and Validation

The CMBAS tool was verified and validated through conducting expert reviews. Experts were randomly chosen using the LinkedIn engine to ensure the diversity of experts, reaching BIM experts with different cultures who work in diverse countries worldwide. Individuals’ search as well as groups’ search were conducted. Several keywords were used such as BIM expert, BIM manger, BIM coordinator, BIM specialist, BIM researchers, BIM PhD holder, etc. A total of 35 contacts were gathered from different countries. However, eight experts from different countries and disciplines participated in the review. A summary of the experts is illustrated in Table 4. Three questions were used to validate the tool, while another four questions were used for the verification process.
The reviews were summed up in the following points:
  • A total of 75% of the experts agreed that BIM dimensions are sufficient to comprehensively detect markets’ BIM status, whereas 25% had a neutral opinion.
  • All given dimensions and indicators are seen as important, and nothing needs to be omitted.
  • All the experts agreed that the BIM indicators can adequately assess BIM markets’ status, where 50% strongly agreed and the other 50% agreed to the question.
  • Two experts suggested adding the government intervention as a dimension; however, it was present under the ‘Drivers’ dimension beneath two indicators: (a) ‘BIM drivers now and in the past’ where governmental efforts should be assessed for (i) setting policies and guidelines; (ii) adjusting university courses to include BIM; and (iii) mandating BIM use and (b) ‘Stakeholders influencing BIM currently and in the future’, where the government is considered a stakeholder whose influence is to measured.
  • Two experts recommended adding ‘Human Psychology’ as a dimension or indicator where people’s skill to use BIM is to be assessed. However, human psychology in using BIM is assessed under all the dimensions: (a) the BIM awareness dimension: assessing individuals’ awareness with, for example, BIM benefits is a reflection of being internally convinced that BIM can perform a change; (b) the BIM maturity dimension: assessing the degree of BIM tools’ usage, how data are shared, the degree of compliance between required BIM knowledge and actual available skills, and the meaning of gaining BIM training. All of these indicators are a reflection of an individual’s skills and maturity; (c) the BIM drivers dimension: if BIM is derived in the market through different stakeholders and investments are being assigned for BIM enhancement, then humans are psychologically convinced with BIM; (d) the BIM barriers dimension: different barriers are being assessed, among which is the degree of convincement with BIM; and (e) the university curricula dimension: if universities provide future pioneers with the required BIM courses, then their skills should be enhanced and will influence the construction market afterwards.
  • Another expert recommended adding open BIM among the indicators. Open BIM is present as a guidance key but not as an indicator. Under the maturity dimension, there is the indicator ‘software usage and degree of expertise’, and among its guidance keys is the degree of using open BIM.
  • One more expert suggested increasing the indicators present under the ‘university curricula’ dimension due to its importance and apparent deficiency of universities intervention. That is why the author added one more indicator to link between industry and academia. Hence, this indicator will cover the recommendations from the industry about the topics that should be incorporated in university courses to close the gap between BIM expertise requirement and delivered knowledge. The suggested indicator will be entitled “what topics are suggested to be taught to undergraduates”.
After the experts’ reviews assessment, one more indicator under the university dimension was added. The final suggested CMBAS tool is illustrated in Figure 4.
The outcome was that the tool can be sufficiently used to design a comprehensive questionnaire that would inclusively measure CMBAS.

6. CMBAS Tool Application

The proposed CMBAS tool was further used to design a questionnaire that could comprehensively assess BIM adoption status of the Egyptian construction market. The desktop review method was used to collect data about the Egyptian market before designing the questionnaire and launching the survey. Egypt is a developing country with a lower-middle income. The Egyptian population increases at a rate of about 2% per year and reached 104 million capita in June 2021, where only about 5% are above 65 years old [107]. This arose the need for new houses and communities, and so, construction was among the top government priorities.

6.1. Questionnaire Survey Design and Implementation

To comprehensively detect BIM status in the Egyptian construction market, the authors used a quantitative research method. They designed a web-based questionnaire survey based on the CMBAS tool illustrated in Figure 4. The designed questionnaire is composed of 28 questions covering the dimensions and indicators proposed in the CMBAS tool. After piloting the questionnaire, some questions were deleted, while others were rephrased. Also, two questions were edited based on respondents’ comments during the implementation of the questionnaire.

6.2. Sampling Technique Used in the Questionnaire

Probability sampling cannot be used as the population frame cannot be identified or listed. So, the non-probability sampling technique was used to collect the required data. The purposive judgmental sampling, self-selection sampling, and snowball sampling techniques were used. These techniques were chosen and applied after reviewing the literature discussed by several researchers [108,109,110,111,112,113,114]. Individuals with the required expertise were contacted, and an announcement for the questionnaire was sent; also, those individuals were asked to nominate other participants with the same research requirements. Those willing to participate in the research were further listed, and the questionnaire was sent to them.

6.3. Questionnaire Data Collection Process

Data were collected using LinkedIn. Firstly, “Egypt Yellow pages” website was used to search for company names, which were used as keywords on LinkedIn, as well as other keywords such as “BIM Group Egypt”, “BIM Egypt”, “BIM coordinator Egypt”, etc. The detailed data collection process is summarized in the flow chart presented in Figure 5.

6.4. Questionnaire Response Rate and Sample Size

To calculate the response rate, the Neuman equation was used: the total response rate was equal to 40.44% and the active response rate was equal to 42.5%, which are within the 10% to 50% acceptable rate suggested by Neuman [111].
The sample consisted of 292 participants representing two groups: 119 BIM professional (BIM engineer, BIM developer, MEP technical coordinator, BIM manager, etc.) and 171 market practitioners (structural engineer, site engineer, technical office engineer, etc.). This sample size is justified according to Cochran’s equation ( n o = Z 2 × ⍴ × q e 2 )   (presented in [110,115,116]). If precision e is to be ±6%, then sample size should be 267. Moreover, based on Cooper and Schindler’s (2014) [113] nominal ordinal data, the sample size is equal to 96. Also, based on the rule of thumb, the sample size should not be less than 30 [111,112].

6.5. Results’ Analysis of CMBAS Tool Application

Descriptive and inferential analyses were executed to analyze the data collected for each indicator present in the CMBAS tool. The Microsoft Excel and the SPSS programs were used to perform descriptive and inferential analyses. The sample was divided into three clusters: whole sample, BIM professionals, and market practitioners. Furthermore, each cluster was further analyzed based on three criteria: years of experience (from 0 to 5 years, more than 5 to 10 years, more than 10 to 20 years, and more than 20 years), company type (owner, consultant, contractor, and others), and company size (small, medium, and large). Several tests were used in the inferential analysis: Mann–Whitney test, paired Mann–Whitney test and Kruskal Wallis test for determining the presence of difference between variables of non-parametric data. Also, the Chi squared test, Phi test, and Cramer’s V tests were used to detect the presence of association between variables. [109,110,111,112,113,114,117,118,119]. Moreover, reliability of data (the degree of bias or error present in the collected data) was tested through using internal consistency test and calculating Cronbach’s alpha value [108].

6.5.1. Dimension (1): BIM Awareness

To investigate the awareness of the Egyptian market with the BIM technology, seven indicators proposed in the CMBAS tool were examined.

What Do Respondents Think of BIM?

The analysis revealed the conviction and awareness of the Egyptian market’s stakeholders with BIM, the understanding of the true meaning of BIM, and how positively it could change the market (Figure 6). However, a significant difference existed between BIM professionals and market practitioners in the degree of understanding what BIM really is. BIM professionals believe more in BIM and understand what effect BIM can have on the construction market more than other market practitioners. However, there existed no association between the different number of years of experience or company size the participant’s degree of understanding of what BIM really is. Yet, some association existed between the different company types and the participant’s degree of understanding of BIM.

Awareness with the Uses of BIM Tools

Though BIM professionals use BIM tools more than market practitioners, different Egyptian market stakeholders are aware of BIM uses; some stakeholders widely apply BIM for different purposes. However, some applications and uses should be enhanced to reach a higher level of BIM. BIM is mostly used to detect clashes, produce 3D visualizations, and automatically generate quantities and schedules (Figure 7). It appeared that there existed no association between the usage of BIM for different purposes and company size, company type, or years of experience.

Project Phases in Which BIM Is Used

BIM professionals’ percentages of using BIM in each of the project phases are totally higher than other market practitioners, especially in the detailing, construction, and fabrication phases. Nevertheless, the construction, detailing, and design phases are the phases mostly using BIM. In contrast, there existed no association between different years of experience and the use of BIM in the different phases except for the detailing phase, where experienced participants having between 10 and 20 years of experience have more BIM users in this phase. Company type criteria showed an association with the use of BIM in the concept, fabrication, and design phases; as the owners are the ones who put forth the concept: that is why they use BIM the most in the concept phase. Furthermore, contractors are usually responsible for the construction of the project: that is why they use BIM the most in the construction and fabrication phases. Similarly, the design is mostly performed in the Egyptian construction market by consultants, which was revealed in the analysis, where consultants most often use BIM in the design phase. Finally, there existed no association between different company sizes and the use of BIM in different project phases except for the design phase, where large companies have the highest frequency of using BIM in the design phase.

Types of BIM Standards Used

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning some of the BIM standards used in the Egyptian market (Figure 8). BIM professionals mostly use the British standard or IFC (Industry Foundation Classes); however, market practitioners mostly do not know which BIM standard is used. However, more than one third of the market practitioners claimed the use of the Egyptian code. The authors believe that a misconception must have occurred, as the BIM Egyptian code was not still released at the time of the questionnaire data collection. This means that participants are unaware of the BIM Egyptian code which was to be issued in the market. Nevertheless, there exists no specific standard in the Egyptian market, yet different standards are being used: this reflects that it depends on the clients, stakeholders, or project types. Regarding the criteria of different years of experience, there appeared to be no association with BIM standards used in the Egyptian market, except for the use of IFC and ISO. However, there exists an association between different company types and some of the BIM standards used in the Egyptian market, whereas there exists no association between different company sizes and BIM standards used in the Egyptian market, except for the use of IFD (International Framework for Dictionaries).

The Awareness of BIM Roadmaps and Guides Directing to BIM Step-by-Step Adoption

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning the awareness of BIM roadmaps and guidelines. Around 70% of BIM professionals are aware of BIM roadmaps and guidelines. On the contrary, only 37% of market practitioners are aware of BIM roadmaps and guidelines. That is why BIM professionals could positively influence the spread and diffusion of BIM. There exists no association between the awareness of BIM roadmaps and guidelines and different years of experience, different company types, or different company sizes.

Roadmaps and Guidelines Importance to Companies to Facilitate BIM Adoption

Around 65% of BIM professionals report that BIM roadmaps and guidelines are either important or totally important, corresponding to 50% in the case of market practitioners. So, some Egyptian market stakeholders may not be aware of BIM roadmaps and guidelines, yet they are totally aware and convinced of their importance and how they could influence the change of the market. There exists no association between different participant’s belief in the importance of BIM roadmaps and guidelines and different years of experience or different company types or different company sizes. However, the conduction of paired Mann–Whitney tests revealed that large companies believe in the importance of BIM roadmaps and guidelines more than small companies.

Respondents’ Belief of the Factors Which BIM Can Probably Impact

It was found that participants conducting the survey are convinced of BIM benefits, even if BIM is not adopted by their companies: their convincement of BIM’s impact was always greater than 70% (Figure 9). There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning participant’s belief in BIM benefits. Also, there exists an association between different years of experience and participant’s belief in some of the BIM benefits. However, there exists no association between different company types or company sizes and participant’s belief in BIM benefits.

6.5.2. Dimension (2): BIM Maturity

To investigate BIM maturity in the Egyptian construction market, seven indicators were examined: software usage and expertise, usage years of 2D CAD and BIM tools, data share, BIM level reached, current and future BIM investments, amount of inhouse BIM training, and how training is gained in the Egyptian market.

Software Tools Usage and Expertise within Companies

Egyptian construction companies possess expertise; they are capable of using BIM and they practically use BIM tools (the company may lack the appropriate skilled labor, yet outsourcing can be the solution to using BIM). Also, there occurred no difference in BIM tools usage for different years of experience: even in more experienced participants who should show a resistance to change in the use of new technologies. This emphasized that market change forced the introduction of these tools (Figure 10). Also, the difference in the company size has no effect on the ownership and use of BIM tools. This is a reflection that regardless of the company size, there is a demand for BIM tools in the Egyptian market. Yet, different stakeholders have different needs. That is why the use of different tools varies according to the company type. Furthermore, although AutoCAD 2D is still the most common tool used in the Egyptian construction market, a transformation from AutoCAD 2D to other BIM tools showed tremendous progress.

Number of Years of 2D CAD Usage and Number of Years of BIM Tools Usage

There existed no significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning the number of years in which AutoCAD 2D is being used. However, for BIM, there is a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning the number of years in which BIM tools have been used (Figure 11 and Figure 12). It is apparent that BIM professionals used BIM tools before other market practitioners did. There existed a significant difference as well in relating the years of experience, company type, or company size to the number of years in which AutoCAD 2D and BIM tools are being used.

Data Share with Other Project Stakeholders

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning the use of some data sharing techniques (Figure 13). Though BIM tools are being used to share data, paper-based methods are also still intensely used. Almost 59% of market practitioners use paper-based data sharing techniques in contrast to 35% in the case of BIM professionals. Also, the Revit is used by 82% of BIM professionals compared to the 49% usage rate in case of market practitioners. Moreover, Navisworks is used by 64% of BIM professionals compared to an 18% usage rate in the case of market practitioners. Furthermore, TFS, IFC, and BIM360 files are used by 11% of BIM professionals compared to a 1% usage rate in the case of market practitioners. These results verify the excessive current use of paper-based documents in the Egyptian market. However, the results also emphasize the effect which BIM professionals can have on spreading BIM usage in the Egyptian market. Nevertheless, there exists no association between different years of experience, company types, or company size and data sharing technique used.

BIM Level Applied in Companies

There are four BIM levels: BIM level 0 (Use 2D CAD only for producing and sharing information), BIM level 1 (Use 2D CAD and 3D CAD to create information and share it using a common data environment), BIM level 2 (Produce collaborated BIM models and CAD software can be exported to IFC or COBie), and BIM level 3 (Achieve full collaboration through the use of a single shared model among all project stakeholders) [120,121]. BIM professionals’ responses show that more than one third of their companies reached BIM level 2, while the other third reached BIM level 3. And when the analysis was performed on the whole market basis, around quarter of the market was in BIM level 2 and another quarter reached BIM level 3. This is a good indication that the Egyptian market is accepting BIM and willing to reach a high level with some guidance and encouragement (refer to Table 5). Nevertheless, when comparing the results with other questions’ analysis, a misconception can arise, as AutoCAD 2D is still dramatically used. However, companies may be applying high BIM level concepts in accordance with the use of other low BIM level concepts as to be able to communicate with the other parts of the market which are still in a lower BIM level. Additionally, there existed no significant difference between the years of experience, company type, or company size and BIM level achieved by companies.

Companies’ Current and Future Investment in BIM

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning companies’ willingness to invest in BIM currently and in the future. However, it was found that there exists no association between companies’ willingness to invest in BIM currently or in the future and different years of experience, company types, and company size. About 84% of BIM professionals are currently willing to invest in BIM, in contrast to only 43% of market practitioners. On the other hand, 60% of market practitioners are willing to invest in BIM in the future compared to 45% in the case of BIM professionals. The differences in current investment percentages may be because these companies which hire BIM professionals already know the importance of BIM and already invest in it; on the other hand, other companies which may not be hiring BIM professionals or have a BIM department logically invest less on BIM. It is also apparent that future plans’ percentage for market practitioners is higher than that for BIM professionals: this may indicate that companies that do not currently invest in BIM are willing to do in the future. This may be a reflection of the increased awareness and belief in BIM. Moreover, for the case of BIM professionals, the decreased percentage in companies’ willingness to invest in BIM in the future may either be because they already invest in BIM and believe that this will be sufficient for the Egyptian market completeness and needs or because participants’ have no clue about their companies’ future plans.

Amount of BIM Training Courses Offered by Companies

Around 25% of market participants companies and 35% of BIM professionals companies offered up to three BIM training courses. About 30% of market participants companies and 20% of BIM professionals companies offered no BIM training courses. There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners about the amount of BIM training courses offered by companies, as well as an association with different years of experience or company size; no association exists between different company types and the amount of BIM training courses companies offer.

How Respondents Gain BIM Training

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning how BIM training is gained (refer to Figure 14). There is also an association with different years of experience or company types. Nevertheless, there exists no association between different company sizes and participant’s opinion about how BIM training is gained. Yet, it is apparent that self-training is the most prevailing source of training in Egypt. This reflects how much individuals realize the importance of BIM and the need of this new technology in the Egyptian market; they increase their competence advantage through self-training rather than depending on their companies. Additionally, around half of the Egyptian companies offer different in-house BIM training courses. Yet, participants do not rely solely on these courses; only around 50% of BIM professionals and 30% of market practitioners find them beneficial.

6.5.3. Dimension (3): BIM Drivers

The following three indicators were examined to investigate BIM drivers that will influence the spread of BIM adoption and implementation in the Egyptian construction market.

Drivers Leading to BIM Widespread and Usage

The comparison between the three research clusters (whole sample, BIM professionals and market practitioners) is illustrated in Figure 15: All drivers were seen by more than 70% of the participants as being important, and both participants’ clusters agreed that the most prevailing driver is the “increased awareness of BIM benefits”. This would direct BIM roadmap constructors and BIM policy planners to concentrate on using this driver and increase the spread of BIM benefits among different stakeholders. Moreover, the least agreed-upon driver was the “governmental efforts”: this highlights the need to increase BIM awareness among different governmental decisionmakers. Nevertheless, there exists no association between different years of experience, company types, or company size and participant’s opinion about the drivers leading to BIM widespread and usage.

Stakeholders’ Current and Future Influence on the Use of BIM

There exists no significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning participant’s opinion about stakeholders’ current and future influence on the use of BIM (Figure 16 and Figure 17). There also exists no association between different years of experience, company types, or company sizes and participant’s opinion about stakeholders’ current and future influence on the use of BIM. This reveals the common convincement of the whole market: both BIM professionals or market practitioners, regardless of the difference in experience or company size or type, are convinced that the government has the minimum influence on BIM adoption in the time being (only around 15%). However, this influence will increase exponentially in the future to be the main player influencing and directing the market to wide adoption of BIM and implementation (will be up to 70%). They also agree that the main players currently are clients and competent companies who will continue to influence the market for years. Furthermore, it is apparent from the analysis of Figure 18 that most projects are public ones, reflecting the importance of government intervention in the diffusion process of BIM technology.

Trusted Sources to Gain BIM Knowledge From

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning the participant’s opinion about the most trusted sources to gain BIM knowledge (Figure 19). There exists no association between different years of experience or company sizes and participant’s opinion about the most trusted sources to gain BIM knowledge. Yet, there exists some association with different company types. The major apparent difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners is that about 30% of BIM professionals trust the internet versus 15% in case of market practitioners. BIM professionals are aware that new technology expertise can be best gained through interaction with other global professionals that are able to provide and have the required BIM knowledge. Also, it is noted that books are the least trusted source among different stakeholders: that is why when a roadmap for enhancing BIM adoption and implementation in the Egyptian construction market is to be designed, this should be kept in mind.

6.5.4. Dimension (4): BIM Barriers

BIM barriers affecting BIM adoption in the Egyptian construction market were studied through the following indicator.

Barriers Preventing BIM Widespread and Usage

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning participant’s opinion about the barriers preventing BIM widespread and usage (Figure 20). However, no association exists with different years of experience, company type, or company size. As BIM professionals are more experienced in BIM than market practitioners, and some even try to convince various stakeholders with BIM, they believe that the most prevailing barrier to BIM adoption that should be dealt with is the cultural problems and resistance to change the way of work. Also, they believe that the presence of skilled staff will greatly influence BIM adoption. On the other hand, market practitioners believe that the absence of customized BIM roadmaps dramatically hinders BIM wide adoption and implementation. This is a very important piece of information that would result in a change in the Egyptian construction market if resolved. Moreover, though companies have experienced personnel with software packages, the actual usage of these packages is lower than the skilled personnel which these companies actually have. This indicates that companies may have skilled staff, yet other barriers prevent BIM implementation. The most seen barriers prohibiting BIM from being widespread is the ‘the absence of skilled labor’, ‘resistance to change’, ‘lack of BIM professionals’, and ‘lack of client demand’. The second most important factors are ‘lack of BIM knowledge’, ‘absence of customized roadmap’, ‘absence of national reports and guidelines’, ‘required change in existing processes’, and ‘absence of government role’.

6.5.5. Dimension (5): University Curricula

The degree of sufficiency and convincement with university BIM curriculum courses that could spread BIM adoption in the Egyptian market were observed through the following indicator.

Universities’ BIM Courses Sufficiency to Meet the Industry BIM Requirements

There exists a significant difference between BIM professionals and market practitioners concerning participant’s opinion about universities’ BIM courses sufficiency to meet the industry BIM requirements: 55% of BIM professionals agreed that the courses are insufficient and only 24% agreed that they are sufficient, while the rest did not know or missed the question. These percentages contrast to 36%, 34%, and 30%, respectively, in the case of market practitioners. Yet, no association with different years of experience, company types, or company sizes occurred.
Thus, most of the market (44%) agreed that university courses offered to students are totally insufficient and need to be greatly enhanced to be able to meet the industry BIM requirements. This means that universities in Egypt have a very poor influence on the spread of BIM technology, which should not be the case. Most BIM professionals and market practitioners have no faith in universities: they prefer to trust other sources. This may be due to their knowledge of how time-consuming the administrative process is to change university courses. Nevertheless, almost a quarter of the respondents agree that university courses helped them with their BIM knowledge, reflecting that not all the universities in Egypt offer the same educational quality (some started to cope with market needs while others did not).
For a summarized illustration chart for the inferential analysis results of some of the BIM dimensions indicators, refer to Figure 21. Also, Figure 22 consolidates a summary of the analysis results reflecting BIM status in Egypt through the application of the CMBAS tool.

7. Benchmarking BIM Status in Egypt over Years

The desktop literature review method was used to gather information about BIM research conducted in Egypt. It was apparent that research in Egypt was classified into two categories; applicable research that applies a certain BIM concept to the Egyptian construction industry and analytical research that measures the degree of BIM adoption in Egypt. The works of Elyamany, Gerges et al., Khodeir and Nessim [9,33,92] and the current research results were used to benchmark BIM status in Egypt over the years using the comparative analysis method. The current research covered the dimensions and indicators indicated in the CMBAS tool (refer to Figure 4); however, only some of these indicators were covered by previous surveys. So, only indicators which were present in the previous surveys were compared to the current research results. The following lines discuss the comparative analysis results, which are divided into five sections, each covering one of the five BIM dimensions needed to comprehensively assess the market’s status.

7.1. Benchmarking BIM Awareness in Egypt over Time

For the first dimension “BIM Awareness”, two indicators were analyzed: “what respondents think of BIM” and “BIM benefits”. In 2016, 12% believed that BIM is a design collaboration tool; this percentage increased to 42% in 2017 and is now 54.8%. The comparison revealed the increased convincement of what BIM really is and that it is not just a software tool. However, almost half the market still did not realize the true meaning of BIM, which reflects the need for more effort by different players in spreading BIM knowledge. Also, only 16% of respondents in 2017 versus 63.7% currently supposed that BIM is a digital data management tool. The Egyptian stakeholder’s convincement with BIM as a data management tool reflects the culture change which will help enhance BIM adoption. Furthermore, in 2016, 47% were convinced that BIM is another word for 3DCAD; however, only 8.6% believed in this nowadays. The declined percentage proves the increased BIM awareness in the Egyptian construction market. Moreover, 35% of respondents assumed that BIM does not facilitate construction methods in 2016, and 36% shared the same opinion in 2017; however, only 2.7% appeared to believe in this when the researcher’s survey was analyzed. This dramatic drop in percentage emphasizes the increased belief of different Egyptian stakeholders in BIM. Finally, the percentages of respondents who considered that the industry still cannot see what BIM really is decreased through years (70% in 2016, 44% in 2017 and 27.1% currently), reflecting the elevated awareness with what BIM is capable of. Figure 23 sums up some of the major differences concerning what respondents think of BIM in Egypt over the years. As for BIM benefits, more benefits were defined and rated to be of greater impact. Consequently, the conclusion from the analysis of these two components highlights the fact that the Egyptian market BIM awareness developed significantly throughout the years.

7.2. Benchmarking BIM Maturity in Egypt over Years

For the second dimension “BIM maturity”, three indicators were analyzed: “BIM level reached by companies”, “data share method’, and “how training is gained”. In 2016, the percentages for those who missed the question and those who reached BIM level 0, BIM level 1, BIM level 2, and BIM level 3 were 32%, 20%, 29%, 14%, and 5%, respectively. These percentages were enhanced in the current research to be 7%, 24%, 19%, 25%, and 25%, respectively. So, those who reached BIM levels 2 and 3 showed a fast elevation from 19% to 50%, which is a powerful indication of increased BIM maturity in the Egyptian construction market. Also, for data share, the reliance on BIM tools increased dramatically when percentages were compared with Gerges et al.’s research [92]. The most remarkable observation in the case of training was the increased percentage of respondents obtaining self-training to be 75.7% currently after being only 35% in 2017. This supports the authors’ recognition of the remarkable development in BIM maturity among the Egyptian market stakeholders. Some of these findings were summarized in Figure 24 and Figure 25 below.

7.3. Benchmarking BIM Drivers in Egypt over the Years

Concerning the third objective “BIM drivers”, since 2017, the reliance on the government as a BIM influencer failed to be proven; however, there existed greater expectations for the government in the future as a main BIM driver (refer to Figure 26).

7.4. Benchmarking BIM Barriers in Egypt over the Years

The fourth dimension was the determination of “BIM barriers”: there occurred a variation in the ranking of BIM barriers throughout the years since 2011 and up to now. Moreover, the barrier “cost of technology”, which was ranked among the first three barriers in 2011, 2016, and 2017, was not even among the top five barriers when the current research was conducted. This may be due to the decreased cost of technology throughout years, which will facilitate the adoption of BIM in a developing lower-middle income country like Egypt. However, the absence of skilled staff is still a main barrier to BIM adoption; from the authors’ point of view, this can be resolved through the incorporation/enhancement of BIM university curricula, where skilled graduates would be able to form a good base, capable of implementing BIM as well as changing the construction market’s culture.

7.5. Benchmarking University Curricula in Egypt over the Years

The fifth dimension discussed the sufficiency of university BIM courses to meet the need of the market; however, it was proven that education was insufficient and the dependence on universities was very weak since 2017 and up until now. The deficiency in enhancing undergraduate courses means that it is essential that the Egyptian government should be the player that takes a real corrective action. Thus, to facilitate the adoption and implementation of BIM in the Egyptian market, the Egyptian government should start considering the introduction/enhancement of BIM education in universities.

8. Discussion

Different strategic actions (guidelines, roadmaps, etc.) were taken by countries aiming to enhance their CMBAS. The design of these strategic actions should be carefully executed to suit countries’ needs and their specific BIM condition; if they are well designed, the required impact on BIM enhancement can be apparently achieved. Therefore, it is essential to accurately study and subsequently understand the CMBAS before processing the design of BIM strategic actions. However, a research gap exists in assessing CMBAS.
This research focused on creating and applying the CMBAS tool, which enables the comprehensive assessment of CMBAS. It was found that CMBAS is assessed through either conducting a BIM survey (most common way) or using existing models. However, there existed some deficiencies in both methods. A BIM questionnaire is usually designed; then, the BIM survey is conducted. Yet, the content of these BIM questionnaires greatly varies from one country to the other, causing the lack of comprehending the actual and inclusive CMBAS. Consequently, the design of BIM initiatives would be affected, and the initiatives would not achieve their required aim. Also, this hinders an accurate benchmark of BIM status worldwide, which is essential to close BIM gaps between countries with the increased international collaboration and digital transformation practices. Furthermore, there exists an absence in the contemporary literature concerning BIM models’ ability to detect CMBAS. The only prevailing research is so complicated that it cannot be applied without the use of BIM experts and would not reflect the markets’ point of view as it could not include all market participants and stakeholders.
When the CMBAS tool was applied to the Egyptian construction market, it was found that BIM professionals are more aware and mature with BIM than other market practitioners; so, they would have an important role in spreading and adopting BIM in the Egyptian market. Furthermore, the educational sector failed to fulfill the market’s needs concerning BIM; almost a quarter of the respondents agreed that university courses helped them with their BIM knowledge. This reflects that not all the universities in Egypt offer the same educational quality (some started to cope with market needs while others did not). That is why a plan should be considered to enhance the educational sector which was seen to be fruitful in spreading BIM. Also, among the findings was the government’s absence in spreading BIM, though the participants believe that the government’s impact was foreseen to be the main BIM driver. This reflects the great role that the government can play in spreading BIM; if mandates are issued, the market could markedly change. This should be considered when designing a BIM initiative. It was clear that the absence of a skilled staff and resistance to change were the top two barriers in the Egyptian industry. The presence of elidable educational curricula and training courses would resolve these barriers. The authors believe in the power of young pioneers to help change the construction market and fulfill the digital transformation. Moreover, different BIM levels were reached by different stakeholders, which should be taken into consideration when designing a BIM initiative to meet every stakeholder’s needs. Additionally, there exists no specific standard in the Egyptian market, yet different standards are being used, which reflects that it depends on clients, stakeholders, or project types. The Egyptian BIM code usage showed a very low percentage, which emphasized the ignorance of the respondents with this code or its impracticality. If a unified international BIM standard (such as the ISO 19650) is to be used, this would facilitate the easy use and spread of BIM in Egyptian construction projects. Regarding BIM training in Egypt, it is gained through various ways, yet it is mostly imparted by self-training. This reflects how much individuals realize the importance of BIM and the need of this new technology in the Egyptian market; thus, they increase their competence advantage through self-training rather than depending on their companies or universities.
Finally, during the undertaking of the benchmarking study of the Egyptian CMBAS throughout the years, it the absence of many BIM indicators when previous surveys were conducted in Egypt was discovered, which hindered a conclusive comparative analysis of BIM status. However, the benchmarking study of the available indicators revealed the development in BIM use in the Egyptian market over the years.

9. Conclusions and Future Work

Based on the concluded strategic view of the Egyptian CMBAS, a roadmap for enhancing BIM adoption and implementation customized to the Egyptian construction market is to be designed, for Egypt to adapt with the fast-developing BIM markets worldwide.
Moreover, the CMBAS tool is to be applied to other construction markets worldwide to benchmark BIM status between different countries. Consequently, benchmarking criteria and guidelines are to be set to ease the benchmarking process for other researchers’ use.
Furthermore, the conducted questionnaire survey is to be launched in the Egyptian market on an annual basis to benchmark the development in the Egyptian CMBAS and, consequently, continuously enhance the designed BIM roadmap customized to Egypt.
Applying the CMBAS tool for the Egyptian construction market proved to be a powerful tool for assessing construction markets for BIM adoption status. This was concluded after conducting the benchmarking study, where different BIM areas were widely covered in a more comprehensive way than previous studies. Furthermore, the way the CMBAS tool was designed makes it easy to be applied for any construction market using the same approach.
The main contribution of this research is the development of the CMBAS tool which enabled the easy and comprehensive assessment of BIM adoption status of construction markets. Also, the comprehensive assessment of the Egyptian CMBAS and report of the Egyptian BIM status throughout years represent other important contributions.
For the research limitations, the tool’s dimensions and indicators were aggregated based on previously conducted BIM surveys and studies; however, only the surveys conducted on the market scale level were included in the study; those conducted at an organizational scale or the project scale were omitted.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.A.T., T.M.H., H.B. and K.B.B.; methodology, M.A.T.; validation, M.A.T.; formal analysis, M.A.T.; resources, M.A.T.; data curation, M.A.T.; writing—original draft preparation, M.A.T.; writing—review and editing, M.A.T., T.M.H., H.B. and K.B.B.; visualization, M.A.T.; supervision, T.M.H., H.B. and K.B.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the author, Marwa Tahseen, upon reasonable request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Paper Research Methodology.
Figure 1. Paper Research Methodology.
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Figure 2. The seven phases of meta-ethnography synthesis method.
Figure 2. The seven phases of meta-ethnography synthesis method.
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Figure 3. Construction Markets’ BIM Adoption Status Tool (CMBAS tool).
Figure 3. Construction Markets’ BIM Adoption Status Tool (CMBAS tool).
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Figure 4. Final Layout of the Construction Markets’ BIM Adoption Status Tool (CMBAS tool).
Figure 4. Final Layout of the Construction Markets’ BIM Adoption Status Tool (CMBAS tool).
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Figure 5. The survey data collection process.
Figure 5. The survey data collection process.
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Figure 6. Respondents’ opinions of BIM.
Figure 6. Respondents’ opinions of BIM.
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Figure 7. Respondents’ opinions for BIM tools’ usage.
Figure 7. Respondents’ opinions for BIM tools’ usage.
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Figure 8. Respondents’ opinions for types of BIM standards used.
Figure 8. Respondents’ opinions for types of BIM standards used.
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Figure 9. Respondents’ belief of the factors Which BIM Can probably impact.
Figure 9. Respondents’ belief of the factors Which BIM Can probably impact.
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Figure 10. Respondents’ opinions about software tools’ usage & expertise within companies.
Figure 10. Respondents’ opinions about software tools’ usage & expertise within companies.
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Figure 11. Participants’ responses about the number of years of 2D CAD usage.
Figure 11. Participants’ responses about the number of years of 2D CAD usage.
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Figure 12. Participants’ responses about the number of years of BIM tools usage.
Figure 12. Participants’ responses about the number of years of BIM tools usage.
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Figure 13. Participants’ responses about how data are shared with other project stakeholders.
Figure 13. Participants’ responses about how data are shared with other project stakeholders.
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Figure 14. Comparative analysis for how respondents gain BIM training.
Figure 14. Comparative analysis for how respondents gain BIM training.
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Figure 15. Respondents’ opinions for the drivers leading to BIM widespread and usage.
Figure 15. Respondents’ opinions for the drivers leading to BIM widespread and usage.
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Figure 16. Respondents’ opinion about the stakeholders’ current influence on the use of BIM.
Figure 16. Respondents’ opinion about the stakeholders’ current influence on the use of BIM.
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Figure 17. Respondents’ opinion about the stakeholders’ future influence on the use of BIM.
Figure 17. Respondents’ opinion about the stakeholders’ future influence on the use of BIM.
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Figure 18. Respondents’ opinion about company’s project types.
Figure 18. Respondents’ opinion about company’s project types.
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Figure 19. Respondents’ opinion for the trusted sources to gain BIM knowledge from.
Figure 19. Respondents’ opinion for the trusted sources to gain BIM knowledge from.
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Figure 20. Participants’ responses for barriers preventing BIM widespread and usage.
Figure 20. Participants’ responses for barriers preventing BIM widespread and usage.
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Figure 21. Inferential analysis top results’ summary for data collected to assess the Egyptian construction market’s BIM adoption status.
Figure 21. Inferential analysis top results’ summary for data collected to assess the Egyptian construction market’s BIM adoption status.
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Figure 22. BIM Status in Egypt sum up chart resulted from CMBAS tool application.
Figure 22. BIM Status in Egypt sum up chart resulted from CMBAS tool application.
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Figure 23. Comparative analysis of what respondents think of BIM in Egypt over the years [9,92].
Figure 23. Comparative analysis of what respondents think of BIM in Egypt over the years [9,92].
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Figure 24. Comparative analysis of BIM level in Egypt over time [9].
Figure 24. Comparative analysis of BIM level in Egypt over time [9].
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Figure 25. Comparative analysis of BIM training in Egypt over time [33].
Figure 25. Comparative analysis of BIM training in Egypt over time [33].
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Figure 26. Comparative analysis of BIM drivers in Egypt over time [9].
Figure 26. Comparative analysis of BIM drivers in Egypt over time [9].
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Table 1. BIM indicators used to measure BIM markets’ status in different countries/regions.
Table 1. BIM indicators used to measure BIM markets’ status in different countries/regions.
Areas Covered in the SurveyCountry/RegionReferences
  • What respondents think of BIM
United Kingdom; Canada; Australia New Zealand; Egypt; Africa; Middle East and North Africa; Finland and Switzerland[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33]
2.
Awareness with BIM tools’ usage
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Australia; New Zealand; Egypt; KSA; Middle East and North Africa
3.
Degree of use of different BIM standards
United Kingdom; Canada; Australia; New Zealand; Egypt; Finland and Sweden
4.
Awareness with roadmaps
Canada
5.
Degree of convincement and awareness with BIM benefits
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Australia; Worldwide; New Zealand; Egypt; KSA; China, Sweden and Chile
6.
Degree of BIM software usage and expertise
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Worldwide; Africa and Chile
7.
Number of years of CAD 2D and BIM tools usage
USA; Canada; Worldwide; China
8.
How data are shared among different stakeholders
USA; United Kingdom; Canada and Africa
9.
BIM level reached
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Australia, Worldwide; Egypt; KSA; Africa & China
10.
Investment in BIM
USA
11.
Amount of BIM training courses
USA; United Kingdom; Worldwide
12.
Presence of noteworthy BIM publications
USA; United Kingdom; Australia; Finland; Denmark; Norway; The Netherlands; Singapore
13.
BIM Training gained
USA; Worldwide; Egypt; Africa; Middle East, North Africa, and Switzerland
14.
BIM drivers influencing BIM implementation
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Australia; Worldwide; New Zealand; Egypt; KSA; Africa; China and Chile
15.
Stakeholders influencing BIM
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Australia; Worldwide; New Zealand and KSA
16.
Trusted BIM sources
Canada; Australia and New Zealand
17.
BIM barriers influencing BIM implementation
USA; United Kingdom; Canada; Australia; Worldwide; New Zealand; Egypt; KSA; Africa; China; Middle East and North Africa; Finland; Sweden and Switzerland
18.
Influence of education on BIM implementation
USA; United Kingdom; Australia; KSA; China; Middle East and North Africa; Nigeria; Spain; Pakistan; Slovakia and Croatia
Table 2. BIM strategic actions issued in different countries/regions to enhance BIM adoption and implementation.
Table 2. BIM strategic actions issued in different countries/regions to enhance BIM adoption and implementation.
Strategic ActionCountry: Date IssuedReferences
BIM
Guidelines		Korea: 2011, China: 2011, Australia: 2011, Norway: 2011, Finland: 2012, The Netherlands: 2012, Singapore: 2012, Sweden: 2013, Belgium: 2015, Norway: 2015; France: 2016[25,35,36,37,38,39,40,41]
BIM
Handbooks		New Zealand: 2014; Europe: 2017[37,38]
BIM
Standards		USA: 2007, Australia: 2011, China: 2011, Hong Kong: 2011, Finland: 2013, Sweden: 2013, United Kingdom: 2013, Austria: 2015, France: 2017; Switzerland: 2017[25,38,39,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51]
BIM
Regulations		Denmark: 2013[25,38]
BIM
Policies		USA: 2003, Australia: 2011, China: 2011; Japan: 2016[39,41,43,44,47,49,51,52]
BIM
Roadmaps		Korea: 2010, United Kingdom: 2012, Hong Kong: 2013, China: 2014, Brazil: 2015, France: 2015, Germany: 2015; Singapore: 2015[38,39,41,53,54]
BIM
Plans		United Kingdom: 2011, France: 2014, Chile: 2015, Spain: 2015, Scotland: 2015; The Netherlands: 2016[25,38,39,41,42,43,45,46,47,48,49,50]
BIM
Manuals		Norway: 2011; Canada: 2016[38,41,44,47,55]
BIM
Frameworks		Australia: 2014[41,49]
BIM
Mandates		Denmark: 2007, The Netherlands: 2011, Dubai: 2013, China: 2014, Singapore: 2015, Australia: 2016, Norway: 2016, United Kingdom: 2016, France: 2017, Scotland: 2017; Spain: 2018[38,46,47,48,49]
Table 3. The systematic literature review method steps and their application in the research.
Table 3. The systematic literature review method steps and their application in the research.
StepStep NameStep DefinitionCriteria Set in This Research
1Inclusion
criteria		This phase encloses the definition of the search criteria
(a)
Literature discussing BIM surveys conducted to measure countries’, regions’, or continent’s BIM status/uptake.
(b)
Market level surveys only have been included, not project or individual or organizational level surveys.
(c)
BIM studies conducted worldwide.
(d)
Noteworthy BIM publications.
(e)
Markets’ BIM maturity.
(f)
Systematic literature review.
(g)
Synthesis analysis.
(h)
Sources written or translated to the English language.
2Literature identificationIllustrates the key words, search engines, judgement, time range of included resources, and number of resources used in the search
(i)
Key words: BIM survey, BIM worldwide, BIM market survey, etc.
(j)
Search engines used: Google Scholar, Egyptian Knowledge Bank, Emerald publishing, El-Sevier, ProQuest and EBSCOhost, and Web of Science.
(k)
Judgement is based on relevance to title and by scanning the abstract.
(l)
Time range of the accepted papers which are to be included in the study are those papers up till 2022.
(m)
Number of resources collected were more than 300 resources.
3Screening for inclusionScreening is based on retrieving the abstractAfter deep review of the abstract, the number of papers decreased from around 300 to around 150.
4Quality and eligibility
assessment		Skimming through the full text of the papersAfter skimming the full text, the number of papers declined to around 65.
5IterationsAdding more resources after backward and forward searchAbout 10 more resources have been added.
6Data
Extraction and
analysis		Includes what information has been extracted from these resources, then dividing this main topic to sub-topics and including the name of these sub-topics.In this study the information extracted are
(a)
BIM surveys conducted on the level of countries’ construction markets.
(b)
Different strategic actions taken by countries to enhance their BIM adoption and implementation state.
(c)
Effort made in the area of determining market’s BIM maturity.
(d)
How is market’s BIM status assessed.
(e)
Different BIM terminologies.
(f)
Key factors enabling BIM market status assessment.
Table 4. Profession and country of the experts who conducted the CMBAS tool verification/validation questionnaire.
Table 4. Profession and country of the experts who conducted the CMBAS tool verification/validation questionnaire.
ExpertCountryProfessionCompany Nature
1ChileBIM ManagerGovernment Consultant
2EgyptBIM architectConsultant
3PakistanBIM EngineerPublic Contractor
4PeruBIM SpecialistContractor
5QatarAssociate Professor/BIM Academic ConsultantEducational
6SpainCEO of a BIM consulting companyConsultant
7SwitzerlandLecturer in BIM Coordination/Owner of a BIM consulting companyBIM Consulting and BIM Formation
8United KingdomBIM reader and Program Leader of MSc Construction in a university in the UKEducational (Teaching and Research)
Table 5. BIM level reached by Egyptian companies.
Table 5. BIM level reached by Egyptian companies.
Whole MarketBIM ProfessionalsMarket Practitioners
BIM Level 325%34%20%
BIM Level 225%40%15%
BIM Level 119%16%22%
BIM Level 024%7%34%
Missed the question7%3%9%
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MDPI and ACS Style

Tahseen, M.A.; Hassan, T.M.; Bassioni, H.; Blay, K.B. CMBAS Tool for Assessing BIM Adoption Status in Construction Markets: Application for Egypt. Buildings 2023, 13, 2475. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102475

AMA Style

Tahseen MA, Hassan TM, Bassioni H, Blay KB. CMBAS Tool for Assessing BIM Adoption Status in Construction Markets: Application for Egypt. Buildings. 2023; 13(10):2475. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102475

Chicago/Turabian Style

Tahseen, Marwa A., Tarek M. Hassan, Hesham Bassioni, and Karen B. Blay. 2023. "CMBAS Tool for Assessing BIM Adoption Status in Construction Markets: Application for Egypt" Buildings 13, no. 10: 2475. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102475

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