**1. Introduction**

In the past two decades, the productivity of the Canadian manufacturing industry has nearly doubled, whereas in construction it remained stagnant (McKinsey & Company 2017). To help achieve better productivity, the construction industry has turned towards building information modeling (BIM) (Succar 2009). BIM is a digital technology to establish a computable representation of all the physical and functional characteristics of a facility and its related project/life-cycle information, intended to be a repository of information for the facility owner/operator to use and maintain throughout the life-cycle of the facility (NBIMS 2007). The BIM process is essentially a method to align design members of a construction project and ensure their collaboration through informationsharing, notably through a multi-dimensional 3D model providing visual and physical properties of the asset, which can be used throughout the life-cycle of the infrastructure (Attrill and Mickovski 2020).

BIM maturity levels are defined within a range from 0 to 3. Level 0 means no collaboration and the use of traditional 2D drafting, while level 1 implies low collaboration between different stakeholders who are individually responsible for creating and managing their own data. Level 2 promotes collaborative working by ensuring each party is responsible for a 3D model which will then be combined in a federated BIM Model. Level 3 BIM involves multidisciplinary work and needs contractual frameworks encouraging open

**Citation:** Jobidon, Gabriel, Pierre Lemieux, and Robert Beauregard. 2021. Building Information Modeling in Quebec's Procurement for Public Infrastructure: A Case for Integrated Project Delivery. *Laws* 10: 43. https:// doi.org/10.3390/laws10020043

Received: 27 April 2021 Accepted: 20 May 2021 Published: 1 June 2021

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and collaborative working and the creation of a cooperative environment throughout the life-cycle of projects. This third level enables all stakeholders to work simultaneously on the same model, therefore greatly diminishing the chance of conflicting information (Sacks et al. 2018). Widespread adoption of BIM and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) in the public sector has notably been hindered by legal barriers (Ghassemi and Becerik-Gerber 2011). Many studies have pointed out that in order to effectively implement BIM, legal barriers need be overcome, such as liability and risk allocation issues and the status of intellectual property of the model, as well as the inadequacy of procurement practices and contracts (Sacks et al. 2018). Moreover, recent studies found that significant legal aspects or contract provisions need to be included in BIM contracts (Chihib et al. 2019), and that design–bid–build procurement and a lack of standardization impedes effective adoption of BIM (Fan et al. 2018; Le´sniak et al. 2021). These issues are all addressed in the present paper, notably through the lens of IPD. IPD is defined as a contractually based approach, which creates an environment that enhances collaboration, innovation and value, and which is characterized by early involvement of team members, shared risk and reward based on project outcome, joint project management, liability reduction among IPD team members and joint validation of project goals (IPDA 2018). These principles are notably reflected in the CCDC-30 contract, published in 2018 by the Canadian Construction Documents Committee, although there are several standardized models of contracts used in jurisdictions including the United Kingdom and the United States such as the NEC4 Alliance Contract, TAC-1 Term Alliance Contract or the American Institute of Architects series. Regardless of the model, these contracts are based on common principles of common governance, a no-blame culture and the development of a target cost enabling the sharing of profits or losses. IPD is designed to help public bodies achieve functional, environmental, and economic objectives through upstream design iterations involving all relevant stakeholders, decision-making driven by performance objectives, ongoing value management, effective and open communication and the maintenance of quality assurance throughout the process (Jobidon et al. 2019). BIM benefits include faster and more effective processes, better design and production quality, controlled life-cycle costs and automated assembly, while IPD helps achieve better quality levels, shorter completion time, fewer change orders and lower costs (Azhar 2011; El Asmar et al. 2013).

In the province of Quebec, the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) has been tasked with BIM implementation in public projects. The SQI is responsible for managing projects and assets for most of the province's infrastructure projects and serves as a project manager for other public entities. The SQI has implemented BIM in 10 major infrastructure projects so far, with the intention of implementing it in all of its projects by 2021 (Société Québécoise des Infrastructures 2020).

This paper addresses the following research question, or puzzle: How do norms, whether legislative, regulatory or contractual, functionally or dysfunctionally affect the effective implementation of BIM in Quebec's public infrastructure framework? This paper is based on an analysis of relevant literature regarding BIM, IPD, procurement processes and collaborative practices, as well as Quebec's legislation, regulations and contractual documentation regarding the five most recent major infrastructure projects. Four main themes emerged from this analysis and are addressed in this paper using dialectics and the function–dysfunction dyad: collaboration in the tendering process, award criteria, prequalification of tenderers as well as risk and reward sharing. The authors suggest that the use of IPD should help mitigate legal barriers hindering BIM implementation.

BIM and IPD represent a paradigm shift from the traditional, fragmented, linear and adversarial culture of the construction industry to a more trust-based, collaborative and multidisciplinary approach (Lichtig 2006). Although BIM, IPD and collaborative procurement practices are independent of one another, their combination should help public bodies decrease project costs, increase productivity and quality and reduce project delivery time (Azhar 2011). While law has a predominantly territorial nature, the findings of this paper can apply, with slight variations, to other jurisdictions looking to implement BIM in public infrastructure projects.

## **2. Methodology**

The methodology of this paper lies in the development of a question into a research puzzle, which requires asking "what is puzzling about how earlier research has described or explained this (allegedly puzzling) phenomenon?" Essentially, it requires one to ask a "why x despite y" or "how did x become possible despite y" (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018). Applied to the current subject, the puzzle is thus: How can BIM level 3 be implemented despite the normative framework hindering its use? To resolve this research puzzle, this paper relies on di and the use of the function–dysfunction dyad. Although there are many conceptions of dialectics, in each of them intellectual conflicts are developed and resolved, as opposition is their common principle.

In this paper, dialectics reasoning is aimed at overcoming the duality of the function and dysfunction of norms, to achieve a higher order of integration in the form of a synthesis. Quebec's legislation, regulations and contracts are analyzed through hermeneutics, which aims to make sense of an object of study, whether texts or text-analogues. To do so, the contractual documents for Quebec's five latest major infrastructure projects were analyzed. Norms, whether legislative, regulatory or contractual, serve a purpose, or a positive function which acts as one pole of the dialectical spectrum. For example, regulatory norms regarding the award criteria ensure the fair and equal treatment of tenderers. However, they also lead to dysfunctions, the other pole of the dialectical spectrum, such as unduly advantaging price to the detriment of quality. This theoretical framework has notably been used in the study of formal and informal governance mechanisms in public projects, sustainable contracts and statutes analysis (Perillo 1974; Marchais-Roubelat 2012; Howard et al. 2019).

Furthermore, this paper is based on relevant literature regarding BIM, IPD, procurement processes and collaborative practices, which are thoroughly used in the "BIM-specific requirements" subsections of this paper. Finally, this paper represents the third part of a thesis, and thus follows two papers concentrated on a comparative law analysis and a content analysis of different project delivery methods in terms of contractual language (Jobidon et al. 2018, 2019). The results from these papers helped shape the subsections of the current analysis, which address collaborative mechanisms in the tendering process, award criteria and prequalification of firms as well as risk–reward mechanisms.

The following flowchart in Figure 1 illustrates the methodology used in this paper. Each subsection is structured to present the current rules and their functions, BIM-specific requirements, dysfunctions created by the current rules and the tension resolution to achieve successful implementation of BIM.

**Figure 1.** Methodology flowchart.
