Cost Managers Contribution towards achievement of Sustainable Development through BIM

By Tanaka Tande

Since Agenda 21 for sustainable development in 1992, there has been a paradigm change in the construction industry towards sustainable infrastructure development due to inadequate resources and to cater for future generations. Construction industry`s processes and products are an essential part of any country`s national economy and industrial development, as it is the driver for economic growth especially in developing countries such as Zimbabwe.

The rate of increase in resource usage the world is currently undergoing requires change of practices in usage and production globally. The world`s population is estimated to reach 9.73 billion from the current figure of 8 billion by 2050. This implies that there will be a need for more infrastructure to ensure availability of basic accommodation and more recreational facilities.

To counter these developments, majority of the world`s towns should be re-planned and reconstructed over the coming decades. To achieve this mindful change towards modern sustainable infrastructure, it requires collaboration among construction stakeholders such as Architects, Cost Managers, Engineers, Environmentalist, Property developers, Project Managers and Project Financiers to reconsider the way buildings are constructed and the need to efficiently allocate construction resources, reduce wastage, cost increases and construction time frames to achieve economic sustainability.

The team has to work together from the start, to make an integrated design through BIM and to ensure they control cost within developer`s budget. Modern sustainable buildings have to be resource efficient and providing value for money to achieve economic sustainability. However, these aspects have to be achieved within minimum possible budget, optimum period of time and to high quality standards. This calls for a professional cost managers’ expertise to ensure that the business case of a construction project is attained.

BIM technology provides an opportunity to cost managers to be more efficient and effective by improving the quality, accuracy, value and speed for their services through active live link between the design model and cost database especially during sustainable design development when various proposed design alternatives are being appraised through provision of quick feedback and corrective suggestion, thereby ensuring construction resources are used more economically.

Through BIM, cost managers will have more time to share their expertise and knowledge with other project team members. Cost managers will have an opportunity to find out ways to achieve cost efficiency and waste reduction for a construction project through value engineering, carbon costing and life cycle costing.

However, there has been slow adoption and exploitation of BIM by cost managers mostly in Africa due to lack of knowledge/ awareness, lack of training of BIM software, initial the cost of the software and lack of information on the return on investment.

The solution to these problems would be education to the cost managers advising them on the benefits of adoption of BIM and development of compulsory legislation to implement BIM on all future construction projects by all professionals to attain sustainable infrastructure development.