Solutions for effective diffusion of BIM for BIM late adopters: case study of UAE AEC industry

Despite the vast success of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in developing residential, commercial facilities and infrastructure; the track record of the country’s Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry is somewhat different with overwhelming evidence of poor performance. Albeit the promising nature of the UAE’s AEC industry, that sought to embrace the latest technologies, the research revealed that, BIM is not yet widely utilised. The UAE was selected as a case study due to the diversity of its local AEC industry, whereby the AEC market has attracted contractors, consultants, suppliers from across the globe. This research adopted a mixed methodological approach using both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods to gather data from BIM users and non-users. The research investigated the perceived benefits and challenges of adopting BIM and the impact of short and long-term initiatives that can be deployed to drive the effective diffusion of BIM. The study found that there is irrefutable evidence of a lack of impetus to generate interest in BIM from an industry that has in fact undermined the pace of BIM adoption. This paper offers a set of practical recommendations not only for the government to accelerate the transition to BIM, but also to BIM late adopters.