Sustainability and Interoperability: An Economic Study on BIM Implementation by a Small Civil Engineering Firm

José Ángel Aranda, Norena Martin-Dorta, Ferran Naya, Julián Conesa-Pastor and Manuel Contero
Additional contact information
José Ángel Aranda: Department of Graphic Engineering & I3B, Universitat Politècnica de València, Cno. de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Norena Martin-Dorta: Department of Techniques and Projects in Engineering and Architecture, Universidad de La Laguna, C. Padre Herrera s/n, 38200 Tenerife, Spain
Ferran Naya: Department of Graphic Engineering & I3B, Universitat Politècnica de València, Cno. de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Julián Conesa-Pastor: Department of Structures, Construction and Graphic Expression, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, C. Dr. Fleming s/n, 30202 Cartagena, Spain
Manuel Contero: Department of Graphic Engineering & I3B, Universitat Politècnica de València, Cno. de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: Sustainability and interoperability are two closely related concepts. By analyzing the three fundamental facets of sustainability—economic, ecological and ethical/social—it is easier to address their connection with the concept of interoperability. This paper focuses on the economic aspect, in the field of civil engineering. In this area, due to the local nature of many of the software tools used, interoperability problems are frequent, with few studies addressing the economic impact of this, especially in small engineering firms. The main contribution of this paper is a design methodology for linear works based on the federation of building information modelling (BIM) models created with different software tools, conceived to break the interoperability issues between these applications. As an example, this methodology is applied to a mountain road widening project. A detailed economic analysis of the application of this methodology by an engineering Spanish firm reveals the important cost reductions that the integration of the software tools provides versus the prior practices.

Keywords: BIM; IFC; linear construction design; retaining walls; parameterization; reinforced concrete design; structural calculation; georeferencing; IFC federation; costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9581/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9581/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9581-:d:446605

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().