Bim and Lean Interactions from the Bim Capability Maturity Model Perspective: a Case Study

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Lean Thinking have been used separately as key approaches to overall construction projects’ improvement. Their combination, given several scenarios, presents opportunities for improvement as well as challenges in implementation. However, the exploration of eventual interactions and relationships between BIM as a process and Lean Construction principles is recent in research. The objective of this paper is to identify BIM and Lean relationship aspects with a focus on the construction phase and from the perspective of the general contractor (GC). This paper is based on a case study where BIM is already heavily used by the GC and where the integration of Lean practices is recent. We explore areas of improvement and Lean contributions to BIM from two perspectives. First, from Sacks et al.’s (2010) Interaction Matrix perspective, we identify some existing interactions. Second, based on the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) of the National Building Information Modeling Standard (NBIMS), we measure the level of the project’s BIM maturity and highlight areas of improvement for Lean. The main contribution of the paper is concerned with the exploration of the BIM maturity levels that are enhanced by Lean implementation.