User innovation in digital design and construction : dialectical relations between standard BIM tools and specific user requirements

Abstract

The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools is increasing across the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. This technology is being adopted in many different countries, in a wide range of types of projects, and by professionals from different disciplines. In other words, BIM tools are being applied in many different contexts of use. Consequently, the requirements of its users are becoming heterogeneous and this heterogeneity hinders the development of BIM tools that can satisfy all possible user requirements. Instead, tools are developed to satisfy more broad, general, and generic needs of the AEC industry. The present thesis examines how BIM users are adapting the standard tools to satisfy their specific requirements. Utilizing the user innovation theory as the framework of analysis, the thesis examines whether and how BIM users are adapting the tools to respond to their requirements through user innovation. Studying eight specific BIM user innovation cases, from different contexts of use, the thesis presents and analyzes the processes underlying BIM user innovation, from the starting motivation, to the final distribution of the actual innovation. This analysis has two main objectives: first, to recognize whether there is user innovation in the case of BIM tools; and second, to understand how that innovation is developed. Finally, the thesis extracts patterns of innovation, and examines whether these user innovation cases fit the model described by the user innovation theory.