It took me a day or two, but I finally found the source of a statistic on the estimated annual cost of inefficiencies and delays in the U.S. construction industry.

I’d seen dollar figures and percentages popping up all over the Net, but it took me a while to finally trace one of the figures back to a January 13, 2000 article in the Economist called “New Wiring.”

In the opening paragraph, the writer says that $200 billion of the $650 billion spent on construction each year in the United States goes to cover the cost of wasted time, money and materials.

Over at the Construction Management Association of America’s web site, the numbers are similar. They claim that 30% of the money spent on construction in the U.S. each year goes to cover delays and inefficient work processes.

So what does all of this have to do with Building Information Modeling or BIM?

Proponents of the methodology say that, by using BIM objects to design, manage and store and update all of the files related to a construction project, companies can save time, improve efficiencies, keep better records, etc. The entire scope of a project — from design, scheduling and costing to contracts, purchase orders, change requests, as-builts and completion — is all reliably and digitally coordinated.

Therefore, it’s not hard to see why building owners have much to gain from these new methods of digitally managing the construction process:

• Better informed decisions regarding specifications and costs at the design stage;
• Fewer design changes as construction gets underway;
• Less waste and fewer delays;
• Better scheduling of trades and materials;
• Accurate as-builts for future facility management;
• Improved communication throughout the process; and
• Better documentation for LEED accreditation.

For more about building owners and BIM, check out this article from U.S. Construction Management Association of America: Use of building information modeling accelerates: CMAA study.

The article points out that “more than a third of the construction project and program owners responding to the Eighth Annual Survey of Owners…say they have used Building Information Modelling (BIM) on one or more projects.”

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