A FRAMEWORK FOR FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING BASED ON 5D BIM
Qiqi Lu1, Jongsung Won2, and Jack C. P. Cheng3
1) M.Phil. Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
2) Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
3) Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
Abstract: Cost estimation and project financing are two fundamental tasks in construction management. Currently, these two tasks are often performed manually and take much time and effort. With the development of 5-dimensional building information modeling (5D BIM) technology, people can now add schedule and cost information to individual building components in BIM and digitally simulate the construction project cost at different time. However, existing 5D BIM tools are limited to estimation of costs (cash outflow) only without considering cash inflow and project financing. Furthermore, they assume that payments are made continuously according to the completion status of individual tasks. On the contrary, in practice some payments need to be settled at the time of ordering while some payments are made in batch after the associated tasks are completed. This paper proposes a theoretical framework based on 5D BIM for cash flow analysis and financial decision making in construction projects. Cash inflow is estimated in the developed 5D BIM framework with the consideration of factors such as contract types and retainage. Cash outflow patterns for equipment, manpower, and material are also defined to improve cash outflow analysis. Based on the estimated cash inflow and outflow, project financing scenarios can then be evaluated and compared using the framework for decision making. A test case based on Autodesk Navisworks is presented in this paper to demonstrate the proposed framework.
Keywords: 5D BIM, Cash Flow Analysis, Cost Estimation, Financial Decision Making, Project Finance
Bibliographical Reference:
Qiqi Lu, Jongsung Won, and Jack C. P. Cheng. “A FRAMEWORK FOR FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING BASED ON 5D BIM.” In Proceedings of International Conference on Civil and Building Engineering Informatics (ICCBEI 2015), 39. Tokyo, Japan, 2015.