![Figure 1. Core elements of DE (adapted from The Defense Department [60],Huang et al. [61])](/figures/figure-1-core-elements-of-de-adapted-from-the-defense-2zdkq6jn.webp)
Position paper: Digital Engineering and Building
Information Modelling in Australia
“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to
achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.”
Aristotle
The change in the construction industry is reflected on attempts towards integrating people, processes,
and information across the life of built assets [1 ,2]. Developing and operating buildings and infrastructure
in this scenario require that data and information about an asset’s delivery and operational processes are
accessible to key actors, including clients/ developers, architects, engineers, contractors, suppliers, and
facility/ asset managers [3 ,4]. The construction sector increasingly relies on: (1) model’s appreciation of
data, information, and decision making occurring throughout the ‘whole of life’ of assets – the front-end of
projects, procurement to schematic and detailed design, to fabrication and construction, to operations,
maintenance, and decommissioning; (2) understanding both immediate and future needs of projects in
terms of organisational processes, products and service offerings [5 ,6 ,7].
These capabilities have been initially conceived around the concept of Building Information Modelling
(BIM), a 3D object-oriented approach for creating, managing and using information about various aspects
of facilities, from capital phases to operations and maintenance [8 ,9]. Whilst many advances have been
made in the application of BIM, limitations to managerial, technological and collaborative capabilities are
persistent at project and operational levelsIt is in view of these limitation that the concept of Digital
Engineering (DE) has emerged within the Australian construction industry. That is, DE is a more
comprehensive approach to working on assets as opposed to BIM [11]; it is a holistic concept that seeks to
address BIM shortcomings with an emphasis on strategic and business-oriented aspects.
Though many see the core elements of these two concepts as addressing distinct fundamental issues,
some define them as similar [12 ,13]. Perceiving them as co-existent or even competing concepts is also
common [14]. So too, there exist several criticisms relating to the limited functionality of BIM compared
against DE [15]. A state of confusion on conceptual definitions can impede progress towards achieving the
status of an agreed norm, which is much needed by the Australian construction, where increasing levels of
digital disruption and rapid technological changes are [13 ,15]. Besides, formal definitions of emerging
digital technologies and digitally enabled methodologies are the building blocks of meaningful
conversations in any field [16].
This position paper is an attempt to address the problem of DE and BIM concepts in Australia still requiring
clear and agreed definitions. This paper aims at providing clear definitions of DE and BIM, their domains,
how and why these two are linked, and how they relate to the broader and emerging concepts
surrounding them.
Australian construction industry: The need for change
The construction industry is one of the largest sectors of the global economy [17]. On a global scale,
construction-related spending accounts for 13% and the total annual revenue of the sector is estimated to
be around $10 trillion, predicted to be up to $14 trillion by 2025 [17 p. 1-2]. The construction industry has
also one of the greatest economic spill over effects, namely, it represents an additional economic benefit
of $2.86 for every $1 of construction Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [3].
The Australian construction industry is equally important: the largest non-services sector of the economy;
it employs 1.2 million Australians directly, 9.1 per cent of the total workforce, where every job in the
construction industry relates to 3 jobs in the wider economy. Employment in the industry has increased by
15.6% over the last five years – 2015 to 2020 [18 ,19]. The construction industry generates over $350 billion
in revenue, producing around 8.1% of Australia’s GDP, with a projected annual growth rate of 2.5%
between 2019 to 2024 [20]. As a result, even a slight improvement in the sector will carry huge positive
implications for the fabric of the Australian economy [3 ,21].
Despite its significance, the Australian construction industry has major challenges – high construction
costs, unsatisfactory project performance, poor safety, and low construction productivity [21 ,22]. A prime
example of these challenges surfaced in New South Wales (NSW) where around 85% of high-rise buildings
built after 2000 showed some signs of structural failure [23]. Reforming the industry through adopting
technological innovations can resolve many of these issues [2 ,22 ,24 ,25]. Of various technological
innovations, BIM is recognised as the “trend of the future,” a new disruptive innovation for the industry
and a promising avenue towards addressing the above challenges [26 p. 483], as described next.
BIM Initiatives in Australia
BIM was first introduced as a reform initiative nearly two decades ago. In 2004, a strategy for digitalisation
was introduced by releasing Construction 2020 – A Vision for Australia’s Property and Construction
Industry. Of the nine key visions emerging from Construction 2020, “Information and communication
technologies for construction” and “virtual prototyping for design, manufacture and operation” were
mentioned as the industry strategic visions for the development of the digital built environment in
Australia [25]. These were subtly referring to BIM capabilities in creating virtual models for various project
stages. The 2004 paper was followed up by a number of papers and policy positions: a 2009 paper CRC for
Construction Innovation [27] and the 2010 report of Allen Consulting Group [1]. These recommended BIM
unreservedly, as a remedial solution to be widely adopted – with the potential of improving productivity in
the construction sector, to raise economic wellbeing and competitiveness across the Australian economy.
Almost all major moves towards promoting a digital built environment in Australia, prior to 2018, have
focused on BIM. A wide range of professional organisations and governments institutions have joined BIM
advocates [28]. Professional organisation in the Australian construction industry have promoted the
concept of BIM, as their primary target: NATSPEC [29], buildingSMART Australasia [30]; Australian Institute of
Architects and Consult Australia [31]; Australian Institute of Building [32]; Australian Construction Industry
Forum and Australasian Procurement and Construction Council [33]; AMCA [34] and recently ABAB [35] (see
Hampson and Shemery [36] for details). The widespread acceptance of BIM and recognising it as the vision
for the future of the Australian construction industry come from both the building industry [1 ,32 ,35], as
well as the infrastructure sector [37 ,38].
Foundations of BIM
BIM is an object-oriented approach to creating, managing and using various geometric – such as
dimensions and weight – and non-geometric – such as material and cost data. BIM supports data
visualisation; information management and documentation; inbuilt intelligence, analysis and simulation;
and workflow management [39]. Document and information management capabilities have merged and
evolved with BIM applications, as information embedded, appended or linked to object-based models that
bring together all forms of geometric and non-geometric data [4 ,40]. Increasingly, BIM applications are
becoming valued repositories with that integrate domain knowledge from various actors associated with
projects and their supply chain [41].
Focusing on the exchange of structured data across the entire supply chain, Volk et al. [42 p. 110] define BIM
as “a tool to manage accurate building information over the whole lifecycle.” Another widely-accepted
source, NIBS [43 p. 3] refers to BIM as “a business process for generating and leveraging building data to
design, construct and operate the asset during its lifecycle. BIM allows all stakeholders to have access to
the same information at the same time through interoperability between technology platforms.” The UK
Building Information Modelling Task Group refers to BIM as “value creating collaboration through the
entire life-cycle of an asset, underpinned by the creation, collation and exchange of shared 3D models and
intelligent, structured data attached to them.” [44 p. 9] Even more, the new release by Queensland Health
[45] defines BIM as “sharing and leveraging of structured information over the asset lifecycle.”
Conceptually BIM can be used across all the phases of an asset lifecycle; however, in practice its usage
beyond the design and construction phases is low [4 ,46].
The ideal use of BIM across all phases of asset lifecycle is only partially realised (see Edirisinghe [47],Pishdad-
Bozorgi et al. [48],Gao and Pishdad-Bozorgi [49]); BIM is currently used only on project delivery phase to fulfil
bespoke project level objectives [6 ,50]. In fact, BIM has evolved as a set of processes and tools, not a
management method [20]. Cost and time savings on projects are the selling points of BIM, where BIM is
not designed to increases profitability, thrive business and improve client-customer relationship [51];
organisational and sociotechnical complexities render BIM capabilities unrecognisable beyond project
settings [52]. As a workable solution, various complementary digital technologies must be leveraged
alongside BIM [52 ,53]. BIM therefore must be integrated with other technologies, methodologies and
actors [54]. The need for the reinvention of BIM [50] has given rise to the emergence of DE, as discussed
below.
Foundations of digital engineering (DE)
One of the first uses of the term DE goes back to 1975, where DE was discussed in the context of electronic
and logic circuit design. Back then, the term digital referred to the move from analogue to digital. Future
applications were predicted to be “developing digital concepts and systems.” [55 p. vii] and product
lifecycle management (PLM) – in the manufacturing context. The aim of DE is creating a seamless line of
data through interoperability across heterogeneous systems, integrated information management,
facilitating information utilisation and data exchange, during the product lifecycle [56 ,57]. Digital
engineering (DE) is also closely associated with the term engineering. Engineering refers to using scientific
principles to design and build various assets and artefacts, either in manufacturing, e.g. machines, vehicles,
or in the built environment – bridges, tunnels, roads and buildings. Currently, all engineering disciplines
have evolved to improve practices; modern engineering must be supported by large amounts of data, with
the aid of computers [58 ,59]. This requires transforming engineering practices to digital engineering, in
which technological innovations are assembled to allow for an integrated, digital component-based
approach that supports lifecycle activities and develops the culture of stakeholders to work more
efficiently [60]. At its core, digital engineering entails radical digital transformations, which require digital
components (DC), as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Core elements of DE (adapted from The Defense Department [60],Huang et al. [61])
The system and its elements, relevant processes, equipment, products, parts, functions, services, etc. in
the operating environment must be presented in the form of DCs, to provide a precise and versatile
representation of all these phenomena (see Figure 1). There must be a formalised DC creation strategy in
place, for governing the curation, sharing, integration, and use of DC across the boundaries of disciplinary
teams, organisations, and the lifecycle phases, with support of an authoritative source of truth (AST). The
authoritative source of truth (AST) is needed to provide a repository and access portal of standardised DCs,
data, and other digital artefacts [61].
The concept of DE is similarly relevant to the construction industry given the knowledge-intensive nature
of the industry; prevalence of virtual organisations and teams; the fragmented work settings and the
scattered supply chain of the sector [2 ,62]. These inherent characteristics give rise to a wide range of
issues that detrimentally affect the industry: communications being ineffective; information
inconsistencies; loss of data and team members working with superseded models – irrelevant and
disorganised data unfit for intended purposes [4 ,5 ,10]. The influence of DE concepts, methods and
technologies on the construction industry is stimulating changes in assumptions about data, information
and knowledge management across the whole asset lifecycle. This is also transforming the way that
construction companies approach business processes. Understandings of the DE concept, its technologies
and requirement to support construction activities, are also making inroads into construction research
domains [41] along with Australian industry and governments works [63].
Digital engineering initiatives in Australia
Recognising the serious issues, as discussed, and given the sheer size of investment in infrastructure
projects in Australia, in November 2016, the Transport and Infrastructure Council endorsed the National
Digital Engineering Policy Principles [64]. Transport for NSW (TfNSW) has acted as the driving force behind
promoting the adoption of DE in Australia, to maximise quality and efficiency in delivering transport
projects [65]. TfNSW has also led the National DE Working Group with senior membership from
governments across Australia, as a federally sponsored group established to lead the way towards a
consistent national approach to DE for transport infrastructure.
In 2014, TfNSW started a consultation schema with industry experts and major stakeholders. This was the
outcome of establishing a BIM/DE working group in TfNSW, in 2012. In 2017, TfNSW released the Data and
Information Asset Management Policy that formally recognises the value and critical importance of
structured data. The DE Framework Program – a fully funded program – has been running since 2017, with
the aim of bringing together experts from around Australia to develop practical, cost effective DE solutions
based on global best practices [66]. The outcomes have resulted in the evolution and release of
consecutive versions of DE Framework: Release 1 (in Sept 18), DE Framework Release 2 (Apr 19) and
Release 3, in November 2019.
Currently, state governments in Australia, as well as the private sector, have recognised the great potential
provided by DE for improving various facets of delivering and managing buildings and infrastructure assets
and networks [36 ,63]. Victoria is following NSW in promoting DE, by releasing Victorian Digital Asset
Strategy (VDAS) [11] in 2019. And Queensland published Digital Enablement for Queensland Infrastructure,
in November 2018 [67].
The confusion
According to the seminal work by Alvesson and Sandberg [68], confusion over defining concepts must be
addressed where discrepancies are observed among individuals in providing definitions or when available
definitions offer contradictory or competing explanations. With this in mind, there exists ongoing
confusion among practitioners and researchers in defining the concepts of DE and BIM in Australia [13].
Several examples of this confusion are briefly described below.
As a common approach, typically employed by industry practitioners, is to use the terms BIM and DE
interchangeably – to recognise no distinction between DE and BIM (see Northwood [12], Hardcastle and
Hubert [69], Hampson and Shemery [36] and TfNSW [70]).
Some industry sources, nevertheless, stop barely short of criticising BIM as an obsolete concept; they
promote DE as the current version instead [15 ,71]. Others promote the idea that DE as a process that
follows BIM in the project lifecycle [14]. These positions recognise the two concepts as separate entities
that cannot coexist.
Others refer to DE as a concept broader than BIM. Typically, this revolves around the notion that DE is the
outcome of integrating various technologies – including BIM – to improve efficiency. This sentiment is
aligned with what some researchers propose: Duc [72] offers the definition of DE as “the result of the
crossover of BIM, Internet of Things (IoT) and big data.” Similarly, Foster [73] purports that “Digital
Engineering is a broad term which gathers several other related technologies or processes together, such
as Computer-Aided Design (CAD), BIM, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Data Science,” while
BIM is the element of DE for design and construction phases. Such definitions define BIM as a subset of a
wider DE ecosystem. Here, discrepancy lies in the way boundaries between DE and BIM are defined.
A more contemporary suite of logic is that DE relies on BIM as its core element [36]. It is under this notion
that the list of technologies that integrate with BIM create DE. Others remain undecided, or believe that
BIM can be the ‘wider ecosystem’, and can handle other relevant data, information, processes (see