Configuring a trustworthy Internet of Things (IoT)–enabled building information modeling (BIM) platform (IBP) is significant for modular construction to ensure transparency, traceability, and immutability throughout its fragmented supply chain management. However, most current IBPs are designed adopting a centralized system architecture, which fails to achieve a decentralized and effective one to ensure a single point of truth in BIM and prevent a single point of failure in IoT networks. To address this challenge, this study introduces permissioned blockchain with IBP and proposes a novel service-oriented system architecture of blockchain-enabled IoT-BIM platform (BIBP) for the data-information-knowledge (DIK)–driven supply chain management in modular construction. First, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is designed with hardware, core technologies, and protocols to offer accurate data from daily practice to blockchain BIM. Blockchain BIM as a service (BaaS) is then developed within the permissioned blockchain to ease the interoperability of the information, semantics, and meaningful inferences. Furthermore, software as a service (SaaS) is configured with decentralized applications to achieve knowledgeable operations or processes with a crash fault-tolerant consensus mechanism. The demonstrative case study in a modular student residence project evaluates the proposed BIBP system prototype with the performance analysis of storage cost, throughput, latency, privacy, and feedback from stakeholders. The results indicate that BIBP has an effective system architecture with acceptable throughput and latency, can save storage costs to achieve a single point of truth in BIM, and avoid a single point of failure for IoT networks with privacy and security-preserving mechanisms.

Building information modeling (BIM), as a technological artifact, has been acclaimed to have significant effects on construction projects by overcoming inherent problems such as poor communications. However, little has been empirically verified. This paper investigates the effects of BIM on construction project organizations using social network analysis (SNA) with empirical data from two comparable projects, one using BIM and the other without. Longitudinal SNAs of both projects showed that BIM is closely related to (1) changing the organizational structure by making it looser and flatter and involving more roles of building service and fewer design-related professionals; (2) showing the potential of increasing communication efficiency; and (3) reorganizing the collaborative processes by shifting most communication among different professions to earlier stages and engaging more roles in early-stage communication. This research not only validates the effects of BIM on projects from an organizational standpoint with SNA method, but also articulates the pathway through which such effects are made.

The sluggish adoption of building information modeling (BIM) is attributable to various technical, managerial, personnel, procedural, and institutional issues encountered by an organization in which such adoption takes place. However, these issues are under researched from a holistic perspective. Based on a proposed human-organization-technology (HOT) fit model, this paper aims to study the impacting factors of HOT fit in BIM adoption within construction project organizations (CPOs). The HOT fit indexes of 14 BIM case projects were operationalized using social network analysis (SNA) method and how different factors impact the HOT fit and its three subdimensions [i.e., human-technology (HT) fit, organization-technology (OT) fit, and human-organization (HO) fit] was investigated using a comparative case study. It was found that the project size has significantly negative relations with HOT fit, HT fit, and OT fit; while hierarchy steepness has positive correlations with HT fit, OT fit, and HO fit. OT fit was also found to have a weakly negative relationship with BIM level of details (LODs). A joint factor analysis further disclosed that the flatter the hierarchy, the larger the project size, and the higher the BIM LOD, the more difficult to achieve a high HOT fit, HT fit, or OT fit. Thus, CPOs should use steeper hierarchical structure and take a progressive BIM adoption strategy by adopting from smaller projects and/or lower LODs. This research empirically examined how project organizational and technological factors can impact BIM adoption. The HOT fit model can help CPOs evaluate their general HOT fit status, redesign optimal HOT configuration, diagnose the problems when the HOT fit is not ideal, and make strategic directions to better harvest the benefits of BIM. Limitations and future research directions are also identified.