Second Annual BIM Report

Building Tall Research Centre at University of Toronto first partnered with the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON). and Toronto BIM Community (tBIMc) in 2017 to conduct a detailed survey of BIM implementation within the Canadian architecture, engineering, construction, and facility management industries (AEC/FM). It was motivated by the lack of a consistent benchmark for BIM implementation in Canada. Starting small, the effort resulted in the 1st Annual BIM Report – 2018 for the Greater Toronto Area1.

Although, the first report focused on only one economic region of Canada, it had overwhelming support from the local industry with over 250 respondents to the survey and more than 20 in-person interviews. The success of the first survey attracted interest from national organizations, CANBIM and BuildingSMART Canada, and motivated the research team to expand the survey scope to include the entire country.

Around the world, countries are integrating innovative BIM-based processes and analyses throughout their AEC/FM industry. Most, if not all, achieved this in a top-down approach through national mandates requiring BIM for all public and/or private projects. As of 2019, Canada is the only G7 country without a national BIM mandate. Instead, the BIM momentum is being driven outward from the middle by the design community. As the visibility of BIM grows, the push upstream to owners and downstream to contractors is making evident the value of BIM processes and efficiencies. Governments and regulators are recognizing the potential for reducing time and red tape, and for improving process transparency. We anticipate that these annual reports will capture this revolution as BIM philosophies are embraced throughout the Canadian industry.

As always, the research team at BuildingTall welcomes feedback from anybody who reads this report and has suggestions on how to improve its future iterations.