DIGITIZATION OF PROCESSING OF INTERIM PAYMENT CERTIFICATE (IPC) USING BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING

Abstract

Construction contracts are vital for any project, and therefore right choice of payment system is extremely important. Research have shown that about 62.8% of contractors have faced these payment delays on Construction projects. One of the key reasons for delay in payments is that Interim Payments are still manually prepared by the Contractor and physically verified by the Client which requires a lot of time to process. The adaption of new technologies has not kept pace with the growth of industry due to lack of studies on the impact of these technologies in construction industry. However, advance technologies like BIM are now being adapted. Thus, this research purposes to digitize the processing of IPC using BIM technology. Three objectives guide this research: To identify the existing inefficiencies, present in processing of Preparation & Certification of IPC; To develop a BIM-based framework for efficient Preparation & Certification of IPC; To validate the developed framework through a digital platform using case study. Based on detailed Literature Review, 30 inefficient factors were identified. A preliminary survey was done to authenticate the inefficiencies found from literature and sample of thirty was considered and in total thirty responses were recorded. After that those BIM features were identified from the literature which can adequately resolve the identified inefficiencies and a Feature-Factor matrix is developed. Feature – Factor matrix is used to visualize that which factor of BIM could mitigate the effect of any inefficiency found in literature and then research methodology is developed. Following that, a prototype plug-in is developed in BIM platform and an under- construction House project is used as a case study. The developed plug-in includes two panels of “generate” and “Approval” for Contractor and Consultants respectively. Using those, a contractor must generate WCRs and after approval from consultant, the quantity of WCRs has to be added in Measurement sheet to update “Abstract of Cost” following that, the Contractor needs to re-submit all the documents for approval from consultant. Third IPC of the said house project has been prepared and validated using the developed system and the working of developed plug-in has been shared with XI industry experts for validation of the developed system in the form of Questionnaire survey. The results obtained from that Questionnaire are satisfactory and signifying that the plug-in could be implemented to automate the processing of IPC in construction projects.