It has been announced (September 14) by the Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation that Building Information Modeling (BIM) may be made compulsory on all construction projects commissioned by the Russian government beginning in 2019.  He referred positively to the United Kingdom’s  experience with BIM.

This follows on several recent developments in the UK and the EU. The recent EU Procurement Directive (2014) permits member states to mandate BIM.

“For public works contracts and design contests, Member States may require the use of specific electronic tools, such as building information  electronic modelling tools or similar”.

A number of countries around the world have implemented BIM strategies. The top three economies in the EU have implemented (UK) or are in the process of developing (Germany and France) BIM strategies.  The UK mandated BIM for national government procurement beginning in April 2016.  Norway (2007), Finland (2007), Denmark (2007) and the Netherlands (2012) have already implemented BIM strategies for public procurement.

In Germany, the Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure created the “Digital Building Platform”, a BIM task group whose goal is to lay the groundwork for public sector BIM adoption.  This group is working in the context of Germany’s “Reform Commission for Major Projects” which is examining why several major public sector projects in Germany were seriously over budget or were late.

France has created “Le Plan Transition Numérique dans le Bâtiment”, a task group which has been tasked with working out the details of a BIM mandate from the Ministry of Dwellings (Ministère du Logement).  The mandate could be applied as early as 2017, but may only cover housing and general construction, and not civil engineering and infrastructure.

The combined economic weight of Germany, France, and the UK behind BIM would mean that most public procurement in the EU would require BIM.

A recent Research and Markets study has forecasted that the international building information modeling (BIM) market will reach $11.7 billion by 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 21.6% between 2016 and 2022.