Impact Analysis of BIM on Power Substation Project Costs: Techno-Economic Data Evidence from China

Due to the difficulty in measuring intangible effects and the reliance on experts for benefit evaluation, actual project data evidence of the impact of BIM is insufficient. To this end, this study collected total project cost data from 164 power substation projects and techno-economic statements from 34 power substation projects from SGCC to capture data evidence of the impact of BIM on project costs and explore its patterns. Algorithms such as hierarchical clustering based on improved DTW and feature selection based on QDA were designed for data mining. The findings demonstrate that the distribution of the CV% of total project costs and the CV% of some specific cost items became more concentrated after the application of BIM, which indicates that BIM enhanced the ability to predict and control project costs. Moreover, five cost items and five shape patterns of cost items were identified as key to the impact of BIM. It is therefore recommended that the related cost items should be controlled with focus during the application of BIM.