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Blockchain Improving Trust in BIM Data Exchange: A Case Study on BIMCHAIN

Abhinaw Sai Erri Pradeep1; Robert Amor2; and Tak Wing Yiu3
1
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. E-
mail: aerr756@aucklanduni.ac.nz
2
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School of Computer Science, Univ. of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail:

trebor@cs.auckland.ac.nz
3
School of Built Environment, Massey Univ., Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail:
tyiu@massey.ac.nz

ABSTRACT
Information exchange in a building information modelling (BIM) environment is critical yet
complex due to the multi-party collaboration nature of a construction project. Uncoordinated
workflows with a limited structure for approvals leave the exchange transactions prone to
contractual, legal, and security challenges. In contrast to most studies that investigated paper-
based solutions that are often insufficient, this study explores a blockchain technology (BCT)
based solution to improve trust in data exchange in BIM following a case-study analysis of a
commercial tool called BIMCHAIN. With the use of literature review and qualitative content
analysis, the paper builds a list of essential functional requirements of an effective blockchain
tool integrated into a BIM workflow. Subsequently, based on the technical documentation and
the application’s beta version, the tool is analyzed to understand its value proposition and its
functional appropriateness to address the mentioned challenges. The research has shown that
there are eight key functional requirements from a blockchain tool that may address the above
challenges. The analysis of BIMCHAIN concluded that it accomplishes most of its objectives,
such as improving data reliability, limiting the scope of liability, and clarifying stakeholder
responsibilities, among others. However, the legal validity of the tool’s proofs are still untested
to establish its acceptance, and it does not completely justify its claims of ‘better quality of data’
as this is a function of many other factors. The tool includes four of the eight requirements from
the list identified and satisfies two requirements partially. BIMCHAIN is only in its beta testing
stage and has shown evidence of how BCT can be leveraged in a BIM environment. Further
investigation can include evaluation of this tool in a real project and conduct a more detailed
research on the functional requirements of blockchain in BIM.

INTRODUCTION
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is regarded as the step-change the Architecture,
Engineering, Construction, Owner and Operator (AECOO) industry needed (BIM Industry
Training Group, 2016). The use of BIM has increased from 3D visualisation to better
information management and work process comprehension. Majorly, the segment of the industry
that is currently hoping to reap the benefits of BIM is working at BIM maturity level two (British
Standards Institution, 2019). Depending on the type of procurement method, the chronology and
frequency of information exchange on BIM vary resulting in issues such as unclear liability,
vulnerability of information to unethical modification, misuse of information, amongst others
(Wong and Lam, 2010). Hence, these risks account for a range of contractual, legal, and security
challenges (will be referred to as Research Challenges from now on) that hinder the growth and
ease of adoption of BIM at the industry level.

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Blockchain Technology (BCT) finds its origins in the 2008 whitepaper by a pseudo-author(s)
named Satoshi Nakamoto titled ‘Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system’ (Nakamoto,
2008). The technology solves the trust aspect of an ancient human ritual “the handshake”, an
agreement for a value transaction (Robles and Bowers, 2017). Mathews et al. (2017) assert that
with the advent of working systems based on network structures rather than hierarchy, BCT
enables participants to read and write data to its ledger without a trusted intermediary. Security
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of such a ledger is managed by cryptography protocols rather than human administrators. The
integration of BIM and Blockchain is fairly recent and is still in its infancy. One such
commercial application that aims to do that is BIMCHAIN.

Aim and Outline

The key objective of this paper is to explore what are the functional requirements of a
blockchain-enabled tool that can improve trust in data exchanged over BIM and analyze the
potential of a commercial tool called BIMCHAIN as a case study. Section 2 will provide a brief
background on the issues under discussion. Next, section 3 will define the methodology used to
conduct the analysis. Subsequently, section 4 will include the functional requirements, the
analysis of the case study and the final evaluation, later concluding the discussion in section 5
with closing remarks.

BACKGROUND
Information Exchange in BIM
Information is regarded as ‘probably the most important construction material’ (Rao, 2006).
A report by Tribelsky and Sacks (2011) on journal logs used for 14 projects, found a total of
70,048 transactions, of which 90% were exchange of drawings and schedules – mostly in DWG
and PDF formats, 8% were technical specification documents and the remaining 2% included
meeting summaries, requests for information (RFI), client’s memo and budget directives. This
exemplifies the sheer volume of technical information that is exchanged on an average in
construction projects. The standard forms of contracts have always been tested with the
development and integration of technology into projects, and adoption of BIM is no exception.
Unlike CAD, which is considered as a tool, BIM is a new process that has not been tested
enough in courtrooms to establish legal history (Arensman and Ozbek, 2012). It has conclusively
been established that the use of BIM does complicate the legal, contractual and security aspects
of a construction project and less than satisfactory solutions have been used to address these
issues (Arensman and Ozbek, 2012; Fan et al., 2018; Manderson et al., 2015; McAdam, 2010;
Olatunji, 2011).

Emergence of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology (BCT) at its core is a digital information recording method (Conte de
Leon et al., 2017). It uses an approach, which is similar to what the construction industry is quite
familiar with – the logbook. The information recorded on this database or ledger is ordered and
incremental, and instead of storing the ledger on one single system, this technique requires it to
be shared across several devices using a predefined set of rules to update it, called a protocol.
Therefore, BCT is essentially a form of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) (Giancaspro,
2017). Considering the current path of progress of BIM towards level three maturity (Gu and

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London, 2010), stakeholders will be expected to work on a single shared model with
contributions related to their domain of work. Mathews et al. (2017) explain how a construction
project with multiple untrusting parties looking to form a trusted secure record of information is
probably a best-case scenario for implementing technology such as blockchain. Pradeep et al.
(2019) discuss the key properties of BCT, its potential application in the BIM workflow and the
limitations of the technology.
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METHODOLOGY
This paper first builds a list of functional requirements of an effective blockchain tool that
addresses the Research Challenges. To achieve this, a literature review and qualitative content
analysis were conducted on sources that discussed BCT from a built environment perspective
and other documents that discussed the feasibility of using BCT in non-financial industries.
Next, the research uses a case-study design to analyze BIMCHAIN’s technical architecture
documentation, product specifications and the current beta version to understand its objectives,
conceptual software architecture and its value proposition to the market. Finally, the author
aligns the tool’s features against the list of functional requirements identified to find possible
correlation and address its suitability to address the Research Challenges.

ANALYSIS
Functional requirements of an effective blockchain tool for BIM
The research identifies the following as the key functional requirements of a blockchain tool
integrated with a BIM workflow (in no particular order):

Enable multi-signature and time-stamped data exchange

Data exchange is currently based on ad-hoc systems such as third party cloud storage
sharing, which may lack the security provided by an electronic digital signature. Reliably
verifying if specific information has been authorized by the authoring party requires time-
consuming and redundant checks between the event occurrence and its reporting (Penzes, 2018).
Moreover, as BIM progresses towards level 3 maturity, stakeholders will be expected to work on
a consolidated model involving data contributions or approvals. By incorporating the
functionality of multi-signature and time-stamped approvals that are traceable and inter-
organizational, these periods can be eliminated (Turk and Klinc, 2017). Further, processes can be
streamlined, enabling reliable verification of information received resulting in the creation of
actual work depositories of information that eventually leads to cost reductions for the client and
participating stakeholders (Li et al., 2019). This is of prime importance from a disputes (legal)
standpoint where currently paper based records and memories of individuals are the sources of
resolution (Gordge, 2018).

Enable the recording of interactions devoid of a third-party access

Records stored with centralized systems are vulnerable to manipulation and their limited
assurance of data security, making them a single point of failure (Xu et al., 2017). BCT
eliminates multiple points of middlemen such as centralized hardware or management
organizations, creating an autonomous process that mitigates the risks of manipulation, errors
and unauthorized access to competitors or unconcerned parties such as service providers

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(Angelis and da Silva, 2019; Nakasumi, 2017; Zheng et al., 2019). Nguyen et al. (2019) at Arup
indicate that as the industry evolves towards a digital economy, it will lead to an increase in the
digital transactions and more interconnected systems that will need elimination of the middlemen
to reduce the transactional cost. Therefore, the use of smart contracts for payments on a
distributed blockchain reduces transactional costs and guarantees their execution, thus enabling
the process of automation (Li et al., 2019).
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Enable auditable and transparent record of interactions

A transparent and auditable record of interactions on BIM such as design approvals, data
verification, procurement and transactional data, and project management decisions enhances
BIM’s ability to represent a single source of truth. Logging all these on a blockchain ledger
linked to the BIM model can create a traceable audit trail of the fragmented contributions made
to the model, where liabilities and accountability are better established mitigating disputes
between the collaborating stakeholders of the project (Penzes, 2018). Lamb (2018) indicated that
such a process could benefit sectors which are susceptible to fraud and corruption owing to the
nature of transparency and the ability to be audited. Barbosa et al. (2017) from McKinsey have
indicated an increase of 9% productivity and 7% cost savings by enabling data that is traceable
on a blockchain system that helps improve the progress monitoring and cost and schedule
estimates.

Enable resistance to tampering or unauthorized amendments

Benefitting from the property of blockchain to detect any unauthorized changes and
inconsistencies (Zheng et al., 2019), data on BIM can be change-resistant and hack-resistant,
thereby, have increased reliability and integrity (Li et al., 2019). This means historical data
stored on performance, compliance and certifications will be more trustworthy, reducing the
occurrence of fraud and corruption problems in the industry. That creates a possibility to design a
system that enables control over modification rights on the BIM model, thereby restricting any
unauthorized changes from happening in the first place. Lamb (2018) further adds how smart
contracts running on the blockchain will also benefit from this functionality as it increases the
surety of payments for the smaller contractors resulting in more stabilized cash flow in the
industry.

Enable allocation of IP, and assigning and transfer of ownership of assets

Stakeholders working in collaboration sometimes withhold innovative ideas only with the
fear of not being able to secure the rights associated with it (Penzes, 2018). With the ability of
provenance tracking, blockchain can be used for securely recording the allocation of Intellectual
Property rights and distinguishing the ownership (Kinnaird and Geipel, 2017). This enables a
smoother workflow between the parties and also enables them to propagate these ideas to other
projects as well (Penzes, 2018). Moreover, using BCT’s accounting ability, a digital asset or data
can be embedded to the chain enabling the ability to trade this artefact between stakeholders of a
project or beyond. Cuccuru (2017) further suggests that real-world objects can also be benefitted
using their digital representation.

Enable storage of data off-chain but securely

With the current set of technological limitations and computational power, space for data

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storage on a blockchain ledger is limited in order to enable a reasonable level of performance.

The common practice is to store raw data off-chain and store the hash of that data along with its
meta-data on-chain. Storing data off-chain can follow the traditional way of storage in a database
like MySQL or a private cloud on the client’s infrastructure, but can be susceptible to a single
point failure and manipulation. A more blockchain-friendly approach to this storage problem can
be the use of distributed data storage systems such as Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) or
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Tardigrade, a decentralized peer-to-peer cloud storage by Storj Labs (2018). These systems
provide end-to-end encryption where data is shredded to smaller pieces called shards and stored
on a global network of computers. This could function well in synchrony with a blockchain
database, as both share similar principles.

Enable evaluation of data through a smart contract enabled criteria

Smart contracts are a set of coded instructions that can automatically execute upon
fulfillment of certain conditions (Nawari and Ravindran, 2019). Data transmitted in a BIM
environment can be programmed to evaluate itself against preset obligations, thereby reducing
disputes, speeding up payments, among other benefits (Li et al., 2019). Ethereum (2019), allows
Turing-complete programs that not only perform conditional payments but also incorporate
modifications to the working data in the smart contract coded on the blockchain (Xu et al.,
2017). A possible scenario is with the release of payments: with design packages and
deliverables milestones predefined in the system, the document control system verifies its
completion against the digital sign-offs tied to the relevant authorities IDs that are registered on
the blockchain and initiate payment upon execution of the smart contract. With the current
financial maturity, the payment can be set up to be still made in the conventional fiat currency,
but triggered by the smart contract running on a blockchain (Penzes, 2018).

Enable recording data autonomously from sensors and IoT devices

With the advances in technology, a live BIM model or a ‘digital twin’ at the end of project
completion can accept feed from multiple sources that include sensors planted throughout the
structure and IoT enabled devices. With this data having sensitive content, BIM must have an
ability to receive secure autonomous updates from these devices and work in conjunction with
smart contracts to enable self-maintenance and regulation based on pre-defined parameters.
Adding further, linking physical to digital enables creation a truly live BIM model where BCT
can help maintain the confidentiality and security of the data received (Kinnaird and Geipel,
2017).

BIMCHAIN
A project working towards integrating blockchain technology’s capabilities in a BIM
workflow is BIMCHAIN. The solutions offered by this French firm is in its beta testing stage. It
aims to create digital proofs of various transaction scenarios in a BIM workflow and append
these proofs on a public blockchain. The digital proofs are deemed to be “undeniable, inalterable,
inviolable, public, perennial and not controlled by a third party”, making the proofs retrievable
directly from the blockchain regardless of the user’s association with or existence of
BIMCHAIN once they have created its trace using the application. (Gueguen and Haloche,
2018).

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Motivations and Objectives

The problems that BIMCHAIN aims to address are low data confidentiality, lack of
copyright enforcement, unclear responsibilities and low quality of peer contributions that make
collaboration inefficient (Gueguen and Haloche, 2018). Overall, there is believed to a lack of
motivation for users to commit and share BIM data. The existing digital infrastructure records
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data transactions on logs in a centralized system that do not have the probative force and lack the
security provided by electronic digital signatures. Such systems are prone to manipulation, and
upon completion of the projects, the body operating the data moves it to cold storage where the
logs are inaccessible. To address these issues, BIMCHAIN claims to register proofs of data
transactions that are legally binding and traceable. It reinforces the BIM execution plan by
putting the BIM model at the center of the contractual and legal processes, thereby creating
accountability of what the stakeholders publish and provide an incentive mechanism for their
contributions.
Working
Figure 1 shows the conceptual view (Hofmeister, 2000) of BIMCHAIN’s system
architecture.

Figure 1. BIMCHAIN system architecture: conceptual view based on Lutecium (2019)

BIMCHAIN’s architecture is based on three technical principles (Lutecium, 2019):
 Decentralization: The primary data, such as the transaction proofs are stored on a public
blockchain called Ethereum. However, secondary data such as the BIM protocol
management details are stored in a decentralized file storage system called the
BIMCHAIN data vault that provides an encrypted peer-to-peer network where the nodes
store partial chunks of encrypted data providing the users higher speed, confidentiality
and security.
 Confidentiality: The ecosystem of BIMCHAIN is secured using encryption techniques.
Since only the cryptographic proofs are stores on the blockchain and not the data, the
system provides for a unique combination of open accessibility and confidentiality of the
data owner.

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 Protection of personal data: BIMCHAIN does not publish the entire data on to the
blockchain; instead, only the proofs of transactions or events of the data are recorded.
Identity, personal data are securely stored in a dedicated and isolated space and only
revealed to stakeholders sharing the same project.

Benefits
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Use of BIMCHAIN promises benefits to the project owners who are guaranteed to receive
valuable information out of the BIM process as the data is certified and traceable, allowing its
usage with a high level of trust in the facility management stage. BIMCHAIN also claims
benefits of improved efficiency by reduction of indirect costs such as low level of collaboration,
paper-based mechanism of engagement and high insurance premium due to low traceability
mechanisms. Additionally, stakeholders engaged within the BIM process also yield benefits such
as elimination of doubts on the reliability of the data received, limiting the scope of their
liability, protecting their IP, as well as possibly ensuring their receivables (Gueguen and
Haloche, 2018).
At the moment, BIMCHAIN offers five different proofs (Gueguen and Haloche, 2018). Proof
of ownership: to maintain authenticity and anteriority of publication; proof of context:
establishes that work is built on verifiable inputs; proof of approval: enables working on
synchronized versions of a file; proof of consistency: enables outputs from a BIM package to be
tracked back to the source model and proof of certifications: BIM objects can be digitally
certified by the authoring and inspecting parties. In the future, BIMCHAIN plans to use smart
contracts for enabling payments, and use of a decentralized project cloud for sharing information
through a blockchain secured peer-to-peer protocol (Gueguen and Haloche, 2018).

Limitations
The benefits of BIMCHAIN are maximized only in the case where the BIM process is
centered on the BIM model and further depends on the capacity of the stakeholders to contribute
and trust the common model. Since only a fingerprint of the actual digital file is recorded on the
blockchain and not the entire file itself, it only records the event of modification, i.e., a history of
who made the modification and when was the interaction with the file, not the specific
modification details. BIMCHAIN assumes that legally binding the model reinforces the
accountability in delivering data of high quality. This claim to improve the quality of the data is
unsubstantiated as it may improve the reliability factor, but quality remains a product of many
other elements. Further, it claims it clarifies the boundary between informal sharing of data and
commitment of contribution. Although in practice, informal sharing is quite common, enabling
an optional mechanism to perform such sharing of data might be against the interest of what
BIMCHAIN aims to solve. Next, the data vault that is used to store BIM workflow and access
information is secure through multiple mechanisms but primarily remains private. Additionally,
locally storing public and private keys protected by a passphrase entails the use of traditional
measures of security, and the keys are the sole responsibility of the user and the company’s
liability. In the future, it confirms the development of the technology to use the tool for signing,
certifying and verifying objects within the model. Until then, the absence of this feature is a
critical drawback. BIMCHAIN can prove the authenticity and date when it comes to digital
copyright, but its claim of the proofs’ ability to be admissible in court is not evidence-based.

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Evaluation
BIMCHAIN accomplishes most of the tasks it sets out to achieve. This includes improving
the low data confidentiality, data reliability, limiting the scope of liability and clarifying the
responsibilities of the contributing stakeholders. Considering the comparison of BIMCHAIN
against the functionalities described earlier, it can be concluded that there are few needs the tool
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satisfies better than the others. It benefits the project with multi-signature, time-stamped
transactional records which are auditable and away from any one single third party access.
Owing to its association to the public blockchain, Ethereum, it includes a quality that enables
resistance to tamper or unauthorized amendments. Whereas, it partially satisfies the criteria of
storage of data off-chain securely as the storage is decentralized but still under private
ownership. However, it does contain a high level of security measures to ensure the integrity of
the data stored off-chain. It does not yet include the functionality to enable allocation of IP at the
required level of detail and its transfer between stakeholders. Also, what could be a good
addition is the collection of autonomous data from sources such as sensors and enable criteria
evaluation over pre-arranged smart contracts. BIMCHAIN’s primary value lies in the proofs it
provides that help in establishing traceability of data flow and improve commitment levels of the
participating stakeholders. It does not intend to integrate other elements that have been stated are
lacking in its functionality, but the author believes these could be a valuable addition to the set of
benefits it currently provides.

CONCLUSION
BIMCHAIN is currently in its beta stage and the current set of features it provides benefits
the owners and stakeholders participating in the BIM process. The study identified eight
functional requirements of an effective blockchain tool for BIM, out of which it incorporates
four capabilities and two of them partially. It addresses the issues of low reliability on the data,
unauthorized data changes, unclear responsibilities and liability of contributing stakeholders,
among others. However, it does not completely address its claim to better data quality and cannot
solidify the legal validity of the proofs it generates. The tool is still under development and
shows potential for its application in the industry. The analysis conducted in this paper is limited
to the technical documentation received from BIMCHAIN and the author’s experience of the
beta version of the application. Future work may include evaluating BIMCHAIN with real
project data to assess its effectiveness and usability. A more detailed study on the identified
functionalities of Blockchain technology and an analysis of its benefit-cost ratio could also be
research worth pursuing.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research would like to thank Arnaud Gueguen and the team of BIMCHAIN for sharing
their beta application and the documentation. The presented analysis does not represent the views
of BIMCHAIN and is solely those of the researchers.

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