The concept of Building Information Modeling (BIM), first outlined in the 2002 BIM Whitepaper (“Building Information Modeling Whitepaper site,” 2003), originated from the marketing initiatives of CAD software manufacturers. It emerged from the marketing initiatives of CAD software developers and was an attempt to adapt the principles already well established in mechanical engineering to the needs of the construction industry.
The inspiration for BIM came from the concept of BOM (Bill of Materials), a product composition specification that has been used extensively in industry since the late 1980s. In mechanical engineering, BOM allowed linking data from CAD systems with PDM (Product Data Management), PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and ERP systems, providing holistic management of engineering information throughout the entire product lifecycle (Fig. 3.1-8).
The modern development of the BOM concept has led to the emergence of an extended framework – XBOM (Extended BOM), which includes not only product composition, but also behavioral scenarios, operational requirements, sustainability parameters and data for predictive analytics. XBOM essentially fulfills the same role as BIM in construction: both approaches strive to turn the digital model into a Single Source of Truth for all project participants throughout the entire lifecycle of an object.
A key milestone in the emergence of BOM in construction was the introduction of the first parametric CAD (MCAD) specifically adapted for the construction industry in 2002. It was developed by the team that had previously created Pro-E®, a revolutionary MCAD system for mechanical engineering that appeared in the late 1980s and became an industry standard (А. Boiko, “Lobbying wars and BIM development. Part 5: BlackRock is the master of all technologies. How corporations control open source code,” 2024).
Already in the late 1980s, the goal was to eliminate the limitations (D. Ushakov, “Direct Modeling – Who and Why Needs It? A Review of Competitive Technologies,” 14 11 2011) of the then existing CAD -programs. The main objective was to reduce the labor required to make changes to the parameters of design elements and to make it possible to update the model based on data outside CAD programs via a database (C. Eastman and A. Cthers, “Eastman, Charles; And Cthers,” September 1974).The most important role in this was to be played by parametrization: automatic retrieval of characteristics from the database and using them to update the model inside CAD-systems.
Pro-E and the concept of elemental parametric modeling c BOM underlying it have had a significant impact on the development of the CAD – and MCAD– market (D. Ushakov, “Direct Modeling – Who and Why Needs It? A Review of Competitive Technologies,” November 11, 2011). For 25 years this model has been in the industry and many modern systems have become its conceptual successors.
The goal is to create a system that is flexible enough to encourage the engineer to easily consider different designs. And the cost of making changes to the design should be as close to zero as possible. Traditional CAD / CAMsoftware unrealistically restricts making inexpensive changes only at the very beginning of the design process (D. Weisberg, “History of CAD,” 12 Dec. 2022).
– Samuel Geisberg, founder of Parametric Technology Corporation®, developer of MCAD -product Pro-E and teacher of the creator of a CAD product using the RVT format
In mechanical engineering, PDM, PLM, MRP and ERP systems have become key platforms. They play a central role in data and process management, gathering information from CAx systems (CAD, CAM, CAE) and organizing design activities based on the product structure (BOM: eBOM, pBOM, mBOM) (Fig. 3.1-18). This integration reduces errors, avoids data duplication and ensures end-to-end traceability from design to production.
The purchase by one of the leading vendors of a CAD solution developed by the former Pro-E team and based on the BOM approach was marked by the almost immediate publication of the BIM Whitepaper series (2002-2003) (https://web.archive.org/web/20060512180953/http:/images.adsk.com/apac_sapac_main/files/4525081_BIM_WP_Rev5.pdf#expand. [Date of address: 15 March 2025])(ADSK, “White Paper Building Information Modeling in Practice,”). As early as the mid-2000s, the BIM concept began to be actively promoted in the construction industry, which markedly increased interest in parametric software. The popularity grew so rapidly that the construction fork of mechanical engineering Pro-E – parametric CAD promoted by this vendor – has actually displaced competitors in the architectural and structural design segment(Fig. 3.1-20). By the early 2020s, it has de facto consolidated global dominance in the BIM (CAD) market (А. Boiko, “Lobbying wars and BIM development. Part 2: open BIM VS closed BIM. Europe VS the rest of the world,” 2024).
Over the past 20 years, the abbreviation BIM has acquired a multitude of interpretations, the polysemy of which has its roots in the initial marketing concepts that emerged in the early 2000s. The ISO 19650 standard, which played an important role in popularizing the term, actually secured the status of BIM as a “scientifically based” approach to information management. However, in the text of the standard itself, which is dedicated to data management throughout the life cycle of objects using BIM, the abbreviation BIM is mentioned, but never clearly defined
The vendor’s original website, which published a series of Whitepaper on BIMin 2002 (ADSK, “White Paper Building Information Modeling,” 2002. https://web.archive.org/web/20060512180953/http:/images.adsk.com/apac_sapac_main/files/4525081_BIM_WP_Rev5.pdf#expand. [Date of address: 15 March 2025]) and 2003 (ADSK, “White Paper Building Information Modeling in Practice,”), actually reproduced marketing materials on the BOM (Bills of Materials) and PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) concepts previously used in Pro-E mechanical engineering software back in the 1990s (А. Boiko, “Lobbykriege um Daten im Bauwesen | Techno-Feudalismus und die Geschichte von BIMs,” 2024).
Building Information Modeling, an innovative new approach to building design, construction, and management introduced by…… [CAD vendor company name] in 2002, has changed the way industry professionals around the world think about how technology can be applied to the design, construction, and management of buildings.
– BIM Whitepaper,2003 (ADSK, “White Paper Building Information Modeling in Practice,”)
These early publications linked BIM directly to the concept of a centralized integrated database. As stated in the 2003 Whitepaper, BIM is building information management where all updates occur in a single repository, keeping all drawings, cuts and specifications (BOM – Bills of Materials) synchronized.
BIM is described as building information management, where all updates and all changes take place in a database. So whether you are dealing with schematics, sections or sheet drawings, everything is always coordinated, consistent and up to date.
– CAD company websitevendor with BIM Whitepaper, 2003 (“Building Information Modeling Whitepaper site,” 2003)
The idea of managing design through a single integrated database has been widely discussed as early as in the studies of the 1980s. For example, Charles Eastman’s BDS concept (C. Eastman and A. Cthers, “Eastman, Charles; And Cthers,” September 1974)included 43 references to the term “database” (Fig. 6.1-2). By 2004, this number had almost halved to 23 in the 2002 Whitepaper on BIM (ADSK, “Whitepaper BIM,” 2002. [On the Internet]. Available: https://web.archive.org/web/20060512180953/http:/images.autodesk.com/apac_sapac_main/files/4525081_BIM_WP_Rev5.pdf#expand. [Date of address: 15 March 2025]). And by the mid-2000s, the topic of databases had virtually disappeared from vendors’ marketing materials and the digitalization agenda in general.
Although it was the database and access to it that was originally conceived as the core of the BIM -system, over time the emphasis shifted to geometry, visualization and 3D. The very registrar of the IFC standard in 1994, who published the BIM Whitepaper in 2002 – the same vendor – in the Whitepaper of the early 2000s explicitly pointed out the limitations of neutral formats such as IGES, STEP and IFC and the need for direct access to CAD databases:
Different applications may be incompatible and re-entered data may be inaccurate […]. The result of traditional computer-aided design [CAD]: higher costs, longer time-to-market, and lower product quality. Today, all major applications use industry standard interfaces for low-level data exchange. By using the old IGES standards or the new STEP [IFC is a de facto and de jure copy of the STEP/IGES format] to exchange data between applications from different vendors, users can achieve some data compatibility between best-of-breed products. But IGES and STEP only work at low levels, and they cannot exchange data as rich as the information generated by today’s leading applications […]. And while these and other standards are improving almost daily, they will always lag behind today’s vendor products in terms of data richness. […] programs within an application must be able to share and preserve data richness without resorting to neutral translators such as IGES, STEP [IFC] or PATRAN. Instead, framework applications should be able to directly access the underlying CAD database so that the detail and accuracy of the information is not lost.
– CAD vendor Whitepaper (IFC, BIM) “Integrated Design and Manufacturing: Benefits and Rationale,” 2000 (ADSK, “Integrated Design-Through-Manufacturing: Benefits and Rationale,”)
Thus, already in the 1980s and early 2000s, the key element of digital design in the CAD environment was considered to be the database rather than the format-file or the neutral IFC format. It was suggested that translators should be abandoned and applications should have direct access to the data. However, in reality, by the mid-2020s, the concept of BIM began to resemble a “divide and conquer” strategy, where the interests of software vendors using closed geometric kernels are prioritized over the development of open information exchange.
Today, BIM is perceived as an integral part of the construction industry. But over the past two decades, the promise of simplified collaboration and data integration has largely gone unrealized. Most solutions are still tied to closed formats or neutral formats and specialized tools. We will look in detail at the history of BIM, open BIM and IFC, as well as the issues of interoperability and geometric kernels in Part 6 of the book “CAD and BIM: Marketing, Reality and the Future of Design Data in Construction”.
Today, the industry faces a key challenge to move from the traditional understanding of CAD (BIM) as a modeling tool to its use as a full-fledged database. This requires new approaches to working with information, abandoning the dependence on closed ecosystems and implementing open solutions.
With the development of reverse engineering tools that allow access to CAD databases and the proliferation of Open Source and LLM technologies, users and developers in the construction industry are increasingly moving away from the vague terms of software vendors. Instead, the focus is shifting to what really matters: data (databases) and processes.
Behind the trendy acronyms and visualizations are standard data management practices: storage, transfer and transformation – i.e. the classic ETL process (Extract, Transform, Load). As in other industries, the digitalization of construction requires not only exchange standards, but also clearly structured handling of heterogeneous information.
In order to fully utilize the potential of CAD (BIM) data, companies need to rethink their approach to information management. This will inevitably lead to a key element of digital transformation – unification, standardization and meaningful structuring of the data that construction professionals work with on a daily basis.
