"BIM-to-Field" Inspection Workflows for Zero Paper Sites

Abstract

The article presents practical ideas of BIM-to-Field solutions for zero-paper construction sites. Approaches favor model-based tagging of inspection points in IFC/COBie exports, schema Serialization as compact JSON, on-device SQLite (offline-first, delta sync, and conflict resolution), QR/RFID localization, mobile UI (voice input and photo markup), and real-time QA dashboards. Microservices and IFC viewers bridge the capture in the field communications to a shared data environment. There are two performance-validating pilots: a residential tower in 42 stories, and a rural bridge program. Teams in the tower completed 1,830 inspections in 4 weeks at an average sync time of ~4.2 seconds, detected 38 percent extra defects, and reduced unplanned rework to 2.8 per week (down 5.7 per week). On the bridge system, inspectors operated offline with <150 ms local scan and <90 s upload; safety-critical decision speed decreased 63.2% (18.4 to 6.7 hours), and non-safety close rates rose 47%. Outcomes demonstrate that the error rate decreased to 0.8 percent (7.2; =49) and boosted cycle time by 18.3 minutes (27.5 -18.3; -33). The economics are 145k capex, 3.2k/month opex, 335k annual net benefit, five-month payback, and ~460% three-year ROI. Implications: increased traceability, quicker decision-making, and less paperwork. The other issues to be overcome include schema matching, segmentation of the model applicable to resource-limited devices, device/peripheral management, and change. This offers a robust roadmap and presages AI-aided visual QA and IoT/drones and signed, append-only inspection plans, in the longer term, interoperability.