Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410

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Automation in Construction

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/autcon

Applying building information modeling to integrate schedule and cost

for establishing construction progress curves
Kun-Chi Wang a, Wei-Chih Wang a,⁎, Han-Hsiang Wang b, Pei-Yuan Hsu a, Wei-Hao Wu a, Cheng-Ju Kung a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, 1001, University Road, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan
b
Graduate Institute of Construction Engineering and Management, National Central University, No. 300, Jhongda Road, Jhongli City, Taoyuan County 320, Taiwan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A cost-based progress curve (called S-curve) is often used to control construction project schedules. To establish a
Received 19 December 2015 progress curve, the costs that are associated with each scheduling activity must be determined. However, the dis-
Received in revised form 1 September 2016 tributions of the quantities (costs) of cost items among various activities are time-consuming to obtain and error-
Accepted 24 October 2016
prone, yielding an unreliable S-curve. This work proposes the use of three-dimensional building information
Available online 28 October 2016
model (BIM) objects to integrate schedule and cost by using the powerful BIM for data acquisition and storage.
Keywords:
BIM objects are incorporated into a proposed four-step model to establish construction progress curves. The pro-
Building information modeling posed model defines search criteria (cost item, object, floor, and zone) that precisely identify takeoff objects for
Progress curves extracting the quantities of cost items associated with each activity. The BIM uses keynote, assembly code, and
Quantity takeoffs family type catalog functions to provide pop-up menus for the efficient identification of cost items that are asso-
Scheduling, activity cost ciated with each object to preventing errors in the manual typing of cost-item names. Finally, this work demon-
strates that uploading the cost items and unit prices into cost estimation software in advance is critical to
automating cost estimations in BIM.
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
A progress curve (S-curve), which is a graphical representation of
cumulative progress against time, is commonly used to control the
schedule of a construction project. The vertical scale of an S-curve rep-
resents the cumulative project progress in dollars or as percentage com-
pleted, and the horizontal scale represents time [11,16]. To plot an S-
curve, the costs that are associated with each activity in the project
schedule must be determined.
An accurate calculation of the cost of a scheduling activity depends
on the identification of relevant cost items (cost centers or cost ac-
counts) that represent the construction resources or physical end
items (such as reinforced steel, form, and concrete) that are required
to perform that activity. A cost item comprises the quantity and unit
price of a particular resource. Each cost item may be associated with
one or several activities. Accordingly, the cost of an activity is the re-
quired (distributed or allocated) quantity multiplying by the unit price
of the cost item. Therefore, the total costs of the activity are the sum of
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: chi780118.cv00g@g2.nctu.edu.tw (K.-C. Wang),
weichih@mail.nctu.edu.tw (W.-C. Wang), hhwang@ncu.edu.tw (H.-H. Wang),
mkrgty@yahoo.com.tw (P.-Y. Hsu), haoxd1019@hotmail.com (W.-H. Wu),
jeff@ctc.com.tw (C.-J. Kung).
the costs of the associated cost items (if the activity is associated with
many cost items).
If only one cost item is relevant to the aforementioned cost calcula-
tion for an activity, then the relationship between the activity and the
cost item is typically called a one-to-one relationship (because one ac-
tivity is associated with one cost item). For instance, the activity of
installing steel falsework commonly corresponds to a single cost item
(steel falsework), resulting in a one-to-one relationship.
Other relationships, such as many-to-one or many-to-many, may
exist between different types of activities and cost items. For example,
the use of 280 kgf/cm2 concrete to grout the first, second, and third
floor slabs exhibits a many-to-one relationship in which three activities
correspond to one cost item (280 kgf/cm2 concrete). In this case, the
cost of the 280 kgf/cm2 concrete cost item should be allocated to all
three activities. In a many-to-many relationship, the activities of setting
1st-floor columns/walls steel and setting 1st-floor beams/slabs steel are
both associated with the costs the two cost items - rebar SD420W and
rebar SD420. Although the above calculations can be carried out, it is
highly time-consuming and error-prone, especially when a construction
project involves hundreds of activities and cost items.
The above problem is often described as the problem of integrating
schedule and cost [44]. This problem basically arises from the fact that
schedule- and cost-control functions are performed independently of
each other and use different control structures: the work breakdown
structure (WBS) and the cost breakdown structure (CBS) [29,44].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2016.10.005
0926-5805/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
398 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
To reduce the complexity of integrating scheduling activities with
cost items, many practitioners take the simple approach of using a
master-level schedule that comprises only a few milestone activities
to generate an S-curve. As an example, a milestone activity “structure
construction” is used to represent many activities in detail, such as “lay-
out”, “setting steel of column/beam/wall/slab”, “setting forms of col-
umn/beam/wall/slab”, “concreting”, and others. The costs that are
associated with this milestone activity are then easily obtained by sum-
ming the costs of the many associated cost items (including layout,
steel, form, and concrete) without further breaking down the cost of
each item into those associated with the individual activities. Although
this simplified approach saves time, it reduces the accuracy of the curve.
Conversely, using a detailed task-level schedule (instead of a milestone
schedule) to obtain an accurate S curve considerably increases the
workload associated with data acquisition and processing.
An accurate S curve sets a precise progress target (or the budgeted
cost of the work scheduled) to be accomplished in a given time period
[40], whereas a rough curve developed using milestone activities adds
little value to the schedule control of a construction project. Developing
a more accurate S curve requires more efficiently computing the costs of
each activity.
The rapid development of information technologies has provided so-
lutions to numerous construction management problems such as inte-
grating design and construction activities [1] and cost estimation [37].
Recently, the building information model (BIM), which is a new IT and
is a three-dimensional (3D) framework that can digitize a great amount
of building information, has attracted much attention owing to its effec-
tiveness in data acquisition and storage in support of construction man-
agement [12,18,20,43,51,54]. Notably, several researchers have
developed BIM-based methods to extract quantities or estimate costs
[18,46,52]. However, these quantity takeoffs and cost estimations can
only account for one cost item at one time.
Accordingly, this study develops a method of using BIM to resolve
the complicated relationships between schedule and cost to establish
a construction S curve that supports schedule control.
2. Review of recent studies
This section reviews recent studies of construction progress curves,
the integration of schedule and cost, the use of BIM for quantity takeoffs
and cost estimation, and automated construction progress tracking.
2.1. Construction progress curve
An S-curve typically has a small slope at its beginning and near its
end and a large slope in the middle, indicating that progress is slow in
mobilization and demobilization periods, but faster as the bulk of the
work takes place [10,11]. The S-curve is widely used to control construc-
tion project schedules and is effective for reporting the status, and
predicting the future, of projects. That is, for example, a planned S-
curve can be used as a target against the actual progress at any time in
the implementation phase of a construction project to evaluate whether
the project is ahead of, or behind, schedule [16].
Research on progress curves can be broadly divided into two catego-
ries: (1) designing envelope curves or mathematical equations to plot
progress curves using historical progress data [10,11,13,16,28,32,39],
and (2) developing metrics or indices based on progress curves to en-
hance interpretations of project performance on schedule or cost [6,7,
23,31].
Most of the studies in the first category classify historical projects
into groups and generate a standard curve for each group by fitting
one curve to the historical data. This type of research commonly focuses
on the planning or tendering stages, which have a short duration, and
are associated with construction plans that are full of uncertainties.
Therefore, a simple and easily performed method of generating S-
curves for forecasting cash flows or project schedules is required [8].
Although research in the second category is not directly relevant
herein, a review should help to elucidate the value of this study. For in-
stance, to manage projects with uncertainty in their performance be-
havior, Barraza et al. [7] introduced a new probabilistic planning
method that uses stochastic S-curves to monitor and forecast project
performance [7]. Barraza and Bueno [6] proposed three sets of criteria
for defining performance control limit curves that are based on the
graphical representation of stochastic SS curves; they are the quality cri-
terion, the benchmarking criterion, and the incremental project perfor-
mance variance criterion [6].
2.2. Integration of schedule and costs
The integration of schedule and cost has been studied intensively by
researchers [9,27,38]. For example, Teicholz [47] defined a mapping
mechanism between the CBS and WBS that exploited a percentage allo-
cation concept, in which a cost item specified percentages of associated
resources (material quantities) to one or more activities [47]. However,
Teicholz pointed out that the percentage allocation concept is approxi-
mate and based on judgment.
Kim [30] developed an object-oriented programming data model
that integrates cost data, schedule control data, and design data [30].
He proposed a new element, called the basic construction operation
that is required by a design object (BOD). The BOD is the lowest-level
construction task that requires the construction of a specific design ob-
ject. A BOD has three dimensions of information - a work package on the
WBS, a cost item on the CBS, and a design object on a drawing. As indi-
cated by Rasdorf and Abudayyeh [44], acquiring data to support the
model may be impractical because each BOD is defined at a highly re-
fined level.
Hendrickson and Au [25] proposed the use of a work element matrix
in which each work element represents the cost items (in the CBS) that
are associated with particular activities (in the WBS) [25]. The matrix
requires a system to number or identify work elements in order to in-
clude both relevant cost items and associated activities. However, the
method requires a substantial effort to be made for data acquisition
and storage in the development and maintenance of the work element
database.
Considering that information management can integrate scheduling
and cost estimating, Kang and Paulson [29] designed a construction in-
formation classification system for civil engineering projects [29]. The
system consists of four facets (or tables), which are classified into facil-
ities, spaces, elements, and operations according to construction work
type. A classified item in each facet is applied to express a particular
level of schedule or cost estimation. For example, the classified items
in the operational facet can be applied to draw a detailed schedule or es-
timate unit work cost. Notably, quantity takeoffs for cost estimations
were not considered in the Kang and Paulson study.
To integrate schedule and cost for repetitive construction projects,
Cho et al. [14] suggested a work task-level control account (such as
rebar installation or form installation) that contains a “resource set”
(such as materials, labor and equipment) that are invested in a repeti-
tive construction process [14]. Their proposed model uses a scheduling
module to estimate the cycle time of the input amount of resources for a
work task and a cost estimating module to calculate the cost of a work
task by summing the costs of the resources required; additionally, a
trade-off analysis module is used to identify the most cost-effective
schedule based on an optimized combination of resources. Although de-
tailed field data are required to implement the algorithms for the first of
the repeated processes, the data-collection workload is reduced for the
rest of the cycles in a project. Conversely, the proposed model is not
suitable for a non-repetitive construction project.
The work-packaging (WP) method, currently called the cost/sched-
ule control system criteria (C/SCSC) method, uses work packages on the
WBS as the basis for control. A work package may exist at a higher level
than the actual activity level [40]. Basically, the WP method adds cost
 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
data to the WBS and eliminates the CBS [44]. Although this method is
often recommended by researchers [44], it requires a fundamental
change in the planning and budgeting philosophy, which may be im-
practical [15].
To reduce the data handling workload in daily progress manage-
ment for multiple apartment construction projects, Yang et al. [53] allo-
cated budget (instead of resources) to control attributes based on daily
weighting values to calculate the budgeted cost of work schedule
(BCWS) [53]. The weighting of an activity is obtained from the ratio of
the budget of the activity to the budget of the control attribute. Using
weighting values as progress measures is easier than calculating those
measures from quantity extractions of cost items each day. However,
using a daily process to establish an S curve may be impractical.
Cho et al. [15] proposed a 5W1H (what, when, where, who, why, and
how) construction information database framework for solving the in-
tegration problem of schedule and cost [15]. A core unit (work unit)
that comprises two basic information units, WHAT (such as column)
and HOW (such as formwork), can specify other information units
(such as WHERE, WHO, and WHEN). The framework enables a user to
access multi-functional, multi-dimensional, and multi-level project exe-
cution data. However the user must partition the quantity of resources
for each cost item, and a method of partitioning quantity is not
provided.
2.3. Quantity takeoffs using BIM
In conventional estimation methods, quantity takeoffs are based on
2D CAD drawings. A BIM tool can obtain the required data and measure-
ments to extract quantities from a 3D model [18,24,36,41,45,46].
Hartmann et al. [24] performed a case study of a BIM-based cost es-
timation process with automated quantity take-offs [24]. They demon-
strated the possibility of aligning the functionality of existing BIM-
based tools with construction management work processes.
Monteiro and Martins [41] indicated that BIM takeoffs require fur-
ther study and surveyed BIM input/output dynamics for quantity take-
off. They also examined the behavior of a model that is constrained by
existing specifications for quantity takeoff, and detailed modeling
guidelines that enable the user to extract quantities based on current
specifications [41].
Wijayakumar and Jayasena [52] discussed the extent to which BIM
tools can automate quantity takeoffs to suit the requirements of quanti-
ty surveyors [52]. They concluded that BIM tools need further improve-
ment, including interoperability and the extraction of quantities.
2.4. Cost estimation using BIM
Eastman et al. [18] pointed out that, although BIM-based tools for
quantity takeoffs have been developed, no BIM software with full cost
estimation functions are available [18]. Therefore, a cost estimator
must export the BIM quantities into the cost estimation software; link
the BIM tool (software) to the cost estimation software through an
API, or export BIM model data into a BIM-based cost estimation soft-
ware [18].
Lawrence et al. [34] created flexible mappings between BIM objects
and cost data to update cost estimates according to design changes in
the early design stages of construction projects [34]. This method uses
queries to populate views on the building design and views on cost es-
timates in order to generate a set of possible updates which satisfy a
mapping. Estimating the overall cost of a particular design change
does not consider the detailed cost items.
Lee et al. [35] devised an ontological inference process to automate
the work-item selection for tiling work, providing an objective means
of selecting work items (such as tile size, tile thickness, tile type, tiling
method, tiling material, joint width, and joint material) that should be
included in a cost item [35]. To automate the inference, they proposed
a work condition ontology that is composed of the determinants of
399
the selection of work items, a work item ontology, which consists of
the factors that define the tiling method, and semantic reasoning rules.
2.5. Automated construction progress tracking
Since the process of collecting data to measure construction progress
is highly time-consuming and labor-intensive, some researchers have
focused on using new technologies (such as bar coding, radio frequency
identification, 3D laser scanning, photogrammetry, multimedia, and
pen-based computers) for automatically measuring or tracking the ac-
tual progress of a construction project and comparing it with the
planned progress [19,22,33,48,49]. These studies focus on the collection
of data on quantities of accomplished physical end products, and not
with the distributions of the costs of cost items to activities for plotting
an as-planned progress curve.
As an example, El-Omari and Moselhi [19] presented a cost/schedule
control system that does not use BIM tools [19]. Rather, the system inte-
grates various automated data acquisition technologies to collect field
data (such as text, numerical and graphical data) that are required to
measure progress. Scanned and digital images are captured by laser
scanning and photogrammetry to determine quantities of work per-
formed and, subsequently, to calculate the percentage of work
complete.
Golparvar-Fard et al. [22] measured physical progress using infor-
mation about daily construction photo collections and BIMs [22]. Their
study assumed that a BIM is generated from the most updated construc-
tion drawings, and the most updated project schedule is used to gener-
ate the underlying 4D model. Additionally, their machine-learning
scheme, which was built upon a Bayesian probabilistic progress-
detection model, could automatically detect physical progress in the
presence of occlusions and visualize deviations that incorporate both
as-planned models and unordered daily photographs. However, the au-
thors noted that further research is required to incorporate work items
(such as steel bars that are embedded in concrete) whose quantities are
difficult to detect physically or visually.
2.6. Summary of previous studies
The above review of previous research can be summarized as fol-
lows. First, some studies have derived an S-curve for a particular project
using standardized mathematical equations or weighting concepts.
These standardized approaches are effective for generating curves and
are suitable for use in the planning and pre-tender stages. In the con-
struction phase, however, a project client may not use such an approach
because a generalized curve does not completely capture the character-
istics of the project of interest.
Second, some studies have integrated schedule and cost to build S-
curves; the associated excessive efforts to collect and maintain detailed
data constitute a major barrier to integration [27]. Rasdorf and
Abudayyeh [44] showed that advanced information technology should
be used in support of automated data acquisition [44]. Thus, this work
proposes the use of BIM objects as control items because BIM is highly
effective for data acquisition, processing, and storage.
Third, some investigations have applied BIM to quantity takeoffs and
cost estimation, dealing with only one cost item at a time, and
neglecting the distribution of quantities (or costs) among various activ-
ities. Therefore, they do not consider the problem of integrating sched-
ule and cost.
Fourth, in some studies, progress tracking has been used to collect
the quantities accomplished for each cost item, and multiplies them
by the corresponding unit prices to yield the costs of the total project.
The process does not require allocation of the costs of cost items to ac-
tivities, and so is simpler than establishing an as-planned curve.
In summary, the above review indicates the need for research to de-
velop a BIM-based model to integrate schedule and cost for establishing
a construction S curve.
400 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
3. Practice in computing activity costs and establishing S curve
This section gives a practical example of how the costs of an activity
are computed and how a construction progress curve is established
from the calculated activity costs.
3.1. Computing activity costs
The key to constructing an accurate S curve is the accurate calcula-
tion of the costs that are associated with each activity, which affords
the precise allocation of costs to activities. Table 1 presents an example
of the cost estimation sheet. The contents of this sheet include a cost
code, a description of cost items, unit, quantity, unit price, and item
cost for each cost item.
Cost items have units of items, length (for lines), area (for surfaces),
volume, or tons (weight), depending by how the quantity of the re-
source is extracted. Some cost items, such as doors and windows, only
need to be counted. For other cost items, the length, area, volume or
tons must be determined. For example, the unit of rebar is “tons” be-
cause the weight of rebar is measured. Notably, the item cost is obtained
by multiplying the quantity by the unit price.
Consider the example of the calculation of activity costs for Activity A
(“placing rebars of 1st floor beams/slabs”). Suppose that this activity re-
quires the placement of 10 tons and 20 tons of reinforcing rebars SD420
and SD420W, respectively. The activity costs are calculated from the
two cost items, rebar SD420 and SD420W. The unit prices of the cost
items, rebar SD420 and SD420W, are US$787.6 (≒23,628 New Taiwan
dollars, as 1 US dollar ≅ 30 New Taiwan dollar) and US$811.1, respec-
tively. Hence, the total costs of performing activity A equal the sum of
the item costs of the two associated cost items, which is US$24,098 =
(10 × 787.6) + (20 × 811.1).
The above computation depends on identification of the relevant
cost items (rebar SD420 and SD420W) and the distributed quantities
(10 tons and 20 tons) of all cost items that are required to perform an
activity. This computation process becomes complex and error-prone
when many activities and cost items are involved. In such cases, the de-
termination of the distribution of quantities among activities is highly
complicated and time-consuming. This study used BIM tools to extract
distributed quantities.
3.2. Establishing S curves
In practice, after a contractor has won a contract for a construction
project, the total contractual costs and the item cost of each cost item
are determined. The contractor must then submit a detailed network
and/or bar chart schedule for approval by the project client. Therefore,
cost and schedule are often managed separately.
The approved network schedule, called the as-planned contractual
schedule, is then utilized to establish an as-planned progress (S) curve
as the target against which the actual progress of the project at any
point to determine whether the project is behind or ahead of schedule
[11].
To measure the progress of a project, the concept of weighting is
commonly applied: the progress of an activity is defined as the percent-
age weight of the activity multiplied by the percentage completion of
the activity [11]. Since the weightings are highly subjective, the progress
Table 1
Content of cost estimation sheet.
Code Cost item Unit Quantity Unit price
(US$)
0321050A11 Rebar SD420 Ton 1813 787.6
0321050A01 Rebar SD420W Ton 4714 811.1
0311004152 Form m2 20,809 13.1
03310171G3 Concrete(280 kgf/cm2) m3 49,495 83.7
… … … … … …
is firstly calculated from the above activity costs (budgeted costs of
work scheduled or performed) and then converted into a percentage
(budgeted costs divided by total costs). Accordingly, activity costs
must be determined in measuring the progress.
Fig. 1 displays an example of a progress curve for a construction pro-
ject; the activities are indicated below the curve, from the start to the
end of the project. To control the schedule, the budgeted cost of work
scheduled (BCWS) and the budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP
or earned value) are set as defined in C/SCSC and are used to monitor
whether the project is ahead of (BCWP N BCWS) or behind schedule
(BCWP b BCWS) [40].
The S curve in Fig. 1 is used to illustrate how an S curve is built. After
the costs of activities A1–A5 are obtained, the costs associated with each
activity are assumed to be uniformly distributed across the duration of
the activity. Restated, the daily costs of an activity equal the costs of
the activity, divided by the activity duration. Next, in each day, the
total daily costs are the sum of the daily costs associated with the activ-
ities that are scheduled for that day. Then, the cumulative costs on a par-
ticular day are the sum of all the costs from the first day to that day.
Finally, cumulative costs are plotted against time as a progress curve
(or S curve). The cumulative costs can also be expressed as a cumulative
percentage, by dividing the cumulative costs by the total project cost.
Notably, the established S curve represents the BCWS of the project be-
cause the above activity costs are also the BCWSs of the activities.
Costs that are incurred during a construction project can be catego-
rized as direct and indirect costs. The activity costs are commonly cate-
gorized as direct costs. Whereas direct costs are associated with
network activities, indirect costs are incurred throughout the project
period [26]. Typical examples of indirect costs are labor safety and
health fees, insurance, quality control fees, contractor management
fees, profit, and tax. Each indirect cost is associated with a dummy activ-
ity, so all the indirect costs are included in the progress curve.
4. Using BIM objects to integrate activities and cost items
This section describes the proposed BIM objects and the relation-
ships between activities and cost items.
4.1. BIM objects
According to the literature, developing a new “control item” is the
key to integrating the schedule information from the work breakdown
Cumulative costs or %
Time
A1
Activities
A2
A3
Item cost
(US$) A4
1,427,918.8 A5
3,823,525.4 Dummy activity
272,597.9
4,142,731.5
Fig. 1. Example of a progress curve and the corresponding activities.
 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410 401

structure (WBS) and the cost information from the cost breakdown Table 2
structure (CBS) [14]. Fig. 2 displays the proposed use of physical 3D ob- Examples of BIM objects and the associated cost items.

jects (or components) of a BIM model to integrate scheduling activities
and cost items. The left- and right-hand sides of Fig. 2 present a WBS and
a CBS, respectively. The WBS defines three levels of detail, which are ac-
tivity categories (such as site work, structure, and finishes), floors/
areas/zones (such as foundation, floor 1, floor 2, and so on), and activi-
ties (such as layout, place rebars, erect forms, pour concrete, and
others). Notably, the activities may be very specific, such as lay out the
first floor, place rebars of the first floor beams/slabs, and erect forms
of the first floor columns/walls. The CBS has two levels of detail, which
are cost categories (site work, structure, finishes, doors/windows, and
others ) and cost items (such as layout, rebars, forms, steel, concrete,
and others).
The activities (in the third level of the WBS) and the cost items (in
the second level of the CBS) are integrated using 3D physical objects
(called BIM objects hereafter) that are provided in a BIM model. A BIM
object is a column, wall, beam, slab, door, window, room, vertical cu-
boid, or horizontal cuboid, which is to be constructed for an activity;
an object is associated with cost items. Activity costs are calculated
from the cost items that are associated with the objects to be
constructed.
Activities and costs must be integrated to compute the costs that are
associated with each activity. For example, in activity A, “placing rebars
of first floor beams/slabs”, the costs are calculated from the cost items of
rebar SD420 and SD420W, which are associated with the beam objects
and the slab objects on the first floor. Similarly, the costs of the activity
“erecting forms of first floor beams/slabs” are computed from the cost
item of the forms in the same beam objects and slab objects on the
first floor.
Table 2 summarizes the objects that are used in a BIM model and
their associated cost items. For instance, each structure-related ob-
ject (column, beam, wall and slab) is mapped to three cost items,
which are rebar, form, and concrete. The geometric parameters of
an object are used to generate the volume, area, and volume of the
object to extract the quantities of rebar, form, and concrete, respec-
tively. Such a BIM-based object allows quantities of each cost item
to be determined from its associated geometric parameters (such
as length, width, and height) and the contractual unit price of each
cost item to be retrieved. As a result, multiplying the distributed
quantities by the unit price obtains the costs of an object for a partic-
ular cost item.
The door and window objects are associated with the cost items of
door and window, respectively. The numbers of door and window ob-
jects in a BIM environment are the quantities of the cost items related
to doors and windows.
BIM objects Cost items associated with an object
Structure-related:
Column Rebar (volume), form (area), concrete (volume)
Wall Rebar (volume), form (area), concrete (volume)
Beam Rebar (volume), form (area), concrete (volume)
Slab Rebar (volume), form (area), concrete (volume)
Finish-related:
Door Door (each)
Window Window (each)
Room Ceiling finishes, floor finishes, wall finishes, baseboard
finishes, etc.
Sitework-related:
Vertical cuboid (or Soil nail (length), slope protection (area), scaffold (area),
wall) etc.
Horizontal cuboid Earth excavation (volume), plain concrete (area), layout
(area), etc.
Note: “( )” indicates the measurement of quantity of a cost item for an object.
The room objects specify the cost items that are related to the fin-
ishes, including the ceiling, floor, wall, and baseboard finishes. The
quantities of the cost items related to these finishes are obtained from
the “area” of a room, except for that related to baseboard, which is
based on the “length” of the four walls of a room.
To compute activity costs for some construction elements that do
not contain add-in BIM objects, either vertical cuboid (or wall) or hori-
zontal cuboid are used for substitution. For instance, the length, area,
and area of a vertical cuboid are used to determine the quantities of
cost items related to soil nails, slope protection, and scaffolding, respec-
tively. Further, the volume, area, and area of a horizontal cuboid are
used to extract the quantities of earth excavation, plain concrete, and
layout cost items, respectively.
4.2. Relationships between activities and cost items
The relationships between scheduling activities and cost items in-
clude one-to-one (one activity to one cost item), one-to-many, many-
to-one, and many-to-many. For instance, a one-to-one relationship in-
dicates that the cost of performing an activity (such as soil nailing) de-
pends on only one cost item (such as soil nail (∮ 32 mm)). Such a
relationship can be captured by a BIM object using a vertical cuboid.
The mapping relationships between activities and costs can vary
among construction projects that use various work breakdown struc-
tures, construction methods (such as bottom up versus top-down con-
struction methods), or construction plans (such as based on areas,
floors, or zones). This study divides the activities into three major

Work Breakdown Cost Breakdown

Structure (WBS) Project Project Structure (CBS)
Activity Cost
Site Work Structure Finishes Site Work Structure Finishes Doors/ Elevator M/E
categories Windows categories
Floors / areas Foundation Floor 1 Floor 2
/ zones
Layout Place Erect Pour Layout Rebars Forms Steel Concrete Cost
Activities Rebars Forms Concrete
items
Column/ Beam/
SD420 SD420W
Wall Slab

BIM-based physical objects

Vertical Horizontal
Column Wall Beam Slab Door Window Room
cuboid cuboid

Fig. 2. Use of BIM objects to integrate activities and cost items.

402 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410

categories: sitework, structure, and finishes activities. Table 3 displays
examples of possible mapping relationships in various sitework, struc-
ture, and finishes activities.
Sitework activities that are generally performed earliest in a con-
struction project include site preparation, excavation, soil nailing, and
slope protection using shotcrete. Notably, the aforementioned soil
nailing activity commonly corresponds to a single cost item (soil
nails), resulting in a one-to-one relationship. For a large construction
site where activities are performed in parallel, a soil nailing activity
can be divided into several sub-activities that are carried out in different
zones simultaneously. In such a case, a many-to-one relationship
results.
The structure activities that are carried out in the middle project
phase include layout, setting steel of column/beam/wall/slab, setting
forms of column/beam/wall/slab, setting mechanical/electrical/plumb-
ing (MEP) pipes, and concreting. These activities are often divided into
sub-activities by floors, zones, or building components (column, beam,
wall, or slab). For instance, 1st floor layout, 2nd floor layout, etc., are
all relevant to one cost item (layout), resulting into a many-to-one rela-
tionship. Similarly, first floor concreting, second floor concreting, and
the concreting in other floors are all related to a single cost item,
which is ready-mixed concrete (210 kgf/cm2).
Finish activities performed in the late phase of the project include
wall finishes, room finishes, and elevator finishes. Each finishing activity
is related to several cost items, including tiles, skirt boards, doors, and
windows. Hence, finishes activities and cost items normally have
many-to-many relationships.
Table 3 defines the above relationships and provides criteria that are
used to find the takeoff objects to extract the quantities of cost items
that are associated with an activity.
5. Proposed model
Based on the use of BIM objects, this study proposes a BIM-based
model to establish S-curves for construction projects. Fig. 3 shows that
the proposed model consists of four steps: (1) developing a BIM
model associated with information parameters, (2) executing search al-
gorithms to extract quantities, (3) retrieving contractual unit prices to
compute activity costs, and (4) converting activity costs to Excel to
build an S curve. The four steps are described in detail below.
5.1. Step 1: Developing a BIM model associated with information
parameters
Step 1 adopts BIM software, such as Autodesk Revit Architecture [2],
to establish a BIM model with a level of detail (LOD) of 300 for a con-
struction project. Each BIM object (such as a column object) can then
be associated with relevant cost items that specify construction mate-
rials (such as reinforcing steel) that are used to erect the object.
Each BIM object has three information parameters: geometric pa-
rameters, additional design parameters, and cost item parameters. The
geometric and additional design parameters are used in the extraction
of the quantities of each object whereas the cost item parameters are
used to identify the cost items that are associated with an object.
5.1.1. Geometric/additional design parameters
Data for geometric parameters such as the length, width, and height of
each BIM object can support quantity takeoffs for involved cost items. For
example, the quantity of concrete (cost item) is evaluated from the vol-
ume (=length × width × height), and the quantity of form (cost item)
is assessed from the area (=length × width) of a particular column.
Without access to additional data for design parameters, however,
these geometric data are insufficient for extracting the quantity of rein-
forcing steel embedded in the concrete for a wall [18]. Additional design
parameters that affect quantity takeoffs of the reinforcing steel for a wall
include horizontal spacing between steel layers, vertical spacing be-
tween steel layers, unit weight of steel, and number of steel layers in
the wall [12]. Another example is wall forms. The quantity of wall
forms that could have either one or two sides of forms cannot be derived
automatically; thus, additional design details are needed.
5.1.2. Cost item parameters
This study applies the “keynote” [4], “assembly code” [5], and “family
type catalog” [17] functions in Revit [2] to support the cost-item identi-
fication process mainly because these functions provide a “pop-up
menu” to efficiently select the cost items (rather than manually keying
in the names of cost items) for each BIM object.

Table 3
Mapping relationships between scheduling activities and cost items.

Activity categories Relationship Examples of activities Examples of cost items Search criteria

Sitework One to one Soil nailing Soil nail (∮32 mm) Cost item
Many to one ● 1st layer excavation Excavation Cost item and zone
● 2nd layer excavation
…
● 1st layer slope protection using shotcrete Slope protection using shotcrete
● 2nd layer slope protection using shotcrete
…
Structure One to one Setting dustproof net Dustproof net Cost item
Installing scaffolding Scaffolding
Installing steel falsework Steel falsework
Many to one ● 1st floor layout Layout Cost item and floor
● 2nd floor layout
…
Many to one ● 1st floor concreting Concrete (280 kgf/cm2) Cost item, object, and floor
● 2nd floor concreting
…
Many to many ● Placing rebars of 1st floor beams/slabs ● Rebar SD420
● Placing rebars of 1st floor columns/walls
● Placing rebars of 2nd floor beams/slabs ● Rebar SD420W
…
Finishes Many to many ● Finishes of dormitory zone in 2nd floor ● Partition Cost item and zone
● Water proof
● Doors
● Finishes of public zone in 2nd floor ● Windows
● Finishes
… …
 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410 403

Step 1. Developing a BIM model associated with information parameters

Physical objects Information parameters
(geometric information) additional design parameters Cost item parameters

1. Sitework: 1. Sitework: 1. Sitework Database of cost items

˙excavation, soil nails ˙spacing of soil nails, etc ˙soil nails
2. Structure: 2. Structure: 2. Structure
1. Keynote, assembly code,
˙columns, beams, slabs ˙space of horizontal steel, etc ˙steel (SD420)
and family type catalog
3. Finishes: 3. Finishes: 3. Finishes
˙doors, windows ˙area of openings ˙wood door (75X210cm) to store cost items
2. pop-up selection menu

Step 2. Executing search algorithms to extract quantities

Criterion 1: by cost item
Activities in MS project
Criterion 2: by cost item Criterion 3: by cost item
(consisting of sitework,
and zone (or floor) floor, and object
structure, and finishes
activities)

Step 3. Retrieving contractual unit prices to compute activity costs

Step 3.1. Export QTO quantities of cost items in each activity to Excel Cost estimation
Step 3.2. Upload the Excel file to cost estimation software (PCCES)
software (PCCES)
Step 3.3. Retrieve the contractual unit price from PCCES for each cost item
(consisting of contractual
Step 3.4. Calculate the subcost of each cost item by multiplying its quantity and unit price
cost items and unit
Step 3.5. Obtain the costs of each activity by summing the subcosts of relevant cost items
prices)

Step 4. Converting activity costs to Excel to build an S curve

S curve
Direct costs Indirect costs

Cumulative costs or %
1. Sitework 1. Labor safety and health fees
˙soil nails 2. Insurance
2. Structure 3. Quality control fees
˙steel (SD420) 4. Contractor's management fees
3. Finishes 5. Profit
˙wood door (75X210cm) 6. Tax
Time

Fig. 3. Proposed model.

A cost item database (in a. txt file) that includes the contractual cost
items for the project of interest must be established in keynote, assem-
bly code, and family type catalog formats. During the cost item selection
process, this. Txt file is allocated to a particular directory. The pop-up
menu automatically retrieves the cost items from that file.
Use of the pop-up menu method ensures that the “name” of a cost
item is accurately selected and consistently used among all BIM objects.
Various names (even slightly different names) of a cost item are
regarded as indicating separate cost items.
In each BIM object, a keynote or an assembly code stores only one
value (i.e., cost item) while a family type catalog stores several cost
items simultaneously. For example, Fig. 4 presents an example of
using a keynote function to store a cost item (rebar SD 420) for a col-
umn. The pop-up menu on the right side of the figure lists all cost
items (derived from a separate text file) and appears as soon as the key-
note function is activated.
If an activity (such as a finishes-related activity) that is associated
with a BIM object (such as room) involves more than two cost items
(such as ceiling and wall finishes), then a family type catalog (rather
than a keynote or assembly code) must be applied.
5.2. Step 2: Executing search algorithms to extract quantities
tool” function in Autodesk QTO [3] to create takeoff objects that indicate
the cost items that are related to a particular activity. Then, the QTO can
extract the quantities of these objects for each cost item.
The criteria for searching for related cost items must be determined
to create the takeoff objects. The proposed search algorithm defines var-
ious search criteria (by floor, BIM object, cost item, or area) with respect
to different types of scheduling activities (structure, sitework, and fin-
ishes activities). See the right-most column of Table 3. Consider struc-
ture activities. Structure activities include setting the steel of the first
floor beams/slabs, setting the steel of first floor columns/walls, setting
the forms of the first floor beams/slabs, setting the forms of the first
floor columns/walls, and others. Thus, the criteria that are used to iden-
tify cost items that are associated with a particular structure activity are
set not only according to the cost item, but also according to the floor
(first, second, third, and so on) and the physical object (column, wall,
beam, or slab).
The sub-steps for extracting quantities are illustrated by activity A
(“placing rebars of 1st floor beams/slabs”). Activity A involves two
types of objects - beams and slabs. Each type of object is associated
with two cost items, which are “rebar SD 420” and “rebar SD 420 W”.
The quantities of rebar SD 420 and SD420W in this activity are extracted
in four steps.

Step 2 conducts quantity takeoffs of the objects that are involved in • Step 2.1: The search takeoff tool uses “rebar SD 420” (cost item), “1st
performing an activity. Before performing quantity takeoffs, the rele- floor” (floor), and “beam” (physical object) as criteria for retrieving all
vant cost items must be identified. The model uses the “search takeoff “rebar SD 420” beams located on the first floor. The geometric
404 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
Fig. 4. A “keynote” function used to identify a cost item (rebar SD420) for a column from a pop-up menu.
parameters of beams are used to extract quantities of the steel of
beams using takeoff formulas.
• Step 2.2: Step 2.1 is repeated for another cost item (rebar SD 420 W)
of “beam”.
• Step 2.3: Step 2.1 is repeated for another component (slab) and the
cost item, rebar SD 420.
• Step 2.4: Step 2.3 is repeated for the “slab” and another cost item,
rebar SD 420 W.
The quantities of rebar SD 420 are obtained in steps 2.1 and 2.3,
and the quantities of rebar SD 420 W are obtained in steps 2.2 and
2.4. For activity A, the quantities of reinforcing rebars SD420 and
SD420W are 10 tons and 20 tons, respectively. Notably, several
structure activities are associated with both “rebar SD 420” and
“rebar SD 420 W”. For another structure activity that also involves
the cost items, rebars SD420 and SD420W, Steps 2.1–2.4 are repeat-
ed. Hence, this example uses a many-to-many relationship to pres-
ent how the proposed model distributes the quantities associated
with cost items among activities.
Notably, the quantity take-off process is performed either by using
built-in mathematical equations in Autodesk Revit or by using add-in
equations provided by the proposed model. As an example of the
built-in equation, the equation “volume = length × width × height”
can be used to calculate the volume of concrete that is required to con-
struct a column.
Some quantities, such as those of rebar and formwork, cannot be di-
rectly obtained using the BIM model [41]. In this situation, the proposed
model develops add-in equations to perform quantity takeoffs. For ex-
ample, the add-in equation that is used to derive the quantities of form-
work for a column is (2 × (length + width) × height) - (contact area of
wall) - (contact area of beam). Although the initial development of add-
in equations may be complex, these add-in equations can be easily cop-
ied or modified to meet the design documents of a new construction
project. Details of these add-in quantity take-off process can be found
in Chen [12].
5.3. Step 3: Retrieving contractual unit prices to compute activity costs
Before Step 3 can be conducted, the contractual cost items and unit
prices must be stored in the cost estimation software so that the quan-
tity of a particular cost item that is associated with each activity can be
exported to the correct place at the right unit price. This study adopts
the software, Public Construction Cost Estimation System (PCCES)
[42], which is widely used in public construction projects in Taiwan.
The following sub-steps of Step 3 are performed to obtain the costs
of each activity. The above activity A is used as an example.
• Step 3.1: Export QTO quantities (extracted in Step 2) of cost items as-
sociated with each activity to an Excel file. For instance, export 10 tons
and 20 tons of reinforcing rebars SD420 and SD420W, respectively, for
activity A.
• Step 3.2: Upload the Excel file to the cost estimation software (PCCES).
• Step 3.3: Retrieve the contractual unit price of each cost item from
PCCES. For example, the unit prices of rebars SD420 and SD420W
are retrieved from PCCES as US$787.6 and US$811.1, respectively,
based on the exact names of the two cost items.
• Step 3.4: Calculate the item cost of each cost item by multiplying its
quantity by its unit price. The item costs of cost items SD420 and
SD420W for activity A are US$7876 (= 10 × 787.6) and US$16,222
(=20 × 811.1), respectively.
• Step 3.5: Obtain the costs of each activity by summing the item costs
of the relevant cost items. For example, the cost of activity A is
US$24,098 (=7876 + 16,222).
5.4. Step 4: Converting activity costs to excel to build an S curve
The costs of each activity, as calculated in Step 3, are output from
PCCES to an Excel file. Next, based on the assumption that the costs of
an activity are uniformly allocated throughout its duration, the daily
costs of the activity are equal to the costs divided by the duration. Nota-
bly, these activity costs are regarded as direct costs. The sum of the costs
of all activities is the total direct costs of a project.
 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
Indirect cost items for a project include safety and health fees, and
quality control fees. As discussed in the last paragraph in Section 3.2,
each indirect cost can be associated with a dummy activity. The costs as-
sociated with each indirect cost item frequently are assumed to be uni-
formly distributed throughout the duration of the activity. That is, the
daily costs associated with each indirect cost item are the indirect
costs divided by the duration of the activity in days.
Thus, the total costs for a day are the sum of the daily direct costs and
the daily indirect costs. Finally, a progress curve or S curve of the project
can be established by accumulating the daily costs throughout the pro-
ject duration.
6. Case study
The proposed model is applied to a building project located in north-
ern Taiwan. The reinforced concrete (RC) building considered in this
study has three upper-structure floors and two underground-structure
floors. The total building floor area is 14,966 square meters, and the con-
tractual construction cost approximates US $8.25 million, in which di-
rect costs are around US $7.26 million and indirect costs are about US
$0.99 million. The contractual duration of the project is 598 days. Fig.
5 shows the schedule for the case project, which includes 93 activities,
of which the numbers of site work, structure, and finishes activities,
are 9, 59, and 25, respectively. The project costs are broken down into
247 cost items. The following subsections present the results obtained
by the proposed model for this case project.
6.1. Developing a BIM model
Fig. 6 shows the 3D BIM-based model built using Autodesk Revit Ar-
chitecture after Step 1 of the proposed model. This BIM model has a
level of detail of 300, 4845 BIM objects (including columns, beams,
slabs, walls, etc.) and three information parameters (geometric, addi-
tional design and cost item parameters) of each object. The proposed
model was run on a PC with a Genuine Intel i7 3.4GHz CPU, 16GB
RAM, 1G independent graphics card, and Windows 7 operating system.
Fig. 7 displays a snapshot of a .txt file database of structure-related
cost items. The format of this database is developed using the “keynote”
function and the database is allocated in the computer directory of
Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\utodesk\Revit\ Autodesk Revit Ar-
chitecture 2013.
Moreover, Fig. 8 presents a screenshot of use of the “family type cat-
alog” function to identify several cost items (such as ceiling finishes,
Sitework (9 activities)
1st layer slop
1st layer Soil
Start protection
excavation nailing excavation
using shotcrete
Foundation layout B2 floor layout
Forming Forming
Structure work
(59 activities) Setting steel Setting steel
Concreting Concreting
B2 floor
Finishes work Partitioning
(25 activities) … …
Water proof,
Doors, windows
Finishing
Fig. 5. Schedule of the case project.
405
floor finishes, and wall finishes) for a room object. A pop-up menu
that lists all of the cost items (derived from a .txt file) appears to the
right of the figure when the function is activated.
6.2. Evaluations and results
The proposed model then performs Step 2, in which the “search take-
off tool” applies various search criteria to create takeoff objects that have
cost items that are associated with each activity, and then the quantities
of the objects are extracted. Table 3 shows the search criteria (cost item,
object, floor and zone) that are used in the case project.
Fig. 9 shows a screenshot that is taken when cost item (Rebar SD 420),
object (column and wall), and floor (first floor) are used as search criteria
in creating the takeoff objects for the activity of “setting steel of first floor
columns/walls” in Step 2. After Step 2 is completed, the quantities of each
cost item are distributed to each activity that involves the cost item.
In Step 3, the model exports the extracted quantities of cost items in
each activity to an Excel file, uploads the Excel file to the PCCES soft-
ware, retrieves the unit prices to map to corresponding cost items, cal-
culates the item cost of each item and then obtains the costs of each
activity by summing the item costs of relevant cost items. At this
stage, the model performs the calculations for all costs of all activities;
that is, it resolves the integration problem between schedule and cost.
In Step 4, PCCES exports the costs of activities to an Excel file, which
computes the daily costs of each activity by dividing the cost of an activity
by its duration as shown in Fig. 10. The indirect costs are distributed over
the duration of the project to obtain the daily indirect costs. Thus, the
total daily costs for each day are the sum of daily direct costs and the
daily indirect costs. Lastly, a progress curve represented by the cumulative
percentage of total project costs (=cumulative costs divided by total pro-
ject costs) throughout the project duration is plotted, as presented in Fig. 11.
Fig. 11 compares the curve generated by the proposed model and
the original curve (with a dash line) developed manually with a mile-
stone schedule. The original schedule includes only four milestone ac-
tivities: a sitework milestone activity (with a duration of 93 days), a
structure milestone activity (290 days), a finish milestone activity
(415 days), and a dummy activity (throughout the project duration,
598 days) which includes all the indirect costs.
On average, the progress (in terms of percentage) differs between
the two curves for a given project time by approximately 4.48% (with
a standard deviation of 3.82%). Based on statistical test of p-value [50],
these two curves are significantly different with a p-value of 0.0203
(smaller than 0.05).
2nd layer slop
2nd layer Plain
protection ...
concrete
using shotcrete
B1 floor layout 3rd floor layout Roof layout
Forming ... Forming Forming
Setting steel Setting steel Setting steel
Concreting Concreting Concreting
B1 floor 3rd floor
Partitioning Partitioning
… Roof, external
...
Water proof, Water proof, wall finishing
Doors, windows Doors, windows
Finishing Curtain wall Finishing End
installation
406 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410

Fig. 6. BIM model of the case project.

Moreover, the original S curve (which is developed from a milestone
schedule) is smoother than that obtained using the proposed model be-
cause a milestone activity spread its costs evenly to its long duration.
Consequently, a milestone schedule with only a few activities can exhib-
it small variations of daily costs from day to day. That is, a realistic S
curve such as the one obtained by the proposed model rarely has a
very smooth shape.
6.3. Discussion
The proposed model and its application results were presented to a
project manager and two engineers who were involved in the modeled
project to elicit their feedback. The major points of their feedback are
summarized as follows.
• The practitioners stated that the advantage of the proposed model is
that it extracts and distributes the quantities of all cost items to activ-
ities more accurately than does the conventional approach. Accord-
ingly, the curve produced by the proposed model was more accurate
and reliable than the original curve.
• The mapping relationships (between activities and cost items) and
the search criteria defined for quantity extractions, as presented in
Table 3, systematically formalized the practitioners' experience,
thereby supporting the retention of this quantity takeoff knowl-
edge.

Fig. 7. Snapshot of a structure-related cost item database using “keynote” function.

 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
Fig. 8. Screenshot of “family type catalog” function used to identify several cost items that are associated with a room object.
• During the case study, the proposed model (Step 2) found several
significant quantity takeoff errors (e.g., cost items related to rein-
forcing rebar) in the original curve. This finding implies that the
proposed model has other supplementary benefits in addition to
constructing an S curve, such as double-checking the quantity ex-
tractions of cost items.
• As Fig. 11 shows, the curve obtained by the proposed model is lo-
cated above the original curve throughout two-thirds of the pro-
ject's duration. That is, the proposed model suggests construction
progress targets that are stricter than those of the original curve
for most of the project time. In fact, the construction progress
was viewed as being on schedule during the first half of the case
project, and when the project was delayed, it was too late to accel-
erate the work. As noted by the practitioners, if this proposed curve
had been applied to the studied project, the lack of progress would
have been noted with alarm in the early phase and the contractor
would have been asked to accelerate work right away. Overall, in
this case study, the curve generated by the proposed model
407
demonstrated its advantage over the original one. Future research
should apply the proposed model to additional projects to verify
this finding.
Overall, the practitioners evaluated the proposed model favorably,
agreeing that it generated an accurate S curve that could effectively sup-
port schedule control. Nevertheless, they were concerned about the
workload required to calculate the proposed model. The discussion re-
garding workload reduction is summarized as follows.
• Performing Step 1 was relatively time-consuming for the case project.
However, applying the proposed model for new projects requires less
time for entering information parameters, which increases the appli-
cability of the proposed model. This is because, in Step 1, the databases
of cost items established using keynote, assembly code, and family
type catalog formats for a new project are reusable, and only those
new cost items not included in the databases should be added. In
Step 2, mathematical equations for extracting quantities can also be
copied and pasted to a new project to reduce modeling time.
408 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410

Fig. 9. Screenshot of cost item, object, and floor used as search criteria in QTO.

• Additional applications of the proposed model can offset the work-
load. In addition to the aforementioned application in double-
checking the quantity extractions of cost items, the proposed model
can also be directly used to perform other quantity extraction-
related management tasks such as quantity assessment in daily con-
struction reports and progress payment reports. Moreover, the BIM
model developed in Step 1 can also be used for other BIM efforts
such as 3D coordination and site utilization planning [18].
• If the duration of an activity is short (such as 1 or 2 weeks for a de-
tailed schedule), then the S curve requires numerous activities, thus
increasing the data processing effort for QTO. If the duration is long
(such as more than 2 months for a milestone schedule), then only a

Fig. 10. Activity daily costs in an Excel file for the case project.
 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
100%
90%
80%
Percentage of cumulative costs
70%
Proposed model
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Project time
Fig. 11. The S curve established for the case project.
few activities are required, and the QTO effort is substantially reduced,
thus reducing the accuracy of the S-curve. Using an intermediate (or
semi-detailed) schedule, in which each activity lasts for approximate-
ly 1 month, is suggested as the optimal tradeoff between data process-
ing effort and accuracy.
• The Excel calculations for Step 3 (calculating activity costs) and Step 4
(constructing the S curve) are straightforward and require a reason-
able workload. For instance, Fig. 10 displays a snapshot of daily activ-
ity cost calculations for establishing the curve for the studied project.
Because all activities use the same data structures for cost data (see
Fig. 10), the calculations can be automated. The research team took
approximately 1.5 h (93 activities × 1 min per activity) to complete
these calculations for the case project. In a large project with numer-
ous activities, the data processing effort required for Excel should
also be acceptable. However, the use of Excel macro functions is sug-
gested for automating the calculations.
• The current model is not user-friendly because some of the modeling
steps are not automated. For instance, although the search algorithm
for identifying takeoff objects (Step 2) can reduce errors in mapping
the activities and cost items, the algorithm must still be performed
manually. Therefore, users must have sufficient knowledge of BIM to
perform Step 2. Further automation of the proposed model should
be considered for future work. One possibility is using an application
programming interface [18] or integrating other knowledge-based
systems [21] into the model to perform these steps. Moreover,
automating the proposed model by using open data exchange
standards, such as Industry Foundation Classes [37], should promote
information sharing among the various steps of the proposed model
and promote interpretation of the BIM knowledge into computer-
readable formats.
7. Conclusions
Developing a cost-based progress curve is essential for effective con-
trol of a construction project schedule. The current practice is to develop
such a curve based on a milestone schedule with very few activities, and
to sum the costs of several cost items into that of a single milestone ac-
tivity, to avoid the need to deal with the complex interrelationships be-
tween schedule and cost. Therefore, an S-curve developed using the
milestone schedule tends to have unsatisfactory accuracy. This work de-
velops a BIM-based model to handle the detailed schedule and numer-
ous cost items for establishing a cost-based construction progress curve.
409
Original curve
This study makes four contributions to the literature. The first inno-
vation is the use of BIM objects to integrate schedule information from
WBS with cost information from CBS, as presented in Fig. 2. The power-
ful data acquisition and storage capabilities of BIM supports the integra-
tion of schedule and cost.
Second, based on the relationships between activities and cost items,
described in Table 3, the proposed model defines the criteria that are ap-
plied in the search takeoff function to identify precisely takeoff objects
to extract quantities. Steps 2.1–2.2 presents an example of the quantity
takeoff process for a many-to-many relationship. Notably, although sev-
eral studies have used BIM in quantity takeoffs and cost estimations,
they have extracted quantities for only one cost item at a time, and
have not addressed the distribution of quantities among activities.
Third, the use of keynote, assembly code, and family type catalog
functions to provide pop-up menus facilitates the inclusion of cost
items in BIM objects in a consistent and semi-automatic manner, to pre-
vent errors that are caused by manually typing the names of cost items.
Inconsistent names of cost items decrease the accuracy of quantity take-
offs because wrong takeoff objects are identified in extracting the
quantities.
A fourth highlight of the proposed model is that the contractual cost
items and unit prices must be uploaded to cost estimation software in
advance so that the extracted quantity of a particular cost item can be
automatically matched with its unit price in Step 3.3. Otherwise, Step
3.3 may not retrieve unit prices for a particular cost item, and a manual
approach would be required. This concept is a key to automating BIM
use in cost estimations.
The case study herein demonstrated four features of the model and
its feasibility. In addition to further automation of the proposed
model, future investigations should apply the modeling steps iteratively
to update the S curve as the project progresses.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the reviewers and the editor for
their careful evaluation and thoughtful comments, which helped to im-
prove the paper. The authors thank the Ministry of Science and Technol-
ogy of Taiwan for financially supporting this research under Contract
No: MOST 103-2622-E-009-022-CC3. We also thank the Concord Tech
Company for their technical assistance regarding the use of Autodesk
software. Additionally, we are indebted to Ming-Feng Yeh, Jang-Jeng
Liu, Yuan-Yuan Cheng and Ming-Tsung Lee for providing valuable infor-
mation and practical experience.
410 K.-C. Wang et al. / Automation in Construction 72 (2016) 397–410
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