The Role of BIM in Simplifying Construction Permits in Kuwait

The construction industry in Kuwait is steadily growing, specifically in the housing market. This displays great challenges for authority to check and verify construction documents and provide permits within a reasonable timeframe. This situation is even getting more critical as building codes and regulations are becoming increasingly complex and variable as they introduce new design criterion and recent advancements in building construction. The need for computerizing the permitting procedure and automating the code compliance auditing process is becoming ever more important. Building information modeling (BIM) has the potential in simplifying the construction permitting process if it can be implemented across trades in Kuwait. Within the context of BIM workflow, automated BIM model checking process against building codes and standards frameworks employs rule-based systems to a proposed design, with results such as “success”, “failure” or “warning”, or “unknown” for cases where the needed data is incomplete or missing. This automation method will streamline the permitting process and provide ways to enhance the overall efficiency of the construction industry in Kuwait. This research work seeks to examine the role of BIM in improving the permitting procedure in Kuwait and tackle the defragmentation of the construction industry. The investigation also provides an overview of existing frameworks for automated code verification in building design and particularly architectural and structural design. The paper proposes a new framework for simplifying the permitting procedure for the residential housing in Kuwait.