BIM-Driven Software Productization in Architectural Practice: A Systematic Literature Review
TL;DR
A comprehensive mapping of the complete productization lifecycle—from internal prototype through licensed commercial deployment—is absent from the synthesized literature on architectural practice, with recommendations for open-standard mandates and SME-targeted digitalization programs.
Abstract
Software productization—the structured transformation of domain-specific internal tools into scalable, commercially viable solutions—has become a strategic imperative in architectural practice. Yet existing literature conflates productization with generic Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption, leaving the product-development lifecycle, licensing architectures, and interoperability engineering underexplored. This systematic literature review synthesizes fifty-two peer-reviewed studies, industry surveys, and technical reports published between 2009 and 2025, retrieved from ScienceDirect, Web of Science, MDPI, and authoritative industry sources. The review applies the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) frameworks to map the market adoption of BIM-based software across five domains: market foundation, technical implementation, user adoption, productivity results, and the barriers. Large architectural firms implement BIM technologies more successfully than SMEs owing to economies of scale, procurement mandate thresholds, greater IT infrastructure capacity, and the ability to absorb transitional productivity losses—factors that compound the capital and training differentials. Results measured quantitatively include such improvements as reduction in the number of coordination mistakes, faster project deliveries, and energy performance due to simulations provided by the application. Barriers include lack of semantic interoperability, security threats in the collaborative cloud-based systems, and organizational barrier. Furthermore, a structural gap has been identified in the existing literature regarding this issue. A comprehensive mapping of the complete productization lifecycle—from internal prototype through licensed commercial deployment—is absent from the synthesized literature on architectural practice. Policy and standardization implications are discussed, with recommendations for open-standard mandates and SME-targeted digitalization programs.