BIM as a research area has been profusely explored but definitely not exhausted. I believe there are still endless research pathways for BIM, but the technology has suffered the publication- apocalypse or explosion, making it extremely difficult for novice researchers to easily find their path or research gaps in the literature.
Lean construction has also been profusely explored. Yet, there is also more room for research in this area, especially in developing countries.
Definitely, research works linking BIM and lean construction should not be affected much by the publication explosions of both concepts.
To obtain relevant information for your dissertation, you may employ the following approaches.
1. Open the Scopus database and conduct a constrained search query using a combination of both "lean construction" and BIM.
I suggest you search "lean construction" AND "Building Information Modeling" in the "Title" only because if you search them in Title/Abstract/Keyword section, you may be overwhelmed and stressed by the countless hits or results.
When the Title search returns the results you may sort by "highest cited" and read the first 10 most cited articles and then sort by "newest" and read the 10 latest articles. This approach will help broaden your horizon of both the landmark knowledge and the latest development in the linkage of BIM and lean construction
2. Simply conduct a regular Google search using the following search strings and read the relevant articles
a. "Lean construction" AND "Building Information Modeling"
b. Lean construction" AND BIM
c. Lean construction" + "Building Information Modeling"
3. Before and/or after the above, discuss with your (potential) supervisor because they may have knowledge of the latest developments in the field to offer useful suggestions and guides
BIM as a research area has been profusely explored but definitely not exhausted. I believe there are still endless research pathways for BIM, but the technology has suffered the publication- apocalypse or explosion, making it extremely difficult for novice researchers to easily find their path or research gaps in the literature.
Lean construction has also been profusely explored. Yet, there is also more room for research in this area, especially in developing countries.
Definitely, research works linking BIM and lean construction should not be affected much by the publication explosions of both concepts.
To obtain relevant information for your dissertation, you may employ the following approaches.
1. Open the Scopus database and conduct a constrained search query using a combination of both "lean construction" and BIM.
I suggest you search "lean construction" AND "Building Information Modeling" in the "Title" only because if you search them in Title/Abstract/Keyword section, you may be overwhelmed and stressed by the countless hits or results.
When the Title search returns the results you may sort by "highest cited" and read the first 10 most cited articles and then sort by "newest" and read the 10 latest articles. This approach will help broaden your horizon of both the landmark knowledge and the latest development in the linkage of BIM and lean construction
2. Simply conduct a regular Google search using the following search strings and read the relevant articles
a. "Lean construction" AND "Building Information Modeling"
b. Lean construction" AND BIM
c. Lean construction" + "Building Information Modeling"
3. Before and/or after the above, discuss with your (potential) supervisor because they may have knowledge of the latest developments in the field to offer useful suggestions and guides
I recommend you to do your awn research and i am sure that you will find more than one topic. You just need to read and read as much as possible of research article in this area.
What about document control? I work as a document controller trying to become a BIM manager which is why I am doing this course. You think if i find a topic in my own work area, i will understand it better than looking into something completely new?
Learning and researching an entirely new area will broaden your horizon and expand your construction management knowledge.
However, for a postgraduate dissertation, you may have limited time to complete the research to meet the requirements for graduation.
So, I will suggest that you carefully evaluate your research competencies and speed at learning new things before deciding. On the safer side, discuss with your (potential) supervisor around document control and research that area for the purposes of the dissertation.
Alternatively, as you advance towards becoming a BIM manager, it may be useful to identify a problem in practice and use this dissertation as an opportunity to address it.
For the two topics of your interest, i.e the Effective document control ... and the alternative: Lean construction and BIM. You can get a lot of information from google or other search engines. Good luck in your research.