A great many BIM projects in Vietnam open with a document called the BIM Execution Plan. It runs to sixty pages. It was copied from the previous job. And almost nobody reads past page five.
A few weeks later the arguments start. How much detail does the model actually need? Who is responsible for federating the discipline models? How should files be named so the folder does not descend into chaos? Anyone who goes back to that document finds no answer to any of it. So what is a BEP, really, and what separates a useful one from a sixty-page one?
Getting clear on what a BEP is avoids all of that. A good BEP is short, specific, and opened every week.
What is a BEP?
BEP stands for BIM Execution Plan.
Put simply, it is the document that records how the project will do BIM. Who models which part. What software they use. How much detail goes into the model. How it gets checked. What is handed over, and when.
It helps to think of a BEP as a small technical contract. The main contract says what each party must deliver. The BEP says how the parties will work together in order to deliver it.
Since 1 July 2026 the BEP has carried more weight in Vietnam than it used to. Clause 2, Article 8 of Decree 217/2026/ND-CP sets out an important point. The scope and the information requirements for BIM are agreed in the contract, stage by stage. In other words, the law does not fix a level of detail for every project. That level lives in the contract and in the BEP. Clause 6 of the same article hands the contract one more job: the rights and responsibilities of each party over the BIM data. That belongs in the BEP too. Our article on BIM becoming mandatory for grade II works covers the regulation in detail.
EIR and BEP: one asks, the other answers
These two documents always travel together, and they are very easily confused.
EIR stands for exchange information requirements. In the older PAS 1192 documents the E stood for "employer", meaning the client's information requirements. The two names describe the same thing.
The EIR is the question. The client states what information it needs in order to make decisions. What the model is for, when it will be reviewed, in what form. The EIR is written by the appointing party.
The BEP is the answer. The delivery side commits to how it will meet those requirements. The BEP is written by the appointed party.
The order matters. If the client never says clearly what it needs, everything downstream is guesswork. The consultant models to its own habits, and the mismatch only surfaces at handover.
In practice in Vietnam, many clients are not yet used to writing an EIR. When that happens, the BIM consultant usually has to help pin the requirements down first, and only then write the BEP. That is a workable arrangement, so long as both sides sit down and agree rather than each assuming.
Reading an EIR and answering it with a BEP is the work of the BIM Manager. Anyone who wants a content outline endorsed by the regulator can look at Decision 348/QD-BXD from the Ministry of Construction.
It is also worth knowing that a BEP usually exists in two versions. The first goes in with the tender, to demonstrate that the bidder is capable. The formal version is written after the contract is signed, once the real team and the real conditions are known.
The five questions every BEP must answer
This is a quick way to test whether a BEP is usable. Open it and look for the answers to the five questions below. Whichever one you cannot find is the gap.
1. What is needed? The BIM uses for this particular project. The narrower, the better.
2. Who does it? An organisation chart with real names against each role. Plus a matrix splitting responsibility between client, BIM consultant and design consultant for each task.
3. To what level? The information level for each type of element, at each design stage.
4. How is it checked? Who checks, with which tool, and whether the check happens before or after sharing. Where clashes get logged, and who closes them.
5. How is it handed over? The list of deliverables. Each line gives the file name, the format, the party responsible and the date.
If a sixty-page document cannot answer those five questions crisply, it is thick but hollow.
Inside a real BEP
That is enough theory. Here is a plan that is genuinely in use.
This is the BEP for the Ha Tinh Museum project, a group B scheme funded from public investment. The document follows the ISO 19650 framework. Several details are worth borrowing.
The uses are drawn very narrowly. The project makes no claim to full 3D-to-7D BIM. It picks exactly five things to do.
- Build a 3D model for design review.
- Coordinate the disciplines and find clashes.
- Extract the principal drawings and quantities for appraisal.
- Manage documents in a common data environment.
- Produce a walkthrough video.
Choosing a few things and finishing them beats promising everything and abandoning half of it.
Information levels are set per element type. This is where many plans go wrong. This BEP states plainly that the level is not fixed for the model as a whole, nor for a stage as a whole. It is fixed for each type of element. At detailed design, structural elements along with walls, slabs and ceilings sit at LOD 350. LOD is the level of development of an element: the higher the number, the more detailed the model. Stairs, doors, pipework and MEP equipment sit at LOD 300.
There is a rule for resolving conflicts. Sometimes the incoming drawings do not show a particular element. The information level table, meanwhile, requires one. The modeller then has no basis on which to build it. The BEP requires the two parties to negotiate first, and nobody is permitted to infer. A single line like that prevents a great deal of argument later.
Software is named down to the version. The document does not merely say that Revit will be used. It gives the version number, along with the clash detection tool and the issue management tool. The point is to keep everyone on one version and avoid the familiar problem of not being able to open one another's files.
There is a deliverables schedule. One line per output: file name, data type, format, responsible party, issue date. This is what you check against at handover.
Four common mistakes
Copying wholesale from another project. This is far and away the most common. The project name changes and nothing else does. The result is a document describing a team that does not exist, using software the company does not own.
Taking on too many uses. The BEP promises 4D, 5D and 6D while the team has yet to model 3D reliably. Halfway through, the extras get dropped, and the document becomes meaningless.
Setting the information level in general terms. Writing that the model shall be LOD 300 for a whole project says nothing useful. At the same design stage, a column and a door need different amounts of detail. Our article on LOD in BIM works through the levels one by one.
Writing it and filing it away. A BEP is not a one-off submission. It is the document you open when there is a disagreement.
A BEP is a living document
This last point deserves its own section.
The museum BEP described above carries a revision table. The first issue came out shortly after the contract was signed. Almost a year later a second issue adjusted the software version and the information level table.
That is how a BEP is meant to be used. When the real conditions change, the plan changes with them, and every change leaves a trace. A BEP that stays untouched from start to finish is rarely perfect. It is usually just ignored.
Keeping it current normally falls to the BIM Manager. It is also the hardest skill in the role, because writing a BEP demands an understanding of the process and of what the team can genuinely deliver. Our article on what a BIM Manager does sets out the role in full.
On the Institute's BIM Manager programme, participants appraise a real BEP and then write their own, with a tutor marking it section by section. Companies that want a working BEP template for their own projects can take the in-house programme. That one runs on the company's live documents, and the output is a set of materials ready to use.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a BEP be?
There is no correct number. What matters is whether it answers the five questions above. Twenty specific pages beat sixty copied ones.
Who writes the BEP?
The delivery side writes it, usually led by the BIM Manager. The client does not write it, but must read and approve it, because it is the commitment against which the work will later be accepted.
Do small projects need a BEP?
Yes, but a light one. A few pages fixing who does what, how detailed the model needs to be, and how files are named will head off most of the trouble.
How does a BEP differ from a quality plan?
A quality plan is about the built product. A BEP is about information and models. They complement each other rather than substituting for one another.
Does the law prescribe an LOD in the BEP?
No. Clause 2, Article 8 of Decree 217/2026/ND-CP leaves the information requirements to the contract at each stage. So the level is a matter of agreement, and the BEP is where that agreement is written down.
Is there a BEP template we can just use?
There are plenty built on ISO 19650, and the Ministry of Construction has published general guidance. But do not use one as-is. A template tells you which sections to include. What goes in each section has to reflect the actual team and the actual capability on the project.