The BIM Level 2 jigsaw – nearly complete?

The Level 2 programme was defined in the BIM Strategy which is available at
http://www.bimtaskgroup.org

In my blog article back in June  I discussed how the UK Government had refined its Level 2 BIM requirement and express it in the form of compliance with seven components:

1.  PAS 1192-2:2013 Specification for information management for the capital/delivery phase of construction projects using building information modelling
2. PAS 1192-3:2014 Specification for information management for the operational phase of assets using building information modelling
3. BS 1192-4:2014 Collaborative production of information. Part 4: Fulfilling employers information exchange requirements using COBie – Code of practice
4. Building Information Model (BIM) Protocol
5. GSL (Government Soft Landings)
6. Digital Plan of Work
7. Classification

Since then BS 1192-4 has been published, leaving just the Digital Plan of Work and Classification elements to be completed.  As reported previously, these were the subject of a TSB-funded competition and I thought it would be useful to give an overview of how the competition went and where it is now.  This is a fundamental piece of work that is set to have a huge impact on BIM in the UK and it is vital that as much of the industry as possible has an awareness of what is happening, and get involved wherever possible to help make it a success.

The competition brief was developed, with industry consultation, and has been administered via the Innovate UK (formerly TSB) SBRI programme under the title “A digital tool for building information modelling”.

The competition process involved two phases – Phase 1was a feasibility study, with organisations or consortia invited to submit proposals with funding of up to £50k (including VAT) available to each.  Three teams were awarded these phase one contracts:

• RIBA Enterprises Limited, together with BIM Academy, BDP, Laing O’Rourke, Microsoft and Newcastle University
• BRE Global Limited, with buildingSMART UKI
• CIBSE on behalf of a group of industry professional bodies known as C8, consisting Association for Project Management (APM), British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The results of the Phase 1 stage can be seen here.

On completion of Phase one, two of these submitted bids for Phase 2 – RIBA Enterprises Limited and BRE Global Limited, and RIBA Enterprises Limited was awarded the single Phase two contract.

At the time of writing, the results of the Phase two competition had not been posted on the Innovate UK website so it has not been possible to compare what RIBA Enterprises has said it will deliver with the functional specification.

As RIBA Enterprises has developed Uniclass2, which it uses for some of its other software tools, it is probably safe to assume that the classification solution delivered as part of this competition will be based on that format.  That being the case it will be interesting to see how Uniclass2 is developed to cover all necessary instances, and not just those which may occur within the 3D model.  The classification system needs to be capable of capturing everything which may be held within the common data environment (CDE) in order to make the objectives of the standards such as PAS 1192-2 and PAS 1192-3 a reality – the PIM during construction and AIM during operation being the sole sources of information for further use, having been verified and validated against the EIRs and OIRs.

Many experienced BIM practitioners recognise the need for a comprehensive classification system to make information available throughout the life of an asset, letting it be used time and again rather than having to recreate it, and this project could make this a reality.  However, careful thought needs to go into it to make sure that everything that needs to be classified can be, and in a way that can be understood.