A new initiative has been formed between the Construction Products Association (CPA), BIM4M2, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and NBS in order to help manufacturers prepare their product information for the Government’s Level 2 BIM mandate coming into effect in April 2016.
The initiative has been established in response to the need for a single and unified approach to product data and intends to provide manufacturers with free and ready access to product data parameters and templates that are relevant to their products and have been developed through a defined consensus process.
With each template outlining the minimum information about a product that is required for UK Government BIM projects, building and infrastructure manufacturers will be able to supply product information in a form that aligns with the Level 2 requirements.
Peter Caplehorn, deputy chief executive and policy director at the Construction Products Association, said: “The CPA welcomes this move forward. We are at a point where clarity and ease of use of product data is vital for everyone to make progress. We are very pleased to be part of the initiative and will be encouraging all manufacturers to take part.”
The initiative says that the availability of product data in a structured form will equip designers with the information they need to create project information models reliably and accurately, and will lead to the provision of higher quality project data that can be checked and validated by clients, designers and contractors.
These organisations have agreed to align their processes, approach and terminology, which will enable consistent and transparent development of full peer reviewed product data templates to expand on the breadth already freely available in the NBS BIM Toolkit, which currently stands at over 5,000.
These templates currently identify the minimum product data requirements for Level 2 BIM and will be extended to include the greater depth of all aspects of a product’s lifecycle and operational performance, building on the work already completed by CIBSE, BIM4M2 and others.
Mark Bew MBE, chairman of the BIM Task Group, said: “When the BIM Task Group identified the client data requirements which are now provided in the BIM Toolkit, we were looking for other communities to work together to provide their own common data requirements. This initiative from the products and manufacturing sector signals an important collaboration from industry which will add significant value and clarity.”
Through this joint initiative all templates will be maintained and developed to support the evolving needs of a digital construction industry and to ensure product parameters align with the requirements of relevant European and international standards, as well as mapping to open data exchange standards such as COBie and IFC.
The templates and common product data parameters will be made available on both the CPA and NBS BIM Toolkit websites as well as the existing CIBSE website.
To view the current product data templates defining the minimum information for Level 2 BIM click here.
To view extended templates already developed by CIBSE, click here.
