coBuilder has entered into a strategic partnership with Skanska for the collection and exploitation of product data for all of Skanska’s major construction projects.
coBuilder will work with Skanska and its supply chain to ensure they all understand what product data is required, in which formats and at what stage it is needed.
Skanska says that it is encouraging the manufacturers it works with to utilise coBuilder’s goBIM tool, which will enable manufacturers to structure their product information into BIM compatible formats / languages so that Skanska and its subcontractors can access the product properties they require.
By utilising coBuilder’s ProductXchange tool, Skanska and its supply chain will subsequently be able to collect the as-built data they require (via goBIM), validate it and check that it is correct, then output it as COBie, and attribute the data to models. The end point is to make it possible for Skanska’s clients to receive accurate as-built information models.
Gary Scott, BIM and digital engineering specialist for SKANSKA UK, said: “At Skanska, receiving the right information from the right people at the right time is paramount. How we manage information is a key part of this, and we want to work with manufacturers in our supply chain who can share the right data with us during the bid and operational delivery stages of our projects. Having manufacturer product information in BIM formats will make future operations and maintenance more efficient.
“We need to work with our supply chain to produce this data in a standardised format that ensures we have the right information to deliver a quality project to our clients, and at coBuilder they can do exactly that. We are working with coBuilder to help communicate to manufacturers and suppliers what information and format is needed, and to ensure manufacturers have an aligned solution to share their data with us and our clients.”
coBuilder is currently working with many high profile product manufacturers in order to ‘BIM-ify’ their product data so that major contractors like Skanska can easily access the data they need at any time.
Nick Tune, CEO of coBuilder UK, said: “We ensure that all the data the clients, contractors and FMs require from the manufacturers is easily and readily available. The manufacturers have it already in PDFs and unstructured databases, but by utilising goBIM they can now structure their data and make it available in all required BIM formats.”
